gunboat diplomacy

American  

noun

1. diplomatic relations involving the use or threat of military force, especially by a powerful nation against a weaker one.

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gunboat diplomacy British  

noun

1. diplomacy conducted by threats of military intervention, esp by a major power against a militarily weak state

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gunboat diplomacy Cultural  

1. A policy toward a foreign country that depends on the use, or threat of the use, of arms. (See big stick diplomacy.)

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Etymology

Origin of gunboat diplomacy

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

gunboat diplomacy

The reaction among our Latin American neighbors to this modern edition of gunboat diplomacy was, to say the least, decidedly negative.

From Salon ● Mar. 7, 2025

In the early 2000s, the Danes twice dispatched frigates with soldiers to the island, in what Robert Huebert, a political scientist at the University of Calgary, called an example of gunboat diplomacy.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 14, 2022

With the era of gunboat diplomacy long over, the U.S. is unlikely to deploy troops in the aftermath of the brazen slaying Wednesday of President Jovenel Moïse in an overnight raid at his home.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 8, 2021

“Whether or not it’s intended, it’s perceived as gunboat diplomacy when you cruise into a place with multi-million pound vessels and skulls and crossbones,” says Day.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 29, 2018

Bush—I was then the top Middle East specialist on the National Security Council—believed that this was little more than a late-20th-century version of gunboat diplomacy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2015