Naval diplomacy, An Option or A necessity??

If we willing to look back into the history, we will see the fact that the action of diplomacy that conduct by the naval force is not a new things, in fact it has been around almost just after the birth of Naval force into the world. At first there’s only land force or what we called the army, but when there’s a line of commerce connecting the nations that using the medium of water (in this case the sea), and at the same time it came the necessity to create a ships that had the capability to fight and to defend the commerce ships and protect the line of commerce and the nation’s interest at sea. And that was when the Navy force has been born.
The further use of the ships that has destruction capability had been continue evolving not only as the protector of the merchant ships, but it begun to act as the power of one nation at sea, to fight and defend the sovereignty of a nation at sea from the incoming enemy that use the sea as the media to launch an attack.
When it continue to evolve with the demands of the growing civilization, we have seen a lot of the use of the naval force as a power of diplomacy or what we know as the “Gunboat Diplomacy” and even a strength to defeat the opponents, In the 19th century the what so called as the “gunboat diplomacy” is the term known as the way of the colonialist to intimidate and give a warning to the enemy in the matter to open a new colony and a new region. One of the well known event of the history on the use of gunboat diplomacy is the opening Japan famous blockade from outside influence that conduct by the U.S Navy led by Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry in 1854 that caused another historical event in Japan history which is “The Meiji restoration” that bring to the end the era of “Samurai”.
In the present days, the gunboat diplomacy has been expanding, is much more than just an action to give a warning and to intimidate the opponents at sea, but it’s more than that, the diplomacy is another way to make a relationship with another nation with a goodwill mission which also known as the “Naval presence” , in this case naval presence can’t be leveled with gunboat diplomacy, there are more than meet the eye for it, naval presence have the tendency to warn the other parties as for the existence of the navy in the area concerned, though is not always friendly, but the action does not include the use of the gun force. One of the form of naval presence is the port visit that conducted by a warship to other country port to prove the existence of the navy within certain region, and with a distinct aim is to form a public opinion in the area visited about the country concerned. Naval diplomacy concept is divided into two parts, which is the “Naval influence politics” that include the naval aid, operational conduct, port visit, and a joint exercise. The other is “Naval Power Politics“ which include the naval power demonstration, and operational movement with a special reason, which has the coercive character (gun power tendency). This coercive approach is what we know as the gunboat diplomacy.
The Navy is the one and only force that can bring the image of the sovereignty of one country directly to the heart of another country, by that reason is a potential force of diplomacy that can be used by the nation, and also for the same reason that is become a necessity for the Navy to be the more advance than the army and air force, because of the complexity of the Naval task has to be done. The Navy with the warships is a standalone military unit that can be projected directly to the heart of the destination country, with the reason that mostly the most important cities of a country is located in the coast of the nation. The warships in single unit or a bigger division has the capability of conducting the tasks with the characteristic of social, humanitarian or even politics, and off course the military character. The non-territorial character in the media used by the warships give the navy an advance with two other forces. A warship not only able to mobile, but also has the ability to carry the artillery, weaponry, troops, military vehicle and others military equipment needed for operational causes, and so for this cause has made the navy as a perfect instrument for diplomacy.
Naval diplomacy has been and always conducted by the navy of the nations that has a large part of their territory is the sea or largely part of the area is the aquatic, for example United Kingdom, Unites States of America, France, India and many others. And the correlation with that, we suppose that Indonesia as the biggest archipelago country in the world should realize that the use of the naval force as the ultimate line of defense is inevitable and has always been like that, it just a matter of the peoples to see and act based on it, and so for that the use of naval diplomacy should be include in the statement of the defense policy of the blueprint of the defense in the future. It would be very ironic for the future of the nation when the biggest archipelago country has the main concern of the defense is more to the continent and abandon the true characteristic of the country, meanwhile ¾ parts of the nation itself is an aquatic areas, by that reason alone we have lost some parts of our country that we have to forcedly let go to our neighboring country, it just a matter of time to realize that if we not set the mind of defense at sea and change our mentality in general to it, one by one the region of our country will be diminished, so....it’s about time for all of us the people of the beloved country of Indonesia to act and set our mind as the maritime people instead of continent people. Let no time be wasted!!