Someone Else's Empire British Illusions and American Hegemony

Someone Else's Empire British Illusions and American Hegemony
- ISBN 13:
9781804291481
- ISBN 10:
180429148X
- Format: Hardcover
- Copyright: 11/07/2023
- Publisher: Verso
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Summary
Someone’s Else’s Empire coolly reassesses Britain’s relationship with the United States. Elite descriptions of Britain’s position in the world (‘punching above our weight’) are untenable, Tom Stevenson argues. Yet there is a refusal, in most parts of society, to examine the assumptions behind them. Half a century after British withdrawal from “east of Suez,” why has the Indo-Pacific tilt become a Whitehall priority? Why are newly opened Persian Gulf bases working side by side with Saudi and Emirati forces engaged in the catastrophic war on Yemen?
The impetus for so many decisions about British foreign policy comes from a desire to maintain lieutenant rank with Washington. But British leaders and defence specialists tend to dislike seeing Britain framed by American power. A great effort is required to clear away the build-up of irrelevant, nostalgic detritus around “Global Britain.” Stevenson looks at the infrastructure of a US world order re-energised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and fits the UK into the picture without the usual euphemisms. It is one thing to station military forces around the world to maintain your empire, he observes, but quite another to do so for someone else’s.
The impetus for so many decisions about British foreign policy comes from a desire to maintain lieutenant rank with Washington. But British leaders and defence specialists tend to dislike seeing Britain framed by American power. A great effort is required to clear away the build-up of irrelevant, nostalgic detritus around “Global Britain.” Stevenson looks at the infrastructure of a US world order re-energised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and fits the UK into the picture without the usual euphemisms. It is one thing to station military forces around the world to maintain your empire, he observes, but quite another to do so for someone else’s.