Gunboat diplomacy was, for thousands of years, a popular, and painless (to the practitioner) form of low level warfare. Even before dozens of large cannon were first mounted on ships 400 years ago, a nation with a large fleet could force another nation to terms by blockading enemy ports and pillaging its merchant ships at sea. Once cannon were on ships in a big way, you bombarded the enemy as an additional form of persuasion.

During World War II, aircraft replaced ships as masters of the ocean. Bombers replaced gunboats. But it was the United Nations that replaced gunboat diplomacy. The UN was formed, in part, to make gunboat diplomacy unnecessary. Disputes between big countries and weaker ones, formerly settled via gunboat diplomacy, were brought to the UN, debated almost to death and, sometimes, even settled.

The Cold War also put a major obstacle in the way of gunboat diplomacy. If one superpower began to abuse a smaller nation, the other superpower came to its aid, forcing a stalemate. No one wanted to risk nuclear war. And then there was television news. In the past you could bombard an enemy port and pictures of the dead civilians never would reach the folks back home. With television news, you had to be more careful about whom you hit and what kind of spin you put on it. Gunboat diplomacy just didn't occur much any more.

With the end of the Cold War, however, gunboat diplomacy is possible again. There is little risk of nuclear war and the UN moves too slowly in most cases to get in the way. And now there are "smart bombs," weapons around since the 1940s, but now finally perfected.

Gunboat diplomacy came back to life as bomber diplomacy. But it was not the same, for the mass media was a weapon the little guy never had before but quickly learned how to use.

Iraq was the first nation to get a taste of bomber diplomacy, and has regularly been subjected to it throughout the 1990s to little effect. Not enough firepower can be brought to bear. As unpopular as Iraq is in its own neighborhood, few of those countries are willing to provide bases for large-scale bomber diplomacy.

Aircraft carriers provide limited bombing capability; you really need nearby land bases to deliver a noticeable dose of bomber diplomacy.

Media has a lot to do with successful resistance to bomber diplomacy in the 20th century. In the past, people under bombardment felt isolated and that led to demoralization. But radio and TV have provided excellent morale-building tools for nations. Dictatorship or democracy, electronic media allows you to put the proper spin on the punishment and bolster morale. You also can work the international media to bring pressure on your tormentor, as Iraq has done against the United States.

Bomber diplomacy is very popular with industrialized democracies. These nations do not want to risk the lives of their soldiers, and can afford the bombers that allow them to attack without risk. The rich countries have more to protect and thus more opportunities to bomb someone.

In NATO's case there was the domestic unrest caused by hundreds of thousands of Balkan refugees entering recession-wracked economies. There was the humanitarian angle too, although worse catastrophes were taking place around the world. But none of those was causing a refugee crisis in Europe, or conjuring up visions of Nazi era atrocities in the original venues.

Bomber diplomacy, as high-tech as it is, also allows politicians something they all crave: control. The NATO bombing plans were constantly revised to placate one or another of the 19 nations in charge. While this led to some tragicomic incidents and curious shifts in tactics, it made the politicians feel that they, and not some non-elected generals, were in charge.

It's not pretty, it doesn't work so well, but it's the future.

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