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

Monroe had played a prominent role in the events of 1815-1816 with Algiers, it
is not probable that he could not ‘recollect’ a treaty which took him two years
to achieve. Perhaps, peace treaties with Algiers had no more any importance as
long as the Americans could enforce them at the ‘mouth of cannons.’ Gunboat
diplomacy was by then an established feature of America foreign policy and
Algiers was but a piece in the American global puzzle of expansionism.
3. Algiers in American Gunboat Diplomacy
A dissection of American foreign policy at the turn of the 19 th century in
relation with Algiers shows that the events of 1815-1816 had all the
characteristics of gunboat diplomacy and that American imperialism did not
wait for Theodore Roosevelt’s credo of the ‘big stick’ to assert itself. American
imperialism has its origins in the ‘Barbary Wars’ and the aggression against
Algiers offered the United States its first permanent naval presence in the
Mediterranean in 1815.
3. 1. Background and Definition of ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’
Historically, navies have played an important role in the history of
imperial powers. The powerful maritime nations used their fleets either as an
effective means of coercion against weaker nations to further their national
interests or to express explicit or implicit threats to resort to the use of force
should they not obtain satisfactory terms during negotiations. This second use
of maritime power had traditionally been termed ‘Gunboat Diplomacy.’
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