An African Cuba? Britain and the Zanzibar Revolution, 1964

This article examines the response of the British government to the revolution in Zanzibar in January 1964. It demonstrates that, once the safety of British nationals had been assured, British concerns centred upon the possibility that the new regime might become susceptible to communist influence. These fears appeared to be realised as British influence in Zanzibar diminished and the new government welcomed communist aid and advisers. In the aftermath of successful military interventions in support of moderate regimes in Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika, and under pressure from Washington to take decisive action, the British prepared a series of plans for military action in Zanzibar. None of these was enacted and the final plan was scrapped in December. The paper examines the range of factors that undermined British diplomacy and inhibited the government from taking military action in Zanzibar. In doing so it illustrates the complexity of Britain's relationship with postcolonial regimes in East Africa and the difficulties that it faced when trying to exert influence in a region recognised by both London and Washington as a British sphere of influence.     

The suppression of the Congo rebellions and the rise of Mobutu, 1963–5

ABSTRACT

The first years of the Congo as an independent state were marked by instability and rebellion as local nationalist struggles became embroiled in what NATO powers feared could lead to the loss of hegemony over the country and its vast mineral wealth, if not into a theatre of Cold War politics. This article focuses on the series of rebellions, including the Mulelist revolt and the Simba uprising, that took place in the Congo from late 1963 into 1965. Belgian, British, and US diplomatic and Congolese military sources are used to analyse the intervention of the West against the Congolese rebels, in support of the Congo government in Léopoldville headed by Prime Minister Tshombe and President Kasa Vubu. Belgian, US, and Congolese sources on this military campaign led by Belgian officers, known as ‘the Ommegang’, allow a detailed analysis of the planning and execution of the assault on the rebel stronghold Stanleyville by Belgian officers, white mercenaries and the forces of the Congo Army, including the decision to deploy Belgian parachutists, dropped by US aircraft. These events culminated in the coup that brought Mobutu to political power in Congo in November 1965, marking out the trajectory of the county's history for the next three decades.     

A Technocratic Vision of Empire: Lord Montagu and the Origins of British Air Power

This article advances the existing literature on British imperial aeronautics by explaining how Lord John Montagu’s extensive collaboration with military and government officials during the first decades of powered flight expanded the global distribution of the air forces and anticipated their important later role in facilitating international communication and security. In reconsidering problems of conquest and governance through an aeronautical perspective, Montagu strengthened critical junctures between British civil and military affairs, while his innovative employment of the new technology also complicated divisions between the metropolis and periphery in ways that would intensify the destructiveness of modern warfare across the planet.     

上海金融业与太平洋战争爆发前上海的外汇市场

抗战爆发后．国民政府调整中的外汇政策和措施仍得以在上海执行。政府银行运用自有外汇、英美政府资金和相关银行先后介入．维持上海汇市。大部分外商银行是官方牌价外汇的争购者和暗市的主角,其市场行为在中美英政府联手推行外汇管理后有所约束。普通华商行庄未能在维持外汇市场方面发挥主动性作用,但以银钱业同业公会为代表的L海金融业仍奉西迂内地的国民政府为惟一合法的中央政府,国民政府的有关监管政策和措施大体上仍能令行禁止,这成为太平洋战争爆发前外汇市场得以维持的重要因素。日伪金融势力则始终是维持上海外汇市场的破坏力量。     

Caught between Realities: The American Revolution,the Continental Congress and Political Turmoil in the Bahama Islands

The American Revolution had a profound political, economic and social influence on the periphery colonies of the British Atlantic world, particularly in the Bahama Islands. The Continental Congress's imposition of a trade embargo against the British Empire drove island colonies, such as Bermuda and the Bahamas, to the point of starvation. Consequently, Bermudians and Bahamians petitioned the Congress for relief, offering military supplies in exchange for provisions, which led Congress to exempt both colonies from the embargo and form a general trade policy towards them. The American naval invasion of Nassau in March 1776, coupled with the ongoing trade between the islanders and the rebels, fuelled Governor Montfort Browne's fears of an internal conspiracy to bring the colony into the rebellion. These fears increased tensions between the governor, the Bahamian government and the inhabitants. Ultimately, the breakdown of the colonial government facilitated a planned coup d’état by the council to overthrow Governor Browne, a short-lived dictatorship by the governor and the end of the Congress's trade policy towards the islands. The effects of the American Revolution on the Bahamas demonstrate that the imperial conflict influenced the periphery colonies of the British Atlantic.     

