History Main / GunboatDiplomacy

* ''Fanfic/LinkedInLifeAndLove'': When Cardin and his team first see Blake [[spoiler:with her ears exposed]] and move to start hassling her, they get a DeathGlare from not only the rest of her team, but most of team JNPR as well. Nora is the only one smiling, but that's because she's letting [[DropTheHammer Magnhild's]] appearance on her lap do the glaring for her.

* In the third act of ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'', [[spoiler:this is how Lord Enver Gortash tries to "negotiate" an alliance with you once you reach Baldur's Gate in non-Dark Urge playthroughs. You're immediately accosted by the Flaming Fist and Steel Watch at the Southern Checkpoint, and the Steel Watch in particular makes it clear that they will go after any threats to the Cult of the Absolute, yourself included. Gortash, however, decides to "invite" you to his coronation, where he makes it clear that he actually needs your help in retaining control of the Elder Brain, and therefore proposes an alliance wherein his intimidating Steel Watch will leave you alone if you help him in his bid for political domination. He's more affable if you're playing as the Dark Urge, however, since the Dark Urge had a very fruitful partnership with Gortash prior to their amnesia, and he'd love nothing more than to rekindle that now that they're back.]]

[[quoteright:291:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gunboat_diplomacy_6847.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:291:"Oh, this old thing? She's nothing really.\\

* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', it's said that the Alliance invokes this tactic as a deterrent to prevent pirate or slave raids on their planetary colonies. [[SchmuckBait Want to attack? Go ahead!]] Just as long as you're aware of the whole ''fleet'' of heavily armed warships that are currently sitting no more than one Relay jump away. The asari criticize the Alliance Fifth Fleet’s visits to various systems in the Attican Traverse as “gunboat diplomacy” but [[DoubleStandard make no such noise when their own dreadnought does the same thing]].

!!Examples:

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'': Whenever Daemon Targaryen wants to make a point or flex his muscle, he will break out his dragon Caraxes, who will often loom over the assembled party as Daemon is talking.
* In just the second episode of ''Series/YesMinister'', Hacker finds himself faced with a tricky situation involving the new dictator of an African state who, for various reasons, they need something from, but who is threatening to cause an embarrassing incident. The foreign secretary muses jokingly that in the old days they would just send in a gunboat. Hacker then asks if that is absolutely out of the question, to shocked stares.[[note]]The problem is solved when the Brits realize that the dictator is actually [[MajoredInWesternHypocrisy one of Hacker's old friends from uni]], who has changed his name and converted to Islam as a political move; they settle the whole thing over a nice cup of tea.[[/note]]
** In ''Series/YesPrimeMinister'', Hacker (now PM) arranges for a full battalion of paratroopers to pay a goodwill visit to a small third-world country, against Sir Humphrey's wishes, that may just be about to suffer from a Communist uprising.
--> '''Hacker''': And the Americans say they have an entire airborne division standing by in case we need reinforcements.\\
'''Sir Humphrey''': Of what?!\\
'''Hacker''': Reinforcements of ''goodwill'', Humphrey!
* Happens quite often in the various versions of ''Franchise/StarTrek''. Captain Kirk does it well because he is such a Badass.
** Federation Diplomacy seems to consist of sending two diplomats to discuss things in a patronising manner, then holding the talks on a massively over-armed starship in orbit above one of the party's homeworld.
** This is Lampshaded in the original script for "A Taste of Armageddon". Scotty protests "I haven't served 30 years in the engine room of a Starship to be accused of gunboat diplomacy!" In the episode, he actually says, "The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank!" One of the reasons why it happens so often is that the first contact goes violent often enough that you have to back it up with firepower simply to be safe -- and as warp travel is generally too slow to get reinforcements there in reasonable time, that means the ship ''making'' first contact has to have that firepower. The ships simultaneously display the benefits of Federation friendship (access to amazing technology) and the downsides of enmity ([[OrbitalBombardment very very big guns]]). End result: the Federation keeps making initial agreements with newly discovered species while a starship capable of wiping out a civilization hangs around nearby.
** In the episode "A Taste of Armageddon", Kirk is taken hostage by the people of Eminar, and obtains his release by ordering the implementation of General Order 24 in two hours: destruction of any city, military structure, and evidence or hint that something on the target planet may have the ability to tickle the ships' shields, and Eminar's anti-orbit weapons [[NoSell had precisely that effect]]. He then ends the ForeverWar between the people of Eminar and the neighbouring Vendikar by destroying the computers that calculate what effect the attacks would have on the enemy and order people to [[DisintegrationChamber disintegration chambers]] (that's why they try to destroy the ''Enterprise'': the computers had calculated the ''Enterprise'' would have been destroyed as collateral damage), thus forcing both sides to engage in peace talks rather than restart actual war.
** In ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', Janeway is not afraid to more or less punch her way through the Delta Quadrant, but she usually tries talking first. In the episode "Juggernaut", for example, B'Elanna complains about having to work with the Malon, who dump toxic waste in open space, and that Janeway's solution is always diplomacy. Earlier in the episode? Janeway telling the Malon they could help her fix their doomed ship or she would beam them back onto their escape pod, which was inside the blast radius. In Janeway's defense, she's operating several light-''millennia'' outside Starfleet's jurisdiction, so it's understandable why she'd want to maintain a strong and intimidating hand in every alien encounter. As depicted in the below incident where Voyager encounters the Lokirrim, who don't like holograms (they're facing an AI hologram rebellion).
--->'''Janeway:''' Your sensors should confirm [our holodecks have] been deactivated.
--->'''Lokirrim Captain:''' You're still required to submit to inspection.
--->'''Janeway:''' Your sensors should also confirm that our weapons are ready to fire. We're both reasonable people. I suggest a compromise. Your vessel will escort us through Lokirrim territory. That way, you can keep an eye on us, make sure we don't reactivate our holodecks. The other alternative is, we destroy your ship.
--->'''Lokirrim Captain (suddenly looking a bit uncomfortable):''' [[KnowWhenToFoldEm Your proposal is acceptable.]] ''[Transmission ends]''
--->'''Janeway (sits back down in her chair):''' Sometimes diplomacy requires a little sabre rattling. ''[Chakotay smirks]'' Begin long-range scans.
** In ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'', this trope gets worked a few different ways in the series pilot. T'Kuvma, a Klingon leader attempting to rally the Empire against the Federation, argues that the Federation uses their peaceful exploration gimmick as a means to subvert and assimilate other races without having to fight them. Sarek notes that the Vulcans had previously gained the Klingons' respect by demonstrating that they were willing to engage them in battle, and when faced with a Klingon fleet gathering on the edge of Federation space, Starfleet rallies their own fleet of ships to face off with them before offering to talk things out peacefully (the Klingons don't trust the Federation's intentions, and a large space battle and an interstellar war promptly ensues).
* In ''Series/TheSopranos'' episode "[[Recap/TheSopranosS4E13Whitecaps Whitecaps]]", a real estate agent refuses to do business with Tony, so he has some of his men park a boat next to the agent's beach house and play loud music.
* A fairly common tactic in ''Series/BabylonFive'':
** Happens ''all over the place'' in ''A Voice In The Wilderness'', with over a half-dozen races (including Earth and a previously-unknown race) all pulling this at once when some very powerful, very advanced technology is discovered buried beneath the planet that the station orbits. [[spoiler: After a brief, inconclusive battle, ''the planet itself'', now acting through its new caretaker, Draal, informs all parties that ''none'' of them can have exclusive control of the planet, and that any who approach without permission will be destroyed. The ship belonging to the previously-unknown race ignores the warning and [[CurbStompBattle promptly gets ventilated.]]]]
** And {{subverted}} in ''Rumors, Bargains, and Lies'', when Sheridan orders the Rangers to attack and destroy [[spoiler: some random asteroids. The League races know that the [[CoolStarship White Stars]] have far superior sensors to anything they have, and thus assume that they were fighting an invisible enemy. Sheridan does nothing to make them question this assumption, and welcomes them into a new military alliance.]]
** A common accusation is the invitation for Earth to join the Interstellar Alliance happened during the end of the rebellion, and included dozens of advance warships doing a flyover of the capital.
* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'': The whole reason why the High Guard had such fancy and overly [[CoolStarship powerful warships]] designed by [[spoiler: now extinct]] [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens Vedrans]] was so the High Guard could flaunt their unimaginable destructive potential and deter belligerent species from hostilities during negotiations. Usually these were discussions that involved joining the [[TheFederation Commonwealth]] either by free will or with the guns of a mile long warship that looks like an Italian-sportscar-in-space trained on them. The ''XMC'' class or ''Glorious Heritage''-class heavy cruisers like the ''Andromeda Ascendant'' were built for exactly this purpose. They were the diplomatic flagships of the Commonwealth that usually operated without a task force for extended periods of time. The stupid amounts of firepower and the ability to [[EarthShatteringKaBoom crack an M-class planet like an egg]] in only a few minutes and a [[RedShirt legion of lancers]] gave the High Guard captain a pretty good bargaining position. ''XMC'' heavy cruisers were also used for long-range exploration because of this capability.
** Of particular note is that in the post-Commonwealth dark age Captain Dylan Hunt frequently has to resort to gunboat diplomacy when dealing with the various planetary factions or powers he ends up dealing with.
-->''Dylan: "Andromeda, how long do you think it would take you to depopulate this world?"''\\
''[[SapientShip Rommie]]: "About sixteen minutes."''
** Also happens when Dylan is backing Prince Erik for the throne of Ne'Holland against the corrupt barons:
--> '''Erik:''' Our entire defense fleet?
--> '''Dylan:''' Rommie, how long would it take for you to destroy that fleet?
--> '''Rommie:''' 6.2 seconds.
--> '''Dylan:''' That long?
** This didn't do much good against the Pyrians, whose ships were at least a match for the ''Glorious Heritage'' class. Also, unlike the Commonwealth, the Pyrians never went anywhere.

