Blockade

BLOCKADE

BLOCKADE, the closing by sea of the coasts and ports of an enemy in such a manner as to cut off entirely the enemy's maritime communications. Naval blockades have played a prominent role in U.S. diplomacy since the Revolutionary era. At that time, the United States had a small navy and a large merchant marine and therefore sought to limit the scope and uses of blockades. In 1784 the Continental Congress argued that a blockade was legitimate only if a nation closely patrolled an enemy's coast and ports. During the Napoleonic wars, however, Britain and France went far beyond this definition in order to cripple each other. In May 1806 Britain declared a blockade around the entire European coast, from the Elbe River to the port of Brest, although the British had far too few ships to patrol such a vast area. Napoleon responded by closing all European ports under his control to British shipping and to neutral vessels that had either traded at a British port or been searched by British cruisers. The United States protested that these declarations went far beyond the traditional practice of blockade. In his 1812 war message to Congress, President James Madison named Britain's "mock blockade" as one of the chief grievances of the United States against the British.

Ultimately, the American limited definition of blockades prevailed. The Declaration of Paris (1856) stipulated that a blockade was binding only if the nation involved maintained "a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy." Ironically, the United States did not sign the declaration, because it objected to another provision in the agreement outlawing privateers, and large-scale blockades became central to American military strategy. At the onset of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of the Confederate coast, which proved vital to the Union's victory. After the Civil War the United States became a naval power and moved away from its limited definition of blockades. American forces, for example, often relied on the expansive doctrine of "continuous voyage," which held that a nation could seize foreign ships destined for neutral countries if it could prove that their cargo would eventually reach a blockaded port.

By the time of World War I the development of submarines, mines, and long-range artillery made traditional "close" blockades almost impossible. During the war Britain rejected the Declaration of Paris and used minefields and cruiser patrols to establish a "far" blockade around Germany. Although the United States protested this action, German naval strategy soon outraged Americans even more. In 1915 the Germans exacerbated tensions with the United States when they announced a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare in the waters surrounding Great Britain. This "blockade," which many Americans construed as a flagrant violation of traditional warfare, eventually brought the United States into the war on the side of the Allies. In World War II, submarines and aircraft again altered the nature of blockades. During the conflict the United States and Britain employed a long-range air and naval blockade against Germany, while the Germans used unrestricted submarine warfare against the Allies. Blockades also shaped the course of the Cold War. In 1962 the United States imposed a "quarantine" of Cuba to stop the Soviet Union from shipping offensive weapons to Cuba and to force the Soviets to dismantle missiles already on the island.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bess, H. David, and Martin T. Farris. U.S. Maritime Policy. West-port, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981.

Freedman, Lawrence. Kennedy's Wars. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Hickey, Donald R. The War of 1812. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995.

LaFeber, Walter. The American Age. New York: Norton, 1994.

Spivak, Burton. Jefferson's English Crisis, 1803–1809. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1979.

Ronald Spector / e. m.

See also Contraband of War ; Neutral Rights ; Neutrality ; Trade with the Enemy Acts .