Monarchy and constructing identity in ‘British’ Gibraltar,c.1800 to the present

British Gibraltar began as a fortress, and royal coronations, jubilees and visits were initially celebrated in Gibraltar primarily by the British military and the colonial government. However, a substantial civilian population developed, to service the garrison and engage in trade. Sections of this civil community, not British-by-birth, increasingly demonstrated their loyalty to the crown on such royal occasions, in order to raise their status internally, protect their interests and increase their political influence inside Gibraltar. Spanish participation in royal events in Gibraltar, especially by members of the military and political elites from across the frontier, were also once commonplace and in Gibraltar uncontested. However, the relationship with Spain deteriorated, especially from the 1950s. Gibraltar's civil community then used expressions of loyalty to the British crown on royal occasions to assert its Britishness and to emphasise the duty of the British government to resist Spanish claims.     

Stalin and Togliatti: Italy and the Origins of the Cold War/Tito: A Biography

The 1956 Suez Crisis has attracted enormous attention and been widely seen as marking a sea change in Britain's position in the Middle East and within the Anglo-American special relationship. Yet in September 1951 the Attlee government had already signalled waning British power in pulling back from major unilateral military action to defend Britain's single most important overseas asset: the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and its huge operations in Iran. What this crisis revealed of British aspirations in the Middle East and within the special relationship has not received the attention it deserves. This article examines the Attlee government's decision to ‘scuttle’ from Abadan in September 1951. It first places the decision in the context of Anglo-American relations and great cumulative pressure in favour of British military action. It then weighs various considerations claimed in the extant literature to explain the British decision. In doing so it disagrees with suggestions that British military intervention was precluded by an understanding between Truman and Attlee that such action was acceptable only in a narrow range of circumstances for fear of retaliatory Soviet intervention in Iran. It also argues that accounts that correctly emphasise US opposition to the use of force as the key restraint on the Attlee government could and should have gone further. Specifically, it needs to be better appreciated just how the Truman administration actively undermined potential British recourse to military intervention, infused other potential constraints with extra weight and helped delay a Cabinet decision until a point when armed intervention was least likely to achieve British ends.     

The limits of engagement: British foreign policy and the crisis in Zimbabwe

This article examines how the British government has responded to Zimbabwe’s ongoing crisis. This case raises several wider issues for British foreign policy, most notably the question of how much leverage London can exercise on the international scene in general, and over relatively small and weak states like Zimbabwe in particular. Zimbabwe’s crisis also raises profound questions about the appropriate balance between bilateral and multilateral policies, and between engaging in public criticism and conducting so–called ‘quiet diplomacy’. While bilateralism clearly has not worked, multilateralism has revealed its own frustrations, especially given the reluctance of many African elites within a number of organizations to criticize President Mugabe’s policies. This reluctance threatens to unravel the British Labour government’s stated objectives in Africa while at the same time raising important doubts over the credibility of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and whether an ‘Africa moment’ can be discerned in the manner articulated by prime minister Tony Blair.     

Civitatis Ghaniensis Conditor: Kwame Nkrumah,symbolic nationalism and the iconography of Ghanaian money 1957 – the Golden Jubilee

ABSTRACT. During his tenure as premier from independence in 1957 until he was ousted by a military and police coup in 1966, Kwame Nkrumah was the living personification of the Ghanaian nation‐state. As the self‐proclaimed Civitatis Ghaniensis Conditor– Founder of the State of Ghana – his image was minted on the new national money and printed on postage stamps. He erected a monument of himself in Accra, changed the national anthem to make references to himself, customised the national flag to match the colors of his CPP party, made his birthday a national day of celebration (National Founder's Day), named streets and universities after himself, and amended the constitution whereby he became Life President. Since the coup, many of the symbols of nationhood that Nkrumah constructed have been debated, demolished, reconsidered and reengineered by successive governments to rewrite the Ghanaian historical narrative. This article analyses the contentions of one of Nkrumah's first expressions of symbolic nationalism – that of the national coinage.     