[[folder:Literature]]
* The Howard Taylor novel ''Show of Force'' starts off as this by both sides over a missile deployment in the Indian Ocean and ends up turning into a full-scale naval battle.
* ''Literature/JackRyan'':
** In ''The Bear And The Dragon'', attack subs are maneuvering near the Chinese coast long before hostilities begin, along with naval ships anchored in Taiwan, and ''Executive Orders'' has a premier tank squadron training in the Negev desert just before the UIR's invasion of its neighbors. ''Debt Of Honor'' subverts the whole thing by having the US and Japan conduct a joint training mission, and then having the Japanese navy doing the equivalent of cold-cocking the American forces returning to Pearl Harbor.
** Considered, but not actually implemented in ''Literature/RainbowSix'', where the Rainbow troops were considering making their existence public just to intimidate the terrorists into keeping their heads down.
* The New Republic did this to the Hutts in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] novel ''Literature/{{Darksaber}}''.
** And in Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy, Thrawn in the ''Chimera'' would, ah, ''persuade'' neutral worlds to support the Empire.
*** Followed up by the BigBadTriumvirate in the ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'' duology.
** TheEmpire liked this. There's something called the "Tarkin Doctrine", which basically goes that it's better to rule by fear of force than force itself. A planet that surrenders without a fight gives its resources fully intact. On the other hand, the Empire is decidedly ''not'' bluffing about actually following through on their threats, and any resistance (even non-violent resistance) will be put down brutally to make sure everyone ''knows'' they're not bluffing.
** Threatened to happen in ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Starfighters of Adumar]]''. Both the Empire and the New Republic were trying to win over a neutral world, and both had beforehand signed treaties stating that if they were not the favored party, they would withdraw all forces for three days and not return except under "formal banners of truce or war". The Empire intended to ignore that if it came to it, but the Imperial in charge hated being ordered to break his word so much that the New Republic ambassador, [[{{Ambadassador}} Wedge Antilles]], was able to talk him out of it. Thus, the Imperial admiral sent his ship back on a route that would take 3 days to reach the capital, and locked down its holocomm systems so that even if his orders were disobeyed they'd have no way of delivering a message except by shuttlecraft, and left a message announcing his resignation from the Imperial Navy while he stayed behind on Adumar.
* One of the space ships in [[Creator/IainBanks Iain M. Banks]]'s [[Literature/TheCulture Culture]] novels is actually named ''Gunboat Diplomat''. The Culture are rather good at doing this, albeit in a subtle way, too - their [[PlanetSpaceship enormous General Systems Vehicles]] leisurely cruise their way around the galaxy, showing other civilisations the many wonders of the Culture... And also providing a pointed reminder as to [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens just how powerful their society really is]] - if you repeatedly get in their way, and ignore them when they ask you nicely to stop doing so, you will be ''[[CurbStompBattle destroyed]]''.
* The final book in Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}'' series features two Human spaceships dispatched to the homeworld of the lizard-like aliens known as The Race. The first is the ''Admiral Peary'' which is close in capability to the conventional sub-lightspeed sleeper ships The Race themselves use, and was sent to negotiate a peace deal on equal terms. The second is the ''Commodore Perry''. Its purpose is to negotiate on less equal terms. The fact that the ''Commodore Perry'' is an FTL-capable ship that took only six weeks to get from Earth to Tau Ceti--something that The Race firmly believed was technologically impossible--ends up scaring The Race more than the fact that the ship is also a full-scale nuclear launch platform. Even if they managed to destroy the ship, the humans would just send another that could attack as soon as it arrived in orbit in a matter of weeks, as opposed to decades.
* Literature/VorkosiganSaga:
** Aral Vorkosigan pulls a clever reversal of this; he draws up a list of a neighbouring polity's top five requested diplomatic concessions and suggests it as an agenda for a summit. The diplomacy, in this case, is purely so that he can get his gunboat closer to where he suspects the action will take place. He's right, and it results in one hell of a GunshipRescue moment.
** 'Diplomatic Immunity' is an interesting inversion of the trope: the gunships have been impounded, and the main character has to diplomatically mediate between his ferocious military subordinates and the peaceful natives who see them as barbarians.
** Pierre Le Sanguinerre was the warleader for Emperor Dorca who carried out such things on recalcitrant vor.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' [[Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]]:
** In ''Literature/StarTrekArticlesOfTheFederation'', United Federation of Planets President Bacco resorts to this when overseeing negotiations between the Carreon and the Deltans. The Deltans require a new water reclamation system for their planet, and the Carreon have the design they need. Because of an old feud, however, the Carreon refuse to negotiate properly. Bacco ends up using the implied threat of Federation military strength to stop the Carreon from messing the Deltans around. As she tells the Carreon Ambassador, diplomacy is the means by which conflict is avoided. If Carrea won't negotiate in good faith, the only remaining option is war- and she makes it clear Carrea wouldn't stand a chance.
** The novel ''Literature/TheRomulanWay'' includes this in the second attempt at contacting the Rihannsu (Romulans), as the Federation had sent the starship ''Balboa'' with the ''Stone Mountain'' in the general area ready to help. The Rihannsu, paranoid due previous experiences with aliens that [[WeComeInPeaceShootToKill faked pacific intentions before attacking]], annihilated ''Balboa'' with fifty of the ''[[WeHaveReserves seven thousand small warships]]'' they had built in the three years since the first attempt at contact, and then captured ''Stone Mountain'' and started making crude copies of its warp drive and advanced weapons to fight the Earth-Romulan War.
*** The sequel ''Literature/{{Swordhunt}}'' had the Rihannsu asking to renegotiate the Neutral Zone with the negotiations to happen on a neutral ship provided by the nomadic Lalairu, and all parties engaged in this: the Federation shows up with a squadron of warships: four refit ''Constitution''-class heavy cruisers including ''Enterprise'' (commanded by their old nemesis Kirk) and two new ''Constellation''-class long-range cruisers, all commanded by one of the best and most aggressive commodores in Starfleet; the Rihannsu showed up with four heavy cruisers of a new class and two heavy cruisers of a bigger new class; the Lalairu sent the ''Mascrar'', a colony ship that outgunned either task force.
* Retaking the Lone Islands with one ship in ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader''.
* This is standard policy for the [[TheFederation Earth Federation]] when dealing with space-faring aliens in Mikhail Akhmanov's ''[[Literature/ArrivalsFromTheDark Trevelyan's Mission]]'' series. This is justified, as humanity's first (and many subsequent) encounters with aliens haven't exactly been on friendly terms. As such, all ambassadors are ferried by top-of-the-line cruisers. Then again, given that this 'verse has instant CasualInterstellarTravel, it's not that big a deal. The only time they did not do that is when a race of [[TechnicalPacifist Technical Pacifists]] (who can somehow accurately predict possible futures using an advanced form of intuition) requested that no warships be present at negotiations.
* In ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'' Vetinari shoots down the suggestion that Ankh-Morpork sent a warship to Klatch for this purpose on the grounds that, firstly, that sort of thing is not done in modern diplomacy and, secondly, Ankh-Morpork doesn't ''have'' any warships.
