Abstract
This book is an effort to describe and analyse Britain’s changing international position since the Second World War, especially in the Atlantic region. Inevitably, it is a chronicle of decline. Reflecting the diminution of power which has occurred, it has been customary in a great deal of academic as well as more popular literature to criticise strongly the nation’s specific foreign policies and general approach to international affairs during this period. By contrast, a central thesis of the study which follows is that such attitudes should be balanced by more positive and optimistic considerations. British foreign policy over the last three decades has contained serious blunders and errors of judgement. At the same time, there have been equally striking examples of foresight, sensible flexibility, moderation and shrewd calculation. Viewed most generally, Britain’s decline has been an inevitable result of economic, geographical and military factors largely beyond her control. Faced with a dramatic reduction in power and influence, British leadership has adjusted to the new situation with a minimum of trauma and strain.
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Notes and References
For a useful discussion of the development of the Anglo-American alliance, which argues that it has strong historical roots, see Coral Bell, The Debatable Alliance (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), passim and especially pp. 1–23.
Henry Kissinger, The Troubled Partnership (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1965), p. 77.
Kenneth Waltz, Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1967), p. 234.
See for example F. H. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace (Cambridge: The University Press, 1963), pp. 256ff. In 1891, the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria and Italy was extended for twelve years, and the following year France and Russia agreed to continue their military alliance for the duration of the Triple Alliance. Before this, alliances had been made for shorter periods of three to five years. Britain resisted this trend, but found herself sucked in; in the 1887 Mediterranean Agreements, a long-term commitment was undertaken.
In Walter Bagehot’s The English Constitution (London: Collins, 1963) see especially the contrast in chapter 1 between Cabinet and Presidential government.
The American habit of praising British politics, often misunderstanding it in the process, is discussed by Evron Kirkpatrick, “Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System: Political Science, or Pseudo-Science?” American Political Science Review, Vol. LXV, No. 4 (December 1971), pp. 965–90.
Concerning this contrast, see for example Hugh Heclo and Aaron Wildavsky, The Private Government of Public Money (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1974). pp. 9–10.
Encounter, Vol. XXI (July 1963); also see for example Brian Chapman, British Government Observed (London: Allen and Co., 1963);
John Osborne, The Entertainer (New York: Criterion Books, 1958);
James Morris, The Outriders (London: Faber and Faber, 1963).
Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1948), p. 189.
See Winston Churchill, The Gathering Storm (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), chapter 4.
On the changing structure of the international system, see Stanley Hoffmann, Gulliver’s Troubles (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), p. 10 and chapter 2.
Leon Epstein, Britain—Uneasy Ally (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 9.
F. S. Northedge, British Foreign Policy—The Process of Readjustment 1945–1961 (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1962), p. 32.
George Kennan, Memoirs 1925–1950 (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1967), pp. 314–22.
Richard Rosecrance, Defense of the Realm (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. 45.
Charles de Gaulle, The Complete War Memoirs (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), p. 557.
Alfred Havighurst, Twentieth-Century Britain (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), pp. 409, 462.
Richard Neustadt, Alliance Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), pp. 30–55.
Phyllis Deana and W. A. Cole, British Economic Growth 1688–1959 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1962), Table 73.
Richard Caves and associates, Britain’s Economic Prospects (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1968), p. 279.
Leon Epstein, “British Foreign Policy”, p. 51 in Roy Macridis (ed.), Foreign Policy in World Politics (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1962).
Samuel Beer, British Politics in the Collectivist Age (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1965), 205–7.
Samuel Beer, The British Political System (New York: Random House, 1974), pp. 71–2.
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© 1979 Arthur Cyr
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Cyr, A. (1979). The British Role. In: British Foreign Policy and the Atlantic Area. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04612-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04612-6_2
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