Perpetual Alleluia and Sacred Violence: An Afterword

This paper re-examines Paul Schroeder's thesis concerning the new international order after 1815 and argues that the practicalities of power projection were as important in shaping foreign policy as were diplomatic principles and practices. Highlighting Wellington's role in policy-making, it re-assesses British interventions in Portugal in the 1820s to argue that the exercise of British power resulted from a range of influences apart from the adherence to the Concert system. British interventionism was constrained by the limitations of military and naval power, difficulties in securing co-operation with the Portuguese, and the nature of Portuguese politics and the Portuguese state. The experience and legacy of the Peninsular War also made British ministers sceptical about the potential impact of foreign interventions in the region during the 1820s. Interventions in Portugal demonstrated that Britain could not project power on a global or significant scale in areas where it did not locally command substantial war-making resources, as in India. Schroeder's emphasis on Concert diplomacy and C.A. Bayly's on global-reach fail, therefore, to capture the appropriate range of influences on power projection.     

Why the General said No

Based upon recently published volumes of French diplomatic documents, this review article examines the course of the negotiations for British entry into the European Economic Community from 1961 to 1963 and the reasons why France vetoed Britains application. It is clear that even before the British government launched its application, the French government was aware of the threat it posed to the cohesion of the Community and to French interests. It therefore pursued tactics of delay. The British, who were in a hurry to join, vainly sought to convince the French of their conversion to the Gaullist conception of a con–federal Europe that would be independent of both the Soviet Union and the United States, even dangling the prospect of nuclear cooperation before President de Gaulle. The latter's position inside France was relatively weak until he won a referendum on the direct election of the president in October 1962 and his party triumphed in the legislative elections the following month. De Gaulle then felt secure enough to tell Prime Minister Macmillan quite bluntly at their Rambouillet meeting on 15–16 December 1962 that he did not believe that Britain was ready for EEC membership. He had thus already made up his mind to exclude Britain before the Nassau agreement between President Kennedy and Mr Macmillan in which the former agreed to supply Britain with Polaris nuclear missiles, although this agreement confirmed his belief that Britain was excessively dependent upon the United States. Although economic questions—particularly those relating to the system of agricultural support and to Britain's request for special concessions to Australia, Canada and New Zealand—did play an important part in de Gaulle's decision, it is clear that political factors were uppermost in his mind. He did not want either a diluted Community or one in which there was a possible rival to French leadership.     

The Price for Austria's Security: Part I — Joseph II,the Russian Alliance,and the Ottoman War, 1787–1789

This article examines Lyndon Johnson's handling of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nuclear-sharing issue and specifically plans for a NATO Multilateral Force during the first three years of his presidency. The article argues that although Johnson did not confront the nuclear sharing/Multilateral Force issue directly for the first year of his presidency, he subsequently made sensible policy decisions in the face of a number of challenges. These included pressure for a speedy resolution of the nuclear-sharing issue from within his own State Department and from the government of the Federal Republic of Germany on the one side, and opposition to the Multilateral Force from the British and French governments on the other. The nuclear-sharing issue is discussed in the context of challenges to NATO, most notably French President Charles de Gaulle's rejection of US leadership and his withdrawal of French forces from NATO's integrated military structure in 1966 and broader debates about nuclear consultation within the alliance. The article concludes that by using the advisory process well and through some deft diplomacy, particularly refusing to demand a quick resolution to the nuclear-sharing problem, the Johnson administration had effectively resolved the nuclear-sharing issue by late 1966.     