* ''LightNovel/TheIrregularAtMagicHighSchool'' has a familial example in volume 16. Clan head Maya says [[spoiler:that Tatsuya is her son]]. This is bullshit and everybody knows it's bullshit, but Maya [[AsskickingLeadsToLeadership can laser-drill people]], so the family accepts it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
* "Please Hello" from ''Theatre/PacificOvertures'' has American, British, Dutch, Russian, and French admirals bringing Japan their demands for treaty ports and such, demands which are punctuated by shots from the cannons the admirals didn't forget to bring with them.
* In the musical ''Theatre/TheSultanOfSulu'' (1902), the American soldiers petition for Ki-Ram's consent to have the Americans take possession of his island to teach its inhabitants an enlightened form of government that derives its legitimacy "from the consent of the governed." Ki-Ram has only one question to ask before he capitulates: "Are all the guns loaded?" ("They ''are''.")
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* At the height of its power in the 1800s, the British Empire became famous for this. It was said that the empire could quiet the whole of China by simply dispatching a single warship[[note]] Untrue, as the French found out in their 1884-85 Sino-French (mini-)War. France tried to take on China alone, and despite sinking half the antiquated Qing fleet was effectively fought to a standstill by modernised Qing Empire ground forces. The war reminded all the interested parties - France, Britain, Russia, Japan - that they needed each other's cooperation if they wanted to extract any more 'special concessions' (trade outposts, military bases) from The Empire Of The Qing - which [[InformedAttribute despite supposedly being on its last legs]], was regarded with renewed caution (until the much larger Sino-Japanese War of 1895, which revealed that the Qing's refusal to adopt a modern logistics/command system complete hamstrung their forces despite their size and usage of uber-modern weaponry)[[/note]]. Boastful hyperbole, to be sure, but hyperbole with a point. It was taken to ridiculous levels with the Don Pacifico affair when Britain's reaction to a British citizen in Greece being mugged was to send the Royal Navy over to blockade the entire country until the Greeks caught the man responsible and paid Don Pacifico compensation (although it should be noted that Pacifico was Jewish, and he was only the latest in a long line of British Jews to be abused in Greece, so the British did have, if you squint, a slightly nobler motive).
** During the Second Opium War, the British and French sent what amounted to little more than three divisions (not even 60,000 troops) to escort their ambassadors to Peking - ostensibly in the hope that they would be recognised as equals rather than being made to do the kowtow and be officially recognised as vassals/servants. The Qing court umm-ed and ah-ed and eventually met them with armed force when they kept marching on the capital. However, their decently-armed but disorganised and ill-led force of 200,000 (which had zero experience of modern warfare to boot) was quickly routed and the Imperial Court fled the city still refusing to negotiate. The Allies stuck around and pillaged the place until they did.
*** Cleverly exploiting this was the way Russia peacefully and amicably acquired her Maritime Provinces in 1860. By negotiating a settlement and treaty to stop Allied troops from ransacking Beijing further, the Russian Ambassador established a certain rapport with the Emperor was able to [[ManipulativeBastard convince him]] that the sparsely-inhabited (Han Chinese were prohibited to settle there by the Manchu Qing dynasty, whose semi-nomadic people were the only people living there) lands in question were not only economically useless but also impossible to protect. He actually had a point there, as just seven years later Russia sold her lands in North America (the USA's current state of 'Alaska') to the USA for the exact same reasons. From that point onward, Russian diplomats were always keen to point out that Russia's acquisitions of Qing territory had been by mutual agreement and not made under duress - criticising at great length the French and the Japanese for their own less subtle approaches.
** The governor of Guangzhou tried this against The British East India Company, without appreciating the close ties between The Company and the British government or the extent to which two hundred years of nothing more than border-skirmishes with steppe tribes and mountain-kingdoms had left Qing Chinese forces woefully inexperienced and ill-equipped for waging a full-scale modern war of the kind Europe had been fighting for four hundred years very nearly non-stop by that point (chiefly the Hundred Years' War, Eighty Years' War, Thirty Years' War, Seven Years' War, War of American Independence, War of the Spanish Succession, War of the Austrian Succession, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars).
* Subverted with the "[[UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars Gunboat War]]" between Denmark-Norway and the United Kingdom from 1807 to 1814. Because the Royal Navy had forced Denmark to hand over its battle-fleet through the 1807 bombardment of Copenhagen (i. e. a direct attack on the civilian population of the Danish capital), Denmark could only continue the unequal struggle with its smaller naval ships, i. e. gunboats.
* The USA's Central-South American Banana Republics were, as per the page image, kept in line by constant reminders of the threat of force and the occasional USA-organised/supported coup d'etat. From a little after the US Civil War up until relatively recently, this trope has been in force to some extent.
** The page image also refers to a policy of gunboat diplomacy by proxy. The United States didn't want European warships intruding into the American sphere of influence; instead, the Europeans would ask the US to send a gunboat to apply pressure on their behalf.
*** Specifically, the page image is referring to the Monroe Doctrine - that the USA would resist all European attempts to interfere in 'their' zone of influence, i.e. the whole of the Americas. No-one took it seriously at the time, as the US was a third-rate power and it was clear that places like British Canada and Spanish Cuba were not part of the Americas, by this definition. Nor were places like Argentina, which was ''Britain's'' model Banana Republic. Anyhow, note how Roosevelt is aiming the gun at the monarchical European figure while the poor, defenseless Latin American cowers beneath him. The image doesn't actually show gunboat diplomacy as such but instead presents a benign ideal of it, as one would expect of a (biased) US political cartoon.
*** Incidentally, they started taking it seriously during the UsefulNotes/SpanishAmericanWar, when an American fleet in the Caribbean wiped out an entire Spanish fleet. [[CurbStompBattle In an afternoon.]] While suffering one casualty. From heatstroke. (American demands afterwards rapidly jumped from "get out of Cuba" to "give us all of your islands", especially when a second Spanish fleet in the Philippines fared little better.)
* The SMS ''Panther'' is the TropeNamer and TropeCodifier, when it was dispatched by the German Empire to Morocco in 1911, during the Agadir Crisis. This incident popularised the phrase "gunboat diplomacy" and also contributed to the First World War.
