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Against a backdrop of pressing economic and strategic concerns shaping British policies after the Second World War, Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, embarked on an official tour of Africa in November-December 1947. He visited South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt, as well as other African territories. Montgomery's controversial report and the reactions to it cast light on British attitudes towards and perceptions of her African empire in the immediate postwar period, as shaped by Labour government defence and developmental policies. At the same time, it invites reconsideration of Montgomery's place in imperial and military historiography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis explores British perceptions and roles regarding the negotiation of the West German-Soviet Moscow treaty of 1970. Whilst supportive of West German Ostpolitik, Britain has received a very marginal role in the historiography of the treaty. By exploring the consultation process in the so-called Bonn Group of the United States, Britain, France, and West Germany, this exegesis explains that Britain played a leading role in building consensus and forming schemes to resolve the issue of the treatment of Quadripartite Rights and Responsibilities concerning Berlin in the Moscow treaty package. As background, this essay also explains the policies of the Harold Wilson's Labour government and Edward Heath's Conservative government regarding European détente in Europe, including West German Ostpolitik. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only David Lloyd George of the Big Four survived to play a major role in early post-war diplomacy, remaining as British premier until October 1922. This analysis assesses the development of his ideas and policies with particular reference to his war aims speech of 5 January 1918, his Peace Conference Fontainebleau Memorandum of 25 March 1919, and the paper handed to the French premier, Aristide Briand, at Cannes on 4 January 1922. John Maynard Keynes accused Lloyd George of being "rooted in nothing," but Edward House's grudging acknowledgement that "With all his faults, he is by birth, instinct and upbringing, a liberal" seems a fairer assessment. He attempted to put his ideas, based on self-determination, trade, disarmament, and a broad sense of what was just, into practice in his ambitious attempt to re-engage Germany and the Soviet Union into the mainstream of international politics at the 1922 Genoa Conference. By then his credibility with his French counterparts and Tories at home was much depleted. Furthermore, he neglected laying the tedious but necessary foundations on which to build his vision and the constraints of international and domestic politics thwarted his proposed panacea to post-war problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis charts the changes in British aid policy under the Margaret Thatcher government (1979-1990). In particular, it examines the impact of so-called neo-liberal ideology in overseas development strategy in an era where "structural adjustment"—aid in return for market-based reforms—became World Bank and International Monetary Fund orthodoxy. There is some evidence to show British increases in multilateral aid during the 1980s supported a neo-liberal aid policy. Bilateral aid policy, however, demonstrated a subordination of aid to foreign policy and a pro-business—not ideologically pro-market or neo-liberal—alignment. One of the results of these structural changes was the Pergau Dam scandal at the end of the Thatcher years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of balancing are under assault. On theoretical and historical grounds, realists and non-realists challenge the claim that states balance against shifts in aggregate material capabilities. In addressing these claims, this article presents a more granular and finely tuned theory of balancing. It contends that states do, in fact, balance effectively. While foreign policy leaders regularly ignore aggregate power developments, they do disaggregate power to identify threatening states and target their balancing against specific threatening elements. Targeted-balancing theory explains why some historical cases coded as under-balancing are really instances of appropriate balancing; why a more powerful state's military buildup, or alliance formation against a weaker state, can constitute balancing; and why some instances of non- or missing-balancing against a more powerful state do not undermine balance-of-power theory. I provide support for my claims through an analysis of Britain's balancing against Germany and Italy between 1936 and 1939. Rather than under-balancing, or failing to balance altogether, London target-balanced against the specific threatening elements of German and Italian power. Given that power is rarely fungible across elements, London ranked other components of their power as secondary, and even last, in terms of Britain's rearmament priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses issues and topics concerning the agreement between the U.S., Great Britain and the Soviet Union on the monitoring of nuclear weapons tests during a conference held on November 24, 1959 in Geneva, Switzerland. The negotiations among scientific experts has called for considerations on technical evidence concerning the discovery of underground explosions. In contrast to the success achieved by the international scientific community two years ago, renewed negotiations among scientific experts concerning the discovery of underground explosions have ended in deadlock and mutual recriminations. This paper highlights some of the factors that have led to the failure in Geneva.