Gzartoryski's Hôtel Lambert and the Great Powers in the Balkans, 1832–1848

A pragmatic, but focused, pursuit by British policy-makers of an alliance is often regarded as a central element in the genesis of the North Atlantic Treaty. Analysis of the issue of Scandinavian membership shows that British policy was not actually consistent regarding either means or ends. It was subject to internal debate, based upon conflicting assumptions in the Oslo embassy, the Foreign Office, and the armed forces. The Foreign Office's main concern was to provide Norway and Denmark with a sense of security so that they would take measures against internal subversion, while the military was more concerned to prevent British military resources being overstretched and were prepared to accept Scandinavian neutrality: they wished if possible to keep the cold war out of Scandinavia. Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and the Foreign Office did not believe this was possible, nor necessarily desirable, but were less than wholehearted about Norway and Denmark joining the pact on their own. Even in early 1949, when Soviet pressure was applied to Norway, Britain was ambivalent about whether Norway should be a founder-member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Although Britain strongly desired the alliance for long-term gains, they worked hard to ensure the form it took worked to meet their short-term needs.     

Getting Out of Belize: Britain’s Intractable Military Exit from Central America

With scant material interests at stake, and protection exacting a toll on military resources, Britain wanted out of Belize, its sole dependency in Central America. This desire became more pronounced by the 1970s as successive British governments sought to eliminate residual out-of-Europe political and military commitments. Exiting Belize, however, proved a three-decade challenge for Britain. Exploiting recently declassified British government documents, this article explains why leaving proved so intractable. The article explains how Guatemala’s territorial claim—and its threat to realise this claim by means of force—proved the main obstacle to Britain’s military exit. Repeated attempts in the 1970s towards a negotiated settlement with Guatemala failed. Instead the decade was marked by moments of acute tension. Unable to discount the possibility of a Guatemalan attack, Britain felt compelled to reinforce its military presence in the country at a time when it was trying to exit. Moreover, Britain had to offer continued protection as a necessary condition for Belize to proceed to independence in 1981. This post-independence defence guarantee was intended as a short-term measure, and Britain remained committed to ending its Belize commitment at the earliest opportunity. Yet British protection ended only in 1994. This article unpacks the political and military factors that best account for this protracted withdrawal.     

Communications,Qajar Irredentism and the Strategies of British India: The Makran Coast Telegraph and British Policy of Containing Persia in the East (Baluchistan)—Part II

Persian territorial designs in Baluchistan clashed with British interest to construct an Indo-European telegraph line through the Makran Coast, where Britain had close local allies in dispute with Persia. The British prime interest being the speedy construction of the line, they decided on bypassing these disputed territories by connecting Bushehr, through submarine cable, with Gwadar—which they believed, contrary to the Persians, to be non-Persian. The Persian government protested against the British infringement of her sovereign rights, adopting both diplomatic and military approaches. This forced the British government to check the legality of the Persian claims. But the arbitrary was neither neutral nor fair, with Britain opposing the suzerainty of Persia over the chiefs of western Makran, while acknowledging the right of conquest by others elsewhere on the coast. This was in line with British policy of favoring governments bordering British India over Persia. Although unable to change the arbitrary, the Persian government still managed, in spite of her military weakness, to drag the British government into a hard bargain and tough negotiations.     

"特种战争"与中国"援越抗美"的初步酝酿

为了遏制共产主义在东南亚的扩张,维护美国的全球霸权,1961年5月,美国总统肯尼迪公然发动了对越南的“特种战争”。面对美国在“南大门”的战争挑衅,中国政府从无产阶级的国际主义和维护越南独立和统一的立场出发,在政治、经济、外交和军事等方面积极支持越南人民的抗美爱国斗争,并应越南党和政府的请求,开始了“援越抗美”的初步酝酿,最终确立了“美国走一步,中国走一步;美国出兵,中国也出兵”的基本原则和立场。     

The influence of Operation Allied Force on the development of the jus ad bellum

Some have argued that NATO's air campaign against Serbia in 1999 was manifestly unlawful, others that it was an entirely legitimate humanitarian intervention. A third position suggests that the intervention while unlawful, in the strictest sense, was nonetheless legitimate. Here, a customary law right to intervene was seen as emerging, permitting action to prevent a mass atrocity crime, even when UN Security Council authorization was absent. Did Operation Allied Force, then, add to the case for the emergence of this new customary norm? While the 1990s was a decade of humanitarian intervention, the decade since has been dominated by international action against terrorism and, of course, the effects of the highly controversial US and British led invasion of Iraq. In this context, there is scant evidence that a customary right or obligation to intervene for humanitarian reasons has crystallized since 1999. But if Kosovo achieved anything, it was