** The "Panther's Leap" also counts as a subversion of sorts, since the entire affair was a complete farce. She was ostensibly dispatched to Agadir to protect German citizens in the port, but this plan had one glaring flaw: there were no German citizens in Agadir. Realising this, the German government sent a telegram to the only German citizen in the area - a perfectly happy, unendangered man called Wilburg - and ordered him to travel 75 miles south to Agadir to be "rescued". The ''Panther'' arrived on July 1st, 1911, only to discover that Wilburg hadn't arrived, so the gunboat sat impotently in the bay waiting for him. When he finally did reach Agadir, he was so exhausted from his journey that his only priority was finding a hotel for the night. The next morning he awoke to discover that the ''Panther'' had been joined by a second German gunboat, the ''Berlin''. Deciding it was time to go and get himself rescued, Wilburg made his way down to the beach and waved at the ships... who promptly ignored him. Frustrated, Wilburg began to jump up and down and throw a tantrum on the beach - only for the officers of the ''Berlin'' to assume he was a deranged native. It was only when Wilburg stood with his hands on his hips and glared at them in silent fury that it dawned on them that this might be the man they were supposed to rescue - because [[InsaneTrollLogic no native would ever stand with his hands on his hips.]] Wilburg was duly saved from the terrifying prospect of a nice day on the beach. In truth, the entire episode had been intended to warn the French of trying to obstruct German colonization in Africa but backfired spectacularly when it drew the ire not just of the French, but the British as well.
** Worse yet, the incident demonstrated Austria-Hungary's complete unwillingness to back Germany up when push came to shove. Rather than seeking a new ally - i.e. Russia, a rising power with close economic ties to Germany - they tried even harder to enlist Austro-Hungarian support. Ultimately, German support for Austria-Hungary and fear of Russia's growing economic and military power impelled Germany to escalate a war between Austria-Hungary and Russia [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI into a pan-European conflict involving France and Germany as well]][[note]] under the fatalistic logic that war was inevitable (largely because of French desire to retake Alsace-Lorraine) and the odds would only get worse as time went by and Russia became even more powerful - Russia had already matched Germany in artillery by 1914, to say nothing of the size of her trained reserve of manpower as a country with more than twice the population of Austria-Hungary and Germany put together [[/note]]. Neutral but virulently Germanophobic Britain using the invasion of Belgium as a pretext to attack Germany and Germany staging a FalseFlagOperation to bring The Ottoman Empire into the war against Russia were just the icing on the cake.
*** At the start, only Churchill and Gray were in support of intervention, and both the political leadership and general public in Britain were unwilling to get involved in the war. It was the (vastly exaggerated) atrocities[[note]]There's no denying the German military behaved badly in Belgium; but their actions were vastly exaggerated in terms of number and awfulness as a propaganda tool, including British newspapers adding a lot of completely invented ones just to be sure. Exaggeration of German atrocities in [=WW1=] was so notorious that many people in [=WW2=] refused to believe reports of Nazi atrocities - believing that their own media and politicians were lying again.[[/note]] which the German army committed in Belgium which finally propelled them to act. Those atrocities were themselves propelled by the Germans not being familiar with the nature of urban combat, where every shot echoed, causing a false belief that the troops were constantly under threat of ambush by local partisans. By the standards of the time, partisans were considered war criminals so those atrocities were considered "appropriate" by the occupying forces.
* During the interwar era, the Danzig crisis of 1932, which pitted a Polish Navy destroyer acting under orders from Poland's government and the Free City of Danzig, whose political position remained contested during the period. Polish statesman Józef Piłsudski decided to order the ORP Wicher to host the visit of a group of British destroyers to the Free City of Danzig (which was technically recognized as an independent entity at the time by most foreign governments, including Poland). Despite the aggressive posture, the Polish goal behind sending a warship to foreign waters was primarily to prevent the French and British governments from striking any deal with Nazi Germany that would be unfavorable to Poland with a show of strength. On the date of the British visit, 14 June, the Wicher steamed into the Danzig harbor, with secret orders to shell government buildings if any disrespect was shown to the Polish flag. Danzig officials were ultimately forced to accept the Polish government's right to station warships in the city harbor whenever they pleased, which only resulted in a further deterioration of relationship between the two entities in the years leading up to World War II.
* The two Moroccan Crises of 1905 and 1911. Both also illustrate the major problem with the gunboat approach; you have to have the biggest stick around to pull it off, or you'll be slapped down by those who ''do''.
* USS ''Texas'' earned the nickname "The Old Statesman" (think about it) after being used (along with several other ships) to exert diplomatic pressure on the Mexican government during what's now called the "Tampico Incident." She was actually one of the last ships literally referred to as a gunboat during her career to be used in this capacity.
** USS ''Iowa'' has the nickname "the Big Stick" after Teddy Roosevelt's "speak softly and carry a big stick" quote. fittingly the Iowa class were the last battleships used to be used as a tacit threat in a similar idea to this trope.
* There is the similar modern concept of "flattop diplomacy", flat top being the slang term for aircraft carrier. There is a bit more to it though. In flattop diplomacy, a carrier is docked in a foreign port where there are diplomatic tensions. The threat that the carrier poses is minor compared to the threat of starting a war with the carrier's home nation.
* American exercises off Libya in the 1980s, especially the Gulf of Sidra incidents.
** OlderThanTheyThink once you find on a map where the Barbary States were located. The [[SemperFi Marine Corps]] hymn doesn't mention the Shores of Tripoli because of anything they did in the ''20th'' century.
** The Barbary Coast states were known as pirates and slave takers until visited in turn by the Americans, the British, and the French at the beginning of the nineteenth century. These three each persuaded them to turn to more gentle ways of life by the use of [[SemperFi exceedingly]] [[WoodenShipsAndIronMen strong]] [[LegionOfLostSouls persuasions]].
* The [[UsefulNotes/{{Taiwan}} Taiwan Strait]] Crisis of [[TheNineties 1995-6]] was another instance, although some argue that the US [[NiceJobBreakingItHero overdid it]]--almost fatally --when UsefulNotes/BillClinton ordered ''two'' Carrier Battle Groups instead of just one. The crisis also demonstrated the potential for gunboat diplomacy to backfire. The crisis was precipitated by the Chinese military conducting missile tests less than 40 miles from ROC-controlled territory as well as a mobilization of Chinese troops in Fujian province (the province closest to Taiwan) and several live-fire exercises. The actions were intended to scare the Taiwanese populace into not re-electing then-President Lee Teng-hui, who was seen by China as being pro-independence - the crisis actually ''boosted'' Lee's popularity in the 1996 election and gave him an outright majority in the polls as opposed to a mere plurality. China has since learned its lesson and hasn't tried anything so radical in subsequent Taiwanese elections.
* Perhaps most famously, the diplomatic mission of Commodore Matthew C. Perry ([[Series/{{Friends}} not that one]]) to the Empire of Japan. His "diplomacy" involving the demand that Japan open its ports to trade with the United States, or else his fleet would sail all the way to Edo (now known as Tokyo) and burn it to the ground. He also claimed that the US Navy would send more ships to reinforce him than actually existed, but the Japanese didn't know that at the time.
** Subverted by his Russian equivalent, Admiral Yevfimy Putyatin who managed to open Japan for Russia '''after''' a tsunami destroyed his fleet.
** This was only the most famous of several rounds of this trope with Japan; Britain, after an English businessman was murdered for refusing to dismount and pay his respects to a passing noble, sent a squadron to bombard the towns of Kagoshima and Shimonoseki. Part of why Commodore Perry's tactics worked was because a growing faction in the Shogunate were going "Guys, we have ''got'' to get some of that for ourselves!"
** The final Japanese surrender in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII was signed on USS ''Missouri'', a battleship. Perry's US flag was brought along for the occasion as [=MacArthur=] was a blood relative of Perry's.
* Defied repeatedly to its own ultimate detriment by Joseon Korea, which had seen what "opening markets" had done to China and wanted little part of it. The American armed schooner General Sherman was sent to Pyongyang in 1866, ostensibly to open trade relations, only to be destroyed by fireships when the crew refused to accept "no" for an answer. Later the same year, an estimated 800 French soldiers aboard six warships attempted to seize the mouth of the Han River and coastal access to the capital, only to be forced back by winter and overwhelming opposition. Talk of a joint French-American punitive expedition went nowhere, but in 1871, the Americans tried again with over 600 marines and five warships, taking five fortifications along the Han River and managing to only strengthen the regent's opposition to modernization, including new proclamations against "appeasing foreigners." It wasn't until their rapidly-modernizing Japanese neighbours threatened to fire on the capital Hanseong (today Seoul) itself that the Hermit Kingdom was finally forced to open its markets to foreign trade, with Japan, America, and Russia at the forefront. Exactly as the Joseon rulers had feared, this resulted in their nation being annexed (albeit by Japan rather than a European power).
