Ottoman Algeria in Western Diplomatic History with ... - Bibliothèque

demonstration of American skill and prowess, he hastened to the port of
Algiers, where peace was promptly yielded to his victorious force. 161
d) Purposeful Force: According to Cable, purposeful force acts as a
catalyst to induce a government to “take a decision that would not otherwise
have been taken – to do something or to stop doing it, or to refrain from a
contemplated course of action.” 162 This last component of gunboat diplomacy
makes use of limited naval force for the purpose of changing the policy or
character of a targeted government or group; in other terms, purposeful force is
used to coerce the victim government into altering its policy. 163 Contrary to
‘definitive force,’ which defines clearly the objectives to be attained, the
purposeful employment of limited naval force aims to change a policy but its
success requires that the victim government would voluntary consent to change
its policy. In the case of Algiers, the goal of the United States was to put an end
to the practice of corsairing in general, or as the American minister to Great
Britain John Quincy Adams (1815-1817) put it “I hope they [commissioners]
have secured to our country the honor of breaking up the whole of that nest of
pirates on the shores of Africa,” but the success of that American objective
depended on the Dey’s voluntarily acquiescence to terminate the practice of
corsairing—with all ingredients attached to it. 164 Force then served only to
signify to the Dey that the United States was in possession of a terrible force
161 CMPP, 1:563, Madison: Seventh Annul Message, December 5 th , 1815. Monroe’s instructions are
loaded with such rhetoric.
162 Cable, Gunboat Diplomacy, pp. 33-5.
163 Stephen Andrew Kelley, “Better Lucky than Good: Operation Earnest Will as Gunboat Diplomacy,”
Master’s Thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, California, 2007, p. 48.
164 WJQA, 5:328, To Christopher Hughes, 18 July, 1815.
380