A Man-of-War is the Best Ambassador

Paper series - Europe in the Indo-Pacific Hub

A Man-of-War is the Best Ambassador: European Naval Deployments as Costly and Useful Diplomatic Signals

By the slow-moving standards of international diplomacy, the relatively recent term “Indo-Pacific” has gone viral. Conceived as a hopeful expansion of Japanese strategic aims and adopted by the Trump Administration for its increasingly confrontational approach to China, multiple European states have now developed “Indo-Pacific” strategies.

This brief argues that even modest navies—almost uniquely among foreign policy tools— can effectively perform diplomacy when used thoughtfully and judiciously by civilian political leaders.