* In order to construct the Panama Canal, US President Theodore Roosevelt encouraged the Panamanians to revolt against their Colombian rulers, promising assistance from the US Navy. The rebellion was successful mainly because USS ''Nashville'' just happened to be in local waters, discouraging the Colombians from sending troops to quell the rebels.
* Used without end by both sides during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar with various degrees of success. There were many versions, from troop movements around the border, military exercises that were either intentionally leaked or outright covered by the media, [[NukeEm nuclear weapons testing]]... The "who blinks first" attitude shared by both sides nearly led to WorldWarIII and the EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, multiple times.
* Inverted, after a fashion, by the British government in the 1970s when the Argentine government first made threatening moves against the Falkland Islands. Two frigates were quickly dispatched to Britain's own territory, as opposed to dropping into a major Argentine port to say hello, and were backed up by a fast-attack submarine that would have come as quite a rude shock if the Argentines had decided to press on regardless. Instead, they wisely took the hint and the invasion plan was shelved. Sadly, Mrs Thatcher's Conservative government was rather less on the ball regarding Latin America than the outgoing Labour administration under Jim Callaghan, and ten years later Galtieri had another go... Ironically, if Galtieri had waited ''one more year'', massive budget cuts would've left the Royal Navy so downsized it would no longer have been able to take back the Falklands.[[note]]British submarines would've still been able to sink the entire Argentine Navy if called upon, but with Britain's aircraft carriers retired there would've been no way to send a counter-invasion force without it being sunk by the Argentine Air Force.[[/note]] Galtieri didn't do this largely because he feared he wouldn't be able to wait another year; he'd seized power in a coup and given his unpopularity he feared being deposed soon by another coup. Seizing "Las Malvinas" would be a glorious victory to distract from his economic failures and brutality, so he gambled that Britain just wouldn't care enough about the tiny barely-populated islands to actually fight for them.[[note]]He completely failed to grasp that Margaret Thatcher, a deeply divisive figure within her own country, would've committed political suicide if she'd made such a show of weakness as giving up British territory to invasion without a fight.[[/note]]
** Britain is also prone to doing this by sending something to the Falklands every time Argentina starts making noises about 'Las Malvinas'. Until recently, it was usually a submarine (which after what happened to the ''Belgrano'', Argentina is more than a little twitchy about), though in 2012 after a few particular noises too many, the ''Dauntless'' a brand new Type 45 'Daring' class Destroyer (equivalent of the US ''Arleigh Burke'' class) was sent to the islands.
* Hilarious version: ''[[RunningGag Every time]]'' UsefulNotes/{{Malaysia}} decides to [[IShallTauntYou taunt]] UsefulNotes/{{Indonesia}} about its territorial borders, Malaysia does indeed send a warship, only for Indonesia to send [[DisproportionateRetribution several]] [[SummonBiggerFish bigger warships]] (sometimes with an extra CoolPlane). Gunboat diplomacy only works if you're more powerful than the nation you're trying to intimidate, after all.
* An interesting dueling version: During [[UsefulNotes/TheIndoPakistanConflict the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War]], the US sent in the Enterprise battle group to threaten India to stop [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomping]] the Pakistanis, only for the Soviets (who were sympathetic to India[[note]]Ironically this sympathy was for ''business'' rather than ideological reasons. India was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement and maintained friendly relations with both sides of the Cold War, and bought quite a lot of weapons from the Soviets.[[/note]]) to do the same thing. To prevent this from becoming a PretextForWar, the Americans stood down, although India offered very generous terms to Pakistan in the Shiala Agreement. India developed UsefulNotes/TheThirdEyeOfBharat to prevent anyone from ever using this tactic to push them around again. But in response, the UsefulNotes/PakistanisWithPanters developed their own UsefulNotes/PakAttack, bringing further tension to the region.
* The order of the day between North and South Korea: if you don't like how things are going in the diplomatic table, you arrange a "joint military exercise (with live rounds!)" near your neighbor's land or naval border. Sometimes the "training bullets" fly outside the exercise zone, too.
** The US and South Korea habitually do joint training exercises near the hot area. When, in 2013, North Korea started one of the worst rounds of saber-rattling yet, the US sent a missile destroyer and a couple of B-2 heavy bombers to play, in a show designed to say "careful who you mess with".
*** Unfortunately, due to peculiarities of the North Korean society (these guys tend to ''believe'' their own propaganda), [[NiceJobBreakingItHero it sends exactly the wrong message]]. When these powerful American forces leave, the North Koreans believe they've chased them off.
*** One ''successful'' account of this would be [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_axe_murder_incident Operation Paul Bunyan]]. The background of the story is that the South Koreans had a tree on their side that needed to be cut since its presence prevented them from keeping an eye on a North Korean facility across the border. When they sent a small squad of Americans and their own soldiers to trim the tree, several North Korean soldiers crossed to the South Korean side and told them that the tree had been planted by Kim Il Sung himself, and trimming it was forbidden. When the Americans refused to stop their work, the North Korean soldiers attacked them with axes, killing several of them. The United States responded with the above-mentioned '''Operation Paul Bunyan''', involving a more...aggressive trimming of the tree consisting of American combat engineering regiments, South Korean special forces, American AA and tank battalions, Cobra attack helicopters, F-111 attack aircraft, ''B-52 nuclear bombers with fighter escort,'' and enough naval and army forces on standby to reduce everything within a 5-mile radius of the tree to ash if given the word. The North Koreans were understandably alarmed about the sudden show of force (one intelligence officer monitoring NK radio communications at the time said that the sheer amount of firepower "blew their [...] minds") and deployed some machine gun teams on their side, but they wisely stayed well clear of the American forces as they chopped the tree down.
* Shows of force are not limited to one's adversaries. They can just as much be messages to one's allies: "I will support you in the face of this third country threatening you" is more credible if you have your own skin in the game, like your own soldiers and ships.