This article, based on the Robert Menzies Lecture delivered by the author in London on 31 October 2017, provides a survey of Britain and Australia’s bilateral relationship from the 1930s to the present. In the earlier period particular attention is given to the role of Sir Robert Menzies. The relationship is examined in the light of Britain’s accession to the EEC/EU with reference to bilateral trade, security and global politics, and migration, with emphasis on strong people-to-people links. The author expresses hopes for renewed co-operation over free trade, a rules-based world outlook and links between universities in a post-Brexit world. He argues that although the bilateral relationship went through some troubled times in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, it is now getting back to the natural strength that it deserves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

From 1946–1963, MI5 operated a South-East Asian regional headquarters in Singapore: Security Intelligence Far East (SIFE). This article responds to growing interest in theatre-level intelligence organisation and the importance of intelligence to Britain’s Cold War and decolonisation by examining the performance of SIFE. On the organisational level, SIFE was strongest when it remained wedded to its charter functions and closely adhered to the priorities of its principal consumer: the Commissioner-General for South-East Asia. Its assessments were influential in shaping decision-makers’ understandings of key regional developments, although this did not always translate into public policy. Lastly, SIFE enjoyed success in developing lasting liaison relationships to cement British influence, but failed to utilise these to improve its intake of raw intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1943, the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) launched one of the Allied intelligence services' biggest efforts to foster resistance within Nazi Germany in cooperation with Slovene partisans in the Carinthian borderland. The so-called Clowder Mission systematically supplied weapons and other military assistance to the partisans who, in summer and autumn 1944, offered the strongest -- albeit often neglected by scholars -- militant resistance within the borders of Nazi Germany. Although SOE's operational aim of externally fomenting Austrian separatist, patriotic resistance deeper inside the country failed, its strategic aim of assisting the separation of Austria from Germany and re-establishing an independent Austrian nation-state proved to be sound. At the same time, the Carinthian Slovene partisans fell short of attaining their political objectives. This article analyses the paradoxical results of British subversive politics towards Austria and Slovenia. It traces the impact of the SOE's agenda and the origins of the Moscow Declaration on the reestablishment of Austria, and elaborates on the character of British-Slovene cooperation, its success and its breakdown in the context of British subversive politics, inter-Allied rivalries and competition, and the geopolitics of resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THE GOUZENKO AFFAIR IS REFERRED TO as the event that started the Cold War. This article draws on recently declassified documents that shed new light on Britain's role in this affair, particularly that of the Foreign Office and the British High Commissioner to Canada. The documents reveal how the British had a major part in directing the response to Igor Gouzenko's defection in 1945. This event revealed the need for increased counterespionage security, but it also became a spectacle that directed the public's attention away from the British connection: specifically, the role of Alan Nunn May, a British nuclear scientist who had provided the Soviets with classified information. Instead, the public's interest was centred on Soviet spies, communism as a subversive force, and the brewing Soviet-US conflict. These newly declassified sources demonstrate how it was the British intelligence services and the British government that went to great lengths to help focus the public's attention in this direction. They took great pains to direct Canadian policymaking, which included working to discourage Canada's prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King from handling the affair privately with the Soviet ambassador, and were likely behind the infamous press leak to US reporter Drew Pearson that forced King to call a Royal Commission and publicize the affair. With the help of the British government and intelligence services, the Cold War began. