This is a book about Britain’s presentproblems. It is also about the BritishEmpire.There have been many books aboutpost-war Britain. There have beenmany books about the modern development of the British Empire. But therehas been no book about the crisis ofBritain and the British Empire—takenas a unity. Yet it is precisely thisunity that is the secret to the understanding of Britain’s crisis today.This book is concerned with lifeand death questions of the future ofBritain, all of which are inseparablybound up with the question of theEmpire and the problems ofthe peoplesof the Empire. Its purpose is to showthe path of comradeship of the Britishpeople and the peoples in the countriesof the present Empire to unite in ending a system of relations which injuresboth, and to advance to a new basisfor the solution of their problems
Such was the general character of the policy and strategy of the cold war, as it came to be known (the term was originally coined in the United States to describe the policy adopted in its first expression in the Truman Doctrine in 1947), or of peace through strength, which became the official policy of the Western Powers during the decade following the second world war. This theory of the cold war, which governed Western official policy during these years, poisoned international relations for a decade. By rejecting the alternative theory of peaceful co-existence put forward by the Socialist world during these same years, and by assuming the inevitable division of the world into opposing armed camps, seen as moving towards a future prospective or even inevitable world war, and by basing every detail, policy and strategic calculation on this analysis of the world situation, this theory barred the way to international co-operation. Only the visible bankruptcy of
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4. The New Holy Alliance It would be a misconception to regard the Atlantic Alliance as only an organisation for a possible future war against the Soviet Union. As with its predecessor, the Anti-Comintern Pact, the public 326 CRISIS OF BRITAIN AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE aim of the intensive military and strategic preparations was directed against the Soviet Union and against the Communist menace. But just as the Anti-Comintern Pact contained within this fagade the aggressive and predatory aims of German, Italian and Japanese imperialism, so the Atlantic War Alliance contained within its anti-Soviet fagade the aggressive and predatory aims ofAmerican, British and Western European imperialism. In the case of the Atlantic Alliance, however, the predominant position ofAmerican imperialism was so outstanding that the British and European Empires held a secondar
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In the same way as the Axis opened its war offensive with a series of regional wars, in eastern Asia, Abyssinia and Spain, which were the prelude to world war, so the Atlantic Alliance opened its war offensive with a series of regional wars, in Eastern Asia and in South-east Asia, and through varying degrees of military operations of undeclared war in the Middle East and Northern Africa. The Constitution ofthe North Atlantic Treaty was framed in very wide and elastic terms in such a way as to permit its military clauses to come into operation in any part ofthe world and under virtually any circumstances judged suitable by its participants. This was the special significance of the pivotal Clause 4: The parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of t
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It will be observed that the machinery of the Treaty was designed to come into operation, not merely in the event of an armed attack against a member state, but in the event of an alleged threatcouched in the vaguest possible termsto the territorial integrity (including the colonial empires) or political independence or security of any one ofthem (e.g. in the event of a Communist or pro-peace majority in a parliament); and that the judgment of this threat was to depend, not on the opinion of the state concerned, but on the opinion of any of them, i.e. of the United States. Under what conditions might the military provisions of the EMPIRE AND WAR 327 Atlantic Treaty come into operation and unloose a new world war? This has remained a carefully guarded strategic secret. When this question was explicitly put in the United States Senate to the Secretary for Defence, Louis Johnson, the latter refused to give a public reply. Senator Connally asked who would determin
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