** As a specific example, take the presence of American soldiers in Europe as part of UsefulNotes/{{NATO}} during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. US foreign policy up through UsefulNotes/WorldWarII traditionally favored neutrality (at least with respect to Europe) and staying out of potentially entangling alliances and conflicts.[[note]]Indeed, the proposed [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Amendment Ludlow Amendment]] (1937) and later [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricker_Amendment Bricker Amendment]] (1951) would have made it harder for the US government to do otherwise.[[/note]] Even during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar and the formation of NATO, there was much worry among some in Western Europe that, if Warsaw Pact troops ''did'' invade, the US would just [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere leave them to their fate]] rather than send their own soldiers to die on someone else's land; the US's commitment to using nuclear weapons in retaliation was similarly questioned (why bring TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt on everyone, including Americans, when not using them would only mean [[DayOfTheJackboot Western Europe gets new management]] but at least not a nuclear wasteland?). Placing US troops in Europe was at least partly to assuage these fears - it would be far more difficult for Washington to politically justify not getting involved in a Warsaw Pact invasion scenario if American blood had already been shed.
*** The Berlin Brigade, a US Army contingent that was stationed in West Berlin (the UK and France also had similar contingents), can be considered an example of the previous on a smaller scale. Unification of Berlin was a prized objective of East Germany and the Soviet Union for reasons political[[note]]Having a unified capital that went back to the German Empire would give East Germany more legitimacy to its claim of representing all of Germany and allowed communist propoganda to portray the Bonn-based West Germany as an illegitimate puppet (and by extension shame the Western powers supporting it)[[/note]] and pratical[[note]]West Berlin, being so far behind the Inner German Border and having special rules that effectively became legal loopholes for emigration (not to mention how heavily guarded the Iron Curtain was), was a popular destination for many East German defectors[[/note]], and it wasn't like the Soviets wouldn't consider trying to strongarm the West into giving up West Berlin (c.f., the 1947-48 Berlin Blockade, the tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie in 1961) - in a hypothetical Warsaw pact invasion West Berlin would almost certainly be a target. The force wasn't all that large - about 3,000 for the US - and in an actual shooting war they would not have lasted more than a few days to any serious push by Warsaw Pact troops because they would be outnumbered by a ridiculous margin and be immediately cut-off from supplies behind the Iron Curtain. The real point was to make US citizens die in the defence of West Berlin and West Germany so that the USA's isolationists would be unable to oppose the war, and make NATO think it was less likely that the USA would abandon them if war broke out.
* Both China and America have been sending their [[SarcasmMode magnificent naval fleets]] to the South China Sea. The PRC, to defend the undersea resources they claim to be rightfully theirs (which is to say, ''the entire sea'' [[note]] International law puts a country's Exclusive Economic Zone up to 300 km out from their coastline. The South China Sea doesn't align with the PRC's Coastline at all, and the sheer size of it means that the only way they could legally claim it all (as they do; their "logic" is apparently along the lines of "[[InsaneTrollLogic it has China in its name so it obviously belongs to China]]") is by controlling every bit of land that borders it - which is where the not-PRC countries of Vietnam, Malaysia, and The Philippines come in with their pesky independence and legal rights.[[/note]]); the USA, to curb the PRC's claim by protecting the interests of her South-East Asian allies, who under international law have legitimate and universally recognised (except by the PRC) claims to it.
** China's own attempts at gunboat diplomacy seem to actually be backfiring against them. By antagonizing their neighbors, China has actually pushed these to have closer ties to the US. The Philippines is already a given considering that they're already a recognized "Major Non-NATO Ally". More ironic however is Vietnam, a communist country and America's former foe in UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar are now moving towards closer ties towards their old foe. (It doesn't help China's case that ''they'' are also an old foe of Vietnam. Even if they have ideologically similar governments, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War China has been at war with Vietnam more recently than America has]].) If China fears being encircled by enemies supported by the west, they surely aren't doing a very good job preventing it.
* Employed by the USSR in the so-called [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar First Socialist War]] (China's punitive war against Vietnam concerning the latter's incursions into China-friendly UsefulNotes/{{Cambodia}}...which Vietnam had conduced to stop the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime). In 1979, as the [[UsefulNotes/ChineseWithChopperSupport PRC]] wound up its limited offensive upon Vietnam, the Soviet Union - Vietnam's ideological and Realpolitik backers - conducted one of the largest military manoeuvres in its history. More than thirty divisions were airlifted to the Sino-Russian border in less than a week, and the Navy burned through three years of its fuel reserves in the course of a month. Two divisions were actually left in Mongolia after the exercises, as doing so was cheaper than bringing them back. As far as the Soviets were concerned, not to mention the Vietnamese, the Chinese had been scared into submission. The Peoples' Liberation Army's desire to avoid the appearance of caving in to Soviet pressure actually made them want to continue to prosecute the war beyond the (limited and from a military standpoint, ''stupid'') objectives they had been set. The PRC ultimately ended up withdrawing and declaring victory, even though they'd plainly been driven out by Vietnam.
* This trope is best summed up by the old maxim (source unknown) "Diplomacy works best when it's backed by credible threat of force."
* Iran, under pressure of embargo over their nuclear development, had threatened to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. The US responded by deploying their biggest aircraft carrier to patrol the waters.
* Northrop Grumman - the owners of the shipyards where US aircraft carriers are built - actually sell T-shirts and posters with the image of USS ''Enterprise'' from the front and the legend: "[[BadassBoast 90,000 tons of diplomacy.]]"
* In 1825, King Charles X of UsefulNotes/{{France}} sent a gunboat to UsefulNotes/{{Haiti}} to demand, under threat of war if they did not agree, an indemnity of 150 million francs to be paid over five years to compensate the slaveowners and planters who lost their "property" in the revolution. Since Haiti's total revenue for the year 1825 was only 5.1 million francs, they were forced to empty the treasury and take out a loan from France. Even after the French reduced their demand to 90 million francs, Haiti ended up paying a total of 112 million francs from 1825 to 1938 because of the loans. The New York Times estimates that Haiti lost at least $21 billion or as much as $115 billion of potential economic growth over a period of 200 years.
* The three "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_Wars Cod Wars]]" between the United Kingdom and Iceland can be seen as another modern example. Here the British were unsuccessful in their attempts to impose their policies on Iceland. Iceland knew that their strategically vital location in the Cold War meant they were too important to NATO for the British to actually open fire, illustrating that gunboat diplomacy doesn't work if the stronger nation is bluffing and the weaker nation knows it.
* A Website/{{Cracked}} [[https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1958-roadhouse-gets-lot-right-5-lessons-bouncer.html article]] about the daily life of bouncers in bars or clubs is an example of small-scale application of this trope. Big scary muscular guys are preferable to tiny pint-sized powerhouses or martial artists, precisely because big muscular men will intimidate the patrons so much just by their looks and reminding the patrons that they are not the biggest guy in the room that they will think twice before causing trouble.
* Averted by the Charter of the United Nations, which bans States from threatening the use of force against the territorial integrity or the independence of another State.
[[/folder]]

