The Future Maritime Operating Environment and the Role of Naval Power

threat to the US from within Washington’s traditional sphere of influence was probably less
important in Moscow’s calculations than revealing the ability to do so. And, indeed, it is more
than probable that the US was not the only intended audience as Russia likely also wanted to
augment its profile in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The purpose of such demonstrations using naval forces—in the past and now—is not to alter a
government’s specific policy. It demonstrates that a naval force can arrive at a putative
adversary’s maritime doorstep or that a country has an interest in developments in a particular
region. In 1973, for example, Operation Westploy saw the RCN deploy a destroyer in support of
Canadian participation in the International Commission for Control and Supervision, an
international force mandated to monitor the enforcement of the Paris Peace Agreement in
Vietnam. 333 Use of navies for this purpose by even the most powerful countries will continue, as
one sees in the global voyage of the PLA(N)’s Zheng Ho and the longstanding forward
deployment of US carrier battle groups. It is entirely probable that such deployments will become
more frequent as non-traditional maritime Powers seek to demonstrate their newly-acquired naval
prowess, including an ability to operate further and further away from home waters.
Coercive diplomacy is the obverse of persuasion, but the effectiveness of both is inextricably
linked to the actual capabilities of the naval vessels as warships. The use of naval power to
attempt to force a change in another government’s policy or to protect interests abroad is very
well-known. One writer has recently written that “[d]espite the vast changes that have taken
place in the world since the mid-Victorian era, the coercive role that a navy—whether great or
small—can perform in peacetime against a littoral state has survived virtually intact.” 334 There are
also, as one might expect, many examples of this use of naval power. The initial step in the
opening of Japan was accomplished in 1853 by Commodore Perry and his “black ships”, a USN
squadron that he anchored despite strong Japanese objections in Uraga Harbour near Edo
(Tokyo). Washington sent the USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal during the Indo-Pakistani
War (December 1971) in order to protect its interests and, in 1996, deployed two carrier battle
groups to the Taiwan Strait to reassure Taiwan during a crisis in its relations with Beijing. 335
333 Information on Westploy can be found on the website of Canada’s Department of National Defence. See
www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/od-bdo/di-ri-eng.asp?IntlOpId=68&CdnOpId=78.
334 Malcolm Murfett quoted in Till, Seapower – A Guide for the Twenty-First Century, p. 233.
335 A positive outcome of coercive diplomacy is never assured and can generate shockwaves that last for
years afterward. See George Gilboy and Eric Heginbotham, Chinese and Indian Strategic Behavior;
Growing Power and Alarm (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 58-59. The deployment of the USS
Enterprise failed to prevent the defeat of Pakistan, Washington’s ally, and led Indian policy-makers and
strategists to put a new emphasis on the development of sea denial capabilities (e.g., submarines) and led to
new naval procurement from the Soviet Union. See Stephen P. Cohen and Sanil Desgupta, Arming Without
Aiming: India’s Military Modernisation (Brookings Institution: Washington, D.C., 2010), pp 75–76. One
author has argued that in this case US gunboat diplomacy humiliated India and encouraging it to boost its
nuclear weapons programme. Sunmit Ganguly, “Pakistan’s Forgotten Genocide – A Review Essay”,
International Security, Vol. 39, No. 2, Fall 2014, p. 178. With regard to the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, the
US decision to deploy the two carriers to offset Beijing’s pressure on Taiwan proved to be a rationale for
Chinese naval modernisation and expansion. “Specifically, [the] inability of the PLA to detect US carrier
battle groups, monitor operations near the Asian mainland, and deter or strike US power-projection forces,
spurred Chinese modernization. After this event, it became apparent that the capabilities of China to coerce
Taiwan were inadequate.” Thomas G. Mahnken, “Arms Races and Long-Term Competition”, in Mahnken
and Blumenthal (eds.), Strategy in Asia, p. 231. See also Douglas Porch, “The Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1996;
Strategic Implications for the United States Navy”, Naval War College Review, Summer 1999, pp. 15–48.
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