The Soft Power Currencies of US Navy Hospital Ship Missions

Abstract

The Tsunami in South‐East Asia in 2004 prompted the largest military disaster response in history. Encouraged by the success, increasing attention has been paid to the various humanitarian assistance and disaster relief activities conducted by US armed forces. Since 2006, the US Navy deploys one of its two large hospital ships in annual missions to either Central and South America or the Asia–Pacific region to provide people in need with free care. These missions offer many opportunities to increase the soft power capital of the United States by forging ties with host nation governments and improving the image of the United States within the local population. However, this article argues that we need more research on the impact of humanitarian assistance to justify a continuation in a fiscally constrained environment.

Donanma Unsurlarının Afetlere Müdahalede Kullanımı

“…Hastane gemilerinin ve enerji temin edebilen gemilerin sayılarının artırılmasının önemi son dönem meydana gelen afetler ile iyice belirgin bir hal almıştır. (Forster, 2015). Covid 19 virüs salgınında Devlet Başkanı Donald Trump tarafından ABD'de devreye sokulan hastane gemisi bu gerçekliği bir kez daha gözler önüne sermiştir (URL 2).…”

Global health diplomacy—reconstructing power and governance

“…One of the most fundamental debates about global health diplomacy is the dynamic relationship between health being a foreign policy tool and foreign policy serving health goals. 40 Many international relations and global health scholars have discussed health diplomacy through the lens of soft power, 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 smart power, 46 , 47 , 48 or disaster diplomacy. 49 These scholars point to the efforts of global health diplomacy in improving relations between countries and contributing to peace and security.…”

A disaster diplomacy perspective of acute public health events

“…One class of case studies which disaster diplomacy research to date has not examined in depth is acute public health events and the related health activities, again covering pre‐disaster, during disasters, and post‐disaster. Whilst research has explored the impact of medical and health work on diplomatic relations between countries more broadly (see, for example, Thompson, ; Feinsilver, , ; Forster, ), less attention has been paid to the potential diplomatic impact of medical and health activities related to acute public health events. A disaster diplomacy perspective explicitly focuses on these links and thus is particularly useful to be tested to help determine its usefulness and applicability.…”

“…One notable example is Cuba's export of medical personnel to poorer countries to support healthcare infrastructure as a form of medical diplomacy (Feinsilver, , ). This practice is now emulated across Africa by China (Thompson, ), as observed during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa (Huang, ), and by the US government's deployment of hospital ships around the world (Forster, ). The examples are not only contemporary.…”