* ''LightNovel/TheIrregularAtMagicHighSchool'' has a familial example in volume 16. Clan head Maya says [[spoiler:that Tatsuya is her son]]. This is bullshit and everybody knows it's bullshit, but Maya [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority can laser-drill people]], so the family accepts it.

For example, sending a fleet to fight a practice battle just off the coast of a country that's not giving you what you want is a classic example of gunboat diplomacy. The idea is to remind the target that you're stronger than they are, so if they don't do what you want you can always destroy their stuff and kill their people.

* One of the space ships in [[Creator/IainBanks Iain M. Banks]]'s [[Literature/TheCulture Culture]] novels is actually named ''Gunboat Diplomat''. The Culture are rather good at doing this, albeit in a subtle way, too - their [[PlanetSpaceship enormous General Systems Vehicles]] leisurely cruise their way around the galaxy, showing
other civilisations the many wonders of the Culture... And also providing a pointed reminder as to [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens just how powerful their society really is]] - if you repeatedly get in their way, and ignore them when they ask you nicely to stop doing so, you will be ''[[CurbStompBattle destroyed]]''.

* One of the space ships in [[Creator/IainBanks Iain M. Banks]]'s [[Literature/TheCulture Culture]] novels is actually named ''Gunboat Diplomat''.