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British government had played an important role during the 1950s and 1960s as a mediator in the Arab–Israeli conflict, most notably through the development of Project Alpha between 1954 and 1956, and through the negotiation of United Nations Security Council resolution 242 in 1967. Between 1977 and 1979, British Prime Minister James Callaghan played a supporting role to US President Jimmy Carter as he negotiated the Camp David Accords of 1978. Callaghan adopted a pro-Israeli stance, cultivating close relations with the Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and defending Begin’s position over key issues, particularly his reluctance to remove settlements from the occupied territories. In this respect Callaghan’s government departed from established British policy, even abstaining over United Nations Security Council resolution 446 in March 1979 which condemned continuing Israeli settlement activity. This resulted in damage to Britain’s relations with moderate Arab states such as Egypt and Jordan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1963 to 1966 Britain fought an undeclared war against Indonesia in the jungles of Borneo. Existing accounts of the tactical outcomes of this campaign take at face value the comments produced after the event by such key individuals as Sir Walter Walker, until March 1965 the British Director of Borneo Operations, who regarded the campaign as 'a complete success'. This article demonstrates that this narrative is a retrospective judgement and that senior British officers at the time regarded the conclusion of the campaign as a success for Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most complex issues facing British rule on the local municipal level towards the end of the Mandate period was the problem of Jaffa's Jewish neighbourhoods. This question, which emerged with the outbreak of the 1936 disturbances, engaged the government thereafter until the end of the Mandate. The demand by the residents of Jaffa's Jewish neighbourhoods for annexation to Tel Aviv – actually for municipal detachment from Jaffa – constituted the root of the problem. In this setting of the sharpening of relations between the authorities and the Jews and Arabs in 1945–1947, all three involved parties found themselves deeply immersed in it in the attempt to bring about its resolution. The annexation problem ceaselessly preoccupied the institutions of the Jewish Yishuv as a Zionist–Yishuv struggle of the highest order. This period gave rise to a series of unprecedented moves by the Jewish side, which were intended to influence the British government toward solving the problem. The article examines its development of the problem from the viewpoint of the three sides concerned in the years 1945–1947, with the focus on the policy line adopted by the Jewish side, its implications and its results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on the Anglo-Irish summit meeting between Irish Taoiseach Charles J. Haughey and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher held in Dublin, Ireland on December 8, 1980. It examines the observations of journalists Stephen Collins and Eamonn O'Kane on the significance of the meeting on the Anglo-Irish relations. It also explores how Haughey and Thatcher viewed the conflict in Northern Ireland during their respective tenures.

The article describes the work of the British Parliamentary Group for World Government. Since the end of the Second World War, one of the hopeful features in the political scene has been the development of an all-party group of legislators within the British Parliament. The British Group launched in 1951 a World Association of Parliamentarians for World Government which is successfully building up similar groups in the legislatures of many countries. Each year delegations are sent to an International Conference of these Parliamentarians. Indications showed that the movement is developing on a worldwide scale with great rapidity.

The article discusses the reasons why Great Britain is affected by the American loyalty-security policy. The author states that the loyalty-security program of the U.S. resulted in action within Great Britain. He uses as an example the use of British police officers to seek evidence to support the indictment of Owen Lattimore. He asserts that the loyalty-security program has limited British access to Americans and to the U.S. He also argues that the loyalty-security program affects the climate of the Atlantic alliance and the quality of American foreign policy.

The article reports on the cooperative exchange between the U.S. and Great Britain to develop nuclear energy during the Second World War. The discoveries in Britain by Ernest Rutherford and others have realized that the possibility of nuclear energy is due to a great extent. It is less widely known how close was the cooperation between the two countries in the early stages of the wartime development, however, the collaboration certainly led to the atomic bomb and opened the way for other and more peaceful applications of nuclear energy.

