Missing the nuclear boat? British policy and French military nuclear ambitions during the EURATOM foundation negotiations, 1955-56

This paper examines the neglected nuclear dimension of the 'relaunch' of Europe at Messina. France favoured British membership of EURATOM and some interests in Britain saw the commercial and diplomatic advantages of Britain's leadership of the European nuclear industry. However, the possibility of a French military nuclear programme and European nuclear proliferation compounded Britain's established reluctance either to participate in European integration or to jeopardize the prospect of Anglo-American nuclear weapons cooperation. Britain's aversion to using the hypothetical 'nuclear card' is a recurrent theme in Anglo-French diplomacy.     

Britain's power and influence: Dealing with three roles and the Wilson government's defence debate at Chequers in November 1964

Prior to the advent of the Wilson government, there existed a large number of official memoranda and reports on Britain's power and influence in the world. Central to Whitehall's concern was the discovery of some means of reducing the cost of maintaining Britain's three main strategic roles - nuclear deterrence, the defence of western Europe and East of Suez. It was clear that Britain should not, and could not, maintain these three roles indefinitely, a view which was shared by Labour ministers at the Chequers meeting. This article examines the evolution of Whitehall's thinking on Britain's long-term world role during the period before and after Labour came into power in October 1964, and concludes that British ministers and officials began to consider Britain's eventual disengagement from bases East of Suez, a disengagement which was finally announced by the Wilson government in July 1967.     

Binding Prometheus: How the 19th Century Expansion of Trade Impeded Britain's Ability to Raise an Army

This article explores how the dramatic expansion of British trade in the decades prior to World War I affected Britain's ability to raise an army. We first develop a simple institutionally based model of British army recruiting which we then perturb by expanding trade while holding all other variables constant. Our theoretical analysis suggests that the expansion of trade would impede Britain's ability to raise an army, a prediction that finds substantial support in the historical record using both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that trade enhances a state's military power, we find that the expansion of trade did not ease Britain's resource constraints by making labor more freely available for military purposes. Rather, by raising the civilian demand for labor, the expansion of trade made labor more expensive and difficult to mobilize, even as a more effective army became more important to British strategy.     

A 'Week that Changed the World': Britain and Nixon's China Visit of 21-28 February 1972

British diplomats considered President Nixon's China visit of February 1972 a major political success. But while they admired the Realpolitik of Henry Kissinger, the President's National Security Adviser, they were irritated by his reticence regarding the initiative, and by the way in which this impeded their own efforts to raise the status of Britain's diplomatic mission in Peking. Initial American objections to any change in Britain's stance on the admission of the People's Republic to the UN weakened their negotiating position, and led to a protracted tussle with Peking over the status of Taiwan. Marginalized by Kissinger's conduct, the British drew some satisfaction from the fact that the State Department seemed equally by-passed     

British Policy and the Ruhr Crisis 1922-24

This article provides an overview of British policy during a defining episode in the interwar period — the Ruhr crisis of 1923-4. The author assesses the external considerations influencing Britain's policy (especially the roles of France, Germany, and the United States), and also explores the processes of foreign policy making within Britain's complex bureaucratic system. In particular, the relationship between the Foreign Office and the Treasury is analyzed and its impact on European policy assessed. The article challenges traditional views of British policy at this time, concluding that it was far more complex, but also far more limited and constrained, than previous studies would suggest.     

Accredited to Africa: British diplomatic representation and African experience, c. 1960-95

How justified is the complaint sometimes voiced by British businessmen and other UK visitors to contemporary Africa that, compared to 'the [good old] colonial days', Britain's FCO representatives have no experience of Africa and little idea about who's who and what's going on in their bailiwick? The aim of this article is to construct a professional profile of Britain's Heads of Mission assigned to newly independent African states over the past 35 years, with a view to assessing the extent of their African experience. This period also neatly coincides with what in one sense can be interpreted as a single FO generation, in that the mean entry age into the Diplomatic Service is around 25 and the maximum retiring age is a strict 60. The statistical biodata on which the argument is premised are presented in the 19 Mission Tables appended. The article concludes with an examination of the major issues surrounding the question of 'African experience' among those Heads of Mission.     

Keeping a Foot in the Door: Britain's China Policy, 1945-50

Based on Britain and China 1945-1950 (DBPO, 2002), this article examines four major themes in Britain's China policy between 1945 and 1950: British attitudes towards Chinese communism and China's civil war, Anglo-American relations over China, attempts to restore and sustain British commerce in China, and the future of Hong Kong. The central feature of policy was to 'keep a foot in the door', even under a communist government, to protect British interests. Only modest success was achieved. British officials were divided over the issue of Chinese communism and Britain miscalculated the timescale in the ending of the civil war. The US administration proved largely uncooperative over China, and British commerce was eventually squeezed out. Hong Kong survived as a British colony. Amidst the considerable thought given to the future of Hong Kong, and to Britain's ability to defend it, intelligence reported that the communists had no plans to seize the colony.     

Regulations as Arbiters of Risk: Great Britain, Germany, and the Hazardous Waste Trade in Western Europe

This article seeks to explain why Great Britain is one of the world's largest importers of hazardous wastes, while Germany, in contrast, is a waste exporter. Why one country exhibits such risk-acceptance behavior, while another is so risk averse, I argue, depends on differences between their national systems of environmental regulation. The style and structure of Britain's regulatory system, unlike that of Germany and its other partners in Western Europe, gives a high degree of leeway to private firms, filtering out the preferences of environmental groups and public opinion, thus enabling and facilitating the importation of hazardous wastes by waste disposal companies. The empirical section tests this argument against two alternative explanations: a state-centric explanation based on individual government's calculations of the relevant costs and benefits associated with the waste trade, and second, a "comparative advantage" explanation, based on the technological superiority of Britain's waste disposal facilities. The conclusion draws out the implication for international environmental regulation and for domestic-level regulatory change.     

British power and stability: the historical record

This article provides an overview of British foreign policy and the European balance of power from the late nineteenth century to the early Cold War. British attitudes towards the Continent, like those of the continental Powers toward Britain, are bound to remain ambivalent. When looking back to the history of these complex relations, two main readings stand out. The first is that Britain's attempts to underwrite European stability from Waterloo to the present day left the country exhausted and stripped of its Empire. The other reading perceives in these costly efforts a successful preservation of British integrity and independence. What allowed, for many years, the country to have the luxury of choices with regard to its relations with Europe was the underlying security of the home islands and the existence of a vast Empire overseas. Examining in broad brush strokes the idea and practice of the balance as Britain's international position altered in the half century or so before 1950, the case is made that whatever the reading of these complex relations, the British were always 'reluctant Europeans'.     

浅议越南与中国近代工业起步的比较

一、中国与越南工业起步情况概述 中国与越南的近代史都可谓一篇关乎民族独立的"血泪史".两国都遭受过内忧外患:外国殖民者的入侵和本国封建统治者的压榨使得两国人民的生活陷入了水深火热.政治上,两国都由独立自主的国家沦为列强的半殖民地或殖民地;经济上,自给自足的封建经济逐渐解体,新的经济体制孕育而生.列强的枪炮惊醒了两国的有识之士,他们了解到当国民正为本国农业而自豪的时候,西方国家已经完成了二次工业革命.     

浅谈1914年之前的英属马来亚华侨社会

在二战以前,英属马来亚一般是指英国在马来半岛上的势力范围,但严格说来,这一称谓也包括英国在马来群岛及其他地方的保护领地,例如英属北婆罗洲、文莱、沙捞越以及纳闽岛和圣诞岛等.本文所指的英属马来亚仅限于英国在马来半岛上的势力范围,即马来半岛上的海峡殖民地、马来联邦和马来属邦.     

“Brighter Futures, Better Times”: Britain, the Empire, and Anglo-American Economic Competition in Cuba, 1898-1920

This article examines Anglo-American economic competition in Cuba in the crucial twenty years after 1898. Anglo-American economic competition on the new island nation suggest a number of things about the nature of British and American imperialism, the difficult position of smaller countries—and economies—like Cuba, and the “inevitability” of American economic pre-eminence in the evolving twentieth century. And as an important corollary to the British dimension of this question is the role that Canada and Canadian overseas investment played in the extension of Britain's economic power and influence in the wider world.     

Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz and the rebirth of the ottoman empire

For more than three decades Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz played a crucial role in the development of military relations between the German and Ottoman Empires. He trained and advised the Ottoman army, and commanded Ottoman troops in the First World War. He was a firm believer in the possibility of the Ottoman Empire's political and military revival, this belief reflecting his own conservative, militarist ideology. From 1898 onwards he was also a firm advocate of a German-Ottoman alliance in a future war against Britain, arguing that Ottoman expeditionary forces sent against Egypt and India could deal mortal blows to Britain's world power.     

The British and the 1960 soviet attack on the office of united nations secretary-general

This article examines the 1960 soviet attack on Dag Hammarskjold and its proposal to reform the office of the UN Secretary-General into a troika and the Soviet lines, the article seeks to show that the British had sufficiant concerns about the direction Hammarskjold was taking the office of Secretary-General to be more in line with Soviet attitudes than they would have been willing to admit publicly. British support for Hammarskjold in the Congo crisis was not unqualified and the article notes that following Hammarskjold's death, it was not Britain's interest to see Hammarskjold's successor being given the political freedom he had enjoyed.     

Anglo-American Competition in Central America, 1905-13: The Role of Sir Lionel Carden

Lionel Carden's years as a senior diplomat coincided with the rise of American power in, and Great Britain's strategic disengagement from, the Caribbean region. This changing order naturally gave rise to complications: Great Britain had extensive economic interests in the region, and diplomatic personnel - Carden in particular - endeavoured to protect these interests while at the same time the Foreign Office sought to maintain a good relationship with the United States. Carden's vigorous defence of British economic interests in Central America earned him the reputation in Washington of being 'anti-American'. Carden, however, was most likely acting as a 'buffer' to deflect criticism from policy makers at home.     

Lord Ponsonby and the Churchill affair of 1836: An episode in the eastern question

William Churchill, a British merchant in Turkey, accidentally wounded an Ottoman boy and, after being savagely beaten, was imprisoned in the notorious bagnio by the Reis Effendi and Achmet Pasha. Lord Ponsonby, the British ambassador, sought dismissal of these ministers. His tactics and threats of demands that his government would make, couched in extravagant language, provoked Russian intervention and alarmed the other powers. Before the British government could react, the Sultan dismissed the Reis Effendi, but Britain's failure to demand dismissal of Achmet left Russian influence supreme. Ponsonby, however, emerged from defeat with credit, and Churchill received compensation.     

Austen Chamberlain and Britain's Relations with France, 1924-1929

Several historians have suggested that Austen Chamberlain's Francophile tendencies during his period as foreign secretary between 1924 and 1929 were the defining features of his European diplomatic strategy. By examining four key events: the rejection of the Geneva Protocol, the conclusion of the Treaty of Locarno, the Anglo-French Compromise on disarmament and the negotiation of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, this article argues that Chamberlain's relationship with the French was not entirely harmonious. After the high point of Locarno, Britain's relations with France became increasingly tense because of Chamberlain's growing disillusionment with Briand's willingness to pursue a diplomatic agenda that did not have at its heart a reinvigorated Entente Cordiale.     

Separated by the Atlantic: The British and de Gaulle, 1958-1967

The British and French held divergent views from the late 1940s on relations with the United States and on the development of European integration. Differences between the two countries caused particular strain once General Charles de Gaulle returned to power in 1958. The clash that ensued between British and French policies towards the Atlantic Alliance and Europe during his presidency is the subject of this article. It suggests that while the British were unable to overcome de Gaulle's resistance to their membership of the EEC, Britain's fortunes in Europe were nevertheless improved by the Wilson government's response to de Gaulle's actions in the Atlantic Alliance.     

Agonizing Reappraisals: Anthony Eden, John Foster Dulles and the Crisis of European Defence, 1953-54

In 1953, the US government threatened to undertake an 'agonizing reappraisal' of its commitment to European security if the rearmament of West Germany through the European Defence Community (EDC) came to nothing. Although many in Europe dismissed the threat as a bluff, the British government, and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden in particular, took it extremely seriously. In September 1954, following the demise of the EDC, the British broke with long-standing tradition and pledged to retain military forces in Germany at a set level for as long as their European allies so desired. This was Britain's own 'agonizing reappraisal', undertaken at Eden's prompting to neutralise the danger of the United States implementing its own version.