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SUEZ AND BRITAIN'S DECLINE AS A WORLD POWER*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2012

G. C. PEDEN
G. C. PEDEN*
Affiliation:
University of Stirling
*
Ardvurich, Leny Feus, Callander FK17 8ASgeorge.peden@stir.ac.uk
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Abstract

The Suez crisis is widely believed to have contributed significantly to Britain's decline as a world power. Eden's miscalculation of American reaction to the attack on Egypt was damaging to Britain's reputation and fatal to his career. However, his actions were contrary to received wisdom in Whitehall. The crisis merely confirmed Britain's dependence on the United States and had no lasting impact on Anglo-American relations. Britain's relationship with its informal and formal empire was already changing before 1956, and the turn from the commonwealth to Europe owed little to Suez. Examination of policy reviews in Whitehall before and after the Suez crisis shows that the Foreign Office, Commonwealth Relations Office, and Colonial Office were slow to accept the need for change in Britain's world role. Insofar as they did from 1959 it was because of Treasury arguments about the effect of high defence expenditure on the economy, and slow growth of the United Kingdom's population compared with the United States, the European Economic Community, and the Soviet Union.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , December 2012 , pp. 1073 - 1096
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to the British Academy for funding the research and to Gill Bennett for commenting on an earlier draft of the article.

References

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