From gunboat and Ping-Pong diplomacy to gangster diplomacy

Sep 04, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

(Kaieteur News) – There was U.S. President James Munroe and his stellar vision: Manifest Destiny. Then came Presidents Andrew Jackson and Zachary Taylor, among others. Men of military acclaim; generals who laid claim to personal heraldry. Native American Indian tribes chased from their lands, herded down trails of bitter tears, then penned on barren, narrow, confining reservations. Those accustomed to roaming the ranges, corralled in dark, grim corners. So that American expansion could continue without human nuisances. Without inconveniences that slowdown accumulations of rich lands, richer treasures. American prairie diplomacy at its rawest. Crisscrossing a continent to link two oceans.

From the roots of prairie diplomacy emerged the branches of gunboat diplomacy. China’s waters, Barbary Coast shores, then Veracruz in Mexico; last, against suspected drug traffickers in this region’s seas. Guyana’s contentious border context functioned as the invitation for displays of gunboat diplomacy. The U.S. was most conspicuous. The endgame was never in any doubt. Now it has been concluded; the consummation of long, tedious, aggressive action. A sitting president wrenched from his seat of power and winched to a helicopter seat. Then to a seat in a New York jail cell. Crafts bristling with armaments of war. The language of belligerence in close proximity. Softening up resistance. Fragmenting opposition. Then there is Senora Delcy Rodriguez.