Abstract
incidents of gunboat diplomacy ranging from 1946 to 1978, this article empirically tests the hypotheses and statistically evaluates them. The results indicate that the most effective gunboat diplomacy involves a definitive, deterrent display of force undertaken by an assailant who has engaged in war in the victim's region and who is militarily prepared and politically stable compared to the victim. During the early part of the 1980s the world has experienced a remilitarization of international relations. The emphasis has been on the use of physical coercion as a means of achieving objectives, as confrontations in the Falklands, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Grenada, and Iran and Iraq painfully illustrate. The pendulum seems to have swung away from detente and the dominance of the economic North-South split, back to the Cold War and the supremacy of the military East-West split. Despite the presence of some full-scale wars during this period, states have exhibited a marked preference for applications of limited military force. The Reagan administration has led the way in this regard, and an excerpt from an April 1984 speech by Secretary of State George Shultz (1984: 18) explains the underlying rationale:
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