The campaign fought by predominantly British Commonwealth forces in North Africa during the Second World War, in many respects, represented a final example of imperial solidarity and unity. Whilst the United States participated during the final stages prior to the surrender of Axis forces in May 1943, it was Britain and its Empire that provided most of the resources and manpower and contested most of the battles. Canada, however, played only a relatively minor part and this paper seeks to examine the associated decision-making process that took place in London and Ottawa and discuss the tensions that arose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article concerns British official policy and political propaganda disseminated in the first year of World War II towards Hungary and Romania. The story is told in the broad framework of the relationship between foreign propaganda, foreign policy implementation, and war strategy. As these embody short-term strategic aims and long-term political objectives, the analysis throws light upon the often differing requirements of British diplomacy, war strategy, and post-war plans. This context is discussed through the prism of the British evaluation of the minority and territorial dispute in Transylvania between Budapest and Bucharest. Such a perspective has been of little concern in the historiography, although it provides a means for putting into question certain basic assumptions underpinning existing models in the history of British policy towards the region. Although these countries lay on the periphery of British war strategy, London aimed at expanding its political influence there during and after the war. For one, the analysis of this dichotomy tells us about the paradoxes, dynamics, and interplays of short- and long-term political, economic, and strategic interests; for another, it answers the question, whether any broad patterns could be reached about British Central and South-East European policy, or did actions distinctively differ towards individual countries? Regarding this last question, it is offered here that, precisely because these countries lay outside of primary imperial interest, standard diplomatic and strategic procedures were subverted, criteria were less carefully calculated, and historical reflexes and prejudices governed British viewpoints and actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines an aspect of British counter-insurgency in Palestine in the 1930s during the Arab revolt there against British colonial rule and Jewish settlement: the pro-British, anti-rebel Palestinian militia ‘peace bands’, associated with the Palestinian Nashashibi family and raised with British and Jewish military and financial assistance, and with support from the British Consul in Damascus, Gilbert MacKereth. Using Hebrew, Arabic and untapped local British regimental sources, it details how the British helped to raise the peace bands and the bands’ subsequent activities in the field; it assesses the impact of the bands on the course of the Arab revolt; and it sets out the views of the British Army towards those willing to work with them. In doing this, it extends the recent thesis of Hillel Cohen on Palestinian collaboration with Zionists to include the British and it augments the useful but dated work of Yehoshua Porath and Yuval Arnon-Ohanna on the subject. Such a study is significant for our understanding of British methods of imperial pacification, especially the British Army’s manipulation during colonial unrest of ‘turned’ insurgents as a ‘loyalist’ force against rebels, an early form of ‘pseudo’ warfare. The collaboration by Palestinians resonates with broader histories of imperial and neo-imperial rule, it extends military histories on colonial pacification methods, and it provides rich, new texture on why colonial subjects resisted and collaborated with the emergency state, using the Palestinians as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis re-instates the importance of the 1958 British intervention in Jordan within the study of Anglo–American relations and the revisionist literature on Suez. It does so by challenging the idea of British subservience to American foreign policy after the 1956 crisis, and it reveals two key lessons learnt by London: that Britain’s economy, power, and influence were in decline and that Britain could no longer intervene in the Middle East without American support. Having learnt these lessons, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan proved to be a shrewd political actor who used the opportunity of the Jordan intervention to turn the policy of the Dwight Eisenhower Administration to British ends, regaining Britain’s maximum power and prestige for the minimum loss of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Following the Second World War, after a period when European markets were disrupted and Anglo-Cuban bilateral links had stagnated, Cuban diplomacy engaged in a diplomatic offensive aimed at regaining this market. This article starts by showing how the thinking of the ruling elite of the island was guided by a proactive foreign policy implemented at two interdependent levels: using normal diplomatic channels combined with economic and trade missions. In the second part, the stage immediately following the victory of the revolutionary forces in Cuba will be evaluated, during which time policy making was dominated by commonly held ideas about the importance of commercial and economic links. Finally, the combination of factors that interacted to upset this dynamic will be evaluated: US pressure, British promises to the American government and the growing close relationship between Cuba and the Soviet Bloc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper offers a theory of military retrenchment by states in relative decline. I argue that a declining state will choose to withdraw foreign military deployments and security commitments when there exists a suitable regional 'successor' to which it can devolve its current responsibilities. The degree of a successor's suitability and the strategic importance of the region to the declining state interact to determine when and how rapidly retrenchment will occur. Importantly, this devolutionary model of retrenchment predicts significant variations in retrenchment patterns across a declining state's multiple regional commitments. It advances the literature by producing nuanced predictions of precisely where, when, and how quickly retrenchment will occur. This paper assesses the theory empirically through an examination of Great Britain's varying regional retrenchment strategies prior to World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]