21st century gunboat diplomacy and strategic sea areas
Mustafa Avsever
Turkish Naval War College, Turkey
: J Mar Biol Oceanogr
Abstract
Throughout history, states have attached great importance to seas in terms of economic and security. Advanced civilizations have always founded in coastal regions. Over time, human being has tended to trade and naturally always aimed get more and more. Seas by covering 71% of the earth provide the greatest economic opportunities for access to raw material resources and the world market. As a result, seas have become the most important areas of conflict over the course of time. Coastal states, use seas as a tool for defense zone, trade, marine transportation and power transfer, they have acquired colonies overseas and increased their capital, raw materials and labor. Societies have increased their economic prosperity though their navies in order to retain their welfare and achieve their foreign policy objectives. Sometimes they have imposed their demands through the use or threat of limited naval force in accordance with their interests that is gunboat diplomacy. Gunboat diplomacy has been and continues to be applied consistently in solving problems by the stronger side of the problem. Today we can see samples of gunboat diplomacy used in the eastern Mediterranean during Ukraine crisis in dispute between North Korea and South Korea and the ongoing power struggle in Asia-Pacific.
Biography