* In just the second episode of ''Series/YesMinister'' Hacker finds himself faced with a tricky situation involving the new dictator of an African state who, for various reasons, they need something from, but who is threatening to cause an embarrassing incident. The foreign secretary muses jokingly that in the old days they would just send in a gunboat. Hacker then asks if that is, absolutely, out of the question, to shocked stares.[[note]]The problem is solved when the Brits realize that the dictator is actually [[MajoredInWesternHypocrisy one of Hacker's old friends from uni]], who has changed his name and converted to Islam as a political move; they settle the whole thing over a nice cup of tea.[[/note]]
** In ''Series/YesPrimeMinister'', Hacker (now PM), arranges for a full battalion of paratroopers to pay a goodwill visit to a small third-world country, against Sir Humphrey's wishes, that may just be about to suffer from a Communist uprising.

** Earlier in the season, happens ''all over the place'' in ''A Voice In The Wilderness'', with over a half-dozen races (including Earth and a previously-unknown race) all pulling this at once when some very powerful, very advanced technology is discovered buried beneath the planet that the station orbits. [[spoiler: After a brief, inconclusive battle, ''the planet itself'', now acting through its new caretaker, Draal, informs all parties that ''none'' of them can have exclusive control of the planet, and that any who approach without permission will be destroyed. The ship belonging to the previously-unknown race ignores the warning and [[CurbStompBattle promptly gets ventilated.]]]]
** And {{subverted}} in ''Rumors, Bargains, and Lies'', when Sheridan orders the Rangers to attack and destroy [[spoiler: some random asteroids. The League races know that the [[CoolStarship White Stars]] have far superior sensors to anything they have, and thus assume that they were fighting an invisible enemy. Sheridan does nothing to convince them otherwise, and welcomes them into a new military alliance.]]

* A Website/{{Cracked}} [[https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1958-roadhouse-gets-lot-right-5-lessons-bouncer.html article]] about daily life of bouncers in bars or clubs is an example of small application of this trope. A big, scary, muscular guys are preferable to tiny, pint-sized powerhouse or martial artists precisely because big, muscular men will intimidate the patrons so much just by their looks and reminding the patrons that they are not the biggest guy in the room that they will think twice before causing troubles.

[[folder: Western Animation]]

* In 1825, Charles X, king of UsefulNotes/{{France}}, sent a gunboat to UsefulNotes/{{Haiti}} to ask, in return of a diplomatic recognition, for an indemnity of 150 millions of francs for the slaveowners and planters whose properties were lost, which was paid until 1938 and which helped to burden local development.

*** At the start, only Churchill and Gray were in support of intervention, and both the leadership and citizenry the U.K. were unwilling to get involved in the war. It was the (vastly exaggerated) atrocities[[note]]There's no denying the Germans behaved badly in Belgium; but their actions were vastly exaggerated in terms of number and awfulness as a propaganda tool, including British newspapers adding a lot of completely invented ones just to make sure. Exaggeration of German atrocities in [=WW1=] was so notorious that many people in [=WW2=] refused to believe reports of Nazi atrocities - considering their own press and politicians were lying again.[[/note]] which the German army committed in Belgium which finally propelled them to act. Those atrocities were themselves propelled by the Germans not being familiar with the nature of urban combat, where every shot echoed, causing a false belief that the troops were constantly under threat of ambush by native partisans. By the standards of the time, partisans were considered war criminals so those atrocities were considered "appropriate" by the occupying forces.
*** ''Publicly'' in support of intervention. Declaring war on Germany was a fantastic opportunity to destroy another Great Power and make UsefulNotes/TheIrishQuestion, women's rights, and labour unrest go away for a bit. Britain had fully intended to make war on Germany in the event of ''any'' Franco-German war, including one started by France, for at least three years (i.e. since the second Moroccan crisis of 1911) by then. Claiming it was all done to champion the cause of some foreigners nobody ''actually'' cared about was great stuff for keeping the common people quiet, but it would be a grave mistake to assume this was an ''actual'' reason. Britain showed what it ''really'' thought about 'neutrality' and 'atrocities' with their wartime occupation of non-aligned Greece, their handling of assassinations and rebellion in Ireland ('Black and Tans', anyone?), and 'Amritsar Massacre' of 1919. Reginald Dyer, responsible for the lattermost, retired a national hero.

*** This doesn't even appear to be exclusively military - the [[SuperweaponSurprise ability to make one quickly]], [[SummonBiggerFish being friends with someone who has one]] or even the ability to culturally dominate them seems to be enough.

* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', it's said that the Alliance invokes this tactic as a deterrent to prevent pirate or slave raids on their planetary colonies. [[SchmuckBait Want to attack? Go ahead!]] Just as long as you're aware of the whole ''fleet'' of heavily armed warships that are currently sitting no more than one Relay jump away.

* An interesting dueling version: During [[UsefulNotes/TheIndiaPakistanConflict the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War]], the US sent in the Enterprise battle group to threaten India to stop [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomping]] the Pakistanis, only for the Soviets (who were sympathetic to India[[note]]Ironically this sympathy was for ''business'' rather than ideological reasons. India was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement and maintained friendly relations with both sides of the Cold War, and bought quite a lot of weapons from the Soviets.[[/note]]) to do the same thing. To prevent this from becoming a PretextForWar, the Americans stood down, although India offered very generous terms to Pakistan in the Shiala Agreement. India developed UsefulNotes/TheThirdEyeOfBharat to prevent anyone from ever using this tactic to push them around again. But in response, the UsefulNotes/PakistanisWithPanters developed their own UsefulNotes/PakAttack, bringing further tension to the region.

* An interesting dueling version: During the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War, the US sent in the Enterprise battle group to threaten India to stop [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomping]] the Pakistanis, only for the Soviets (who were sympathetic to India[[note]]Ironically this sympathy was for ''business'' rather than ideological reasons. India was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement and maintained friendly relations with both sides of the Cold War, and bought quite a lot of weapons from the Soviets.[[/note]]) to do the same thing. To prevent this from becoming a PretextForWar, the Americans stood down. India developed the UsefulNotes/ThirdEyeOfBharat to prevent anyone from ever using this tactic to push them around again. But in response, the UsefulNotes/PakistanisWithPanters developed their own UsefulNotes/PakAttack, bringing further tension to the region.

* An interesting dueling version: During the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War, the US sent in the Enterprise battle group to threaten India to stop [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomping]] the Pakistanis, only for the Soviets (who were sympathetic to India[[note]]Ironically this sympathy was for ''business'' rather than ideological reasons. India was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement and maintained friendly relations with both sides of the Cold War, and bought quite a lot of weapons from the Soviets.[[/note]]) to do the same thing. To prevent this from becoming a PretextForWar, the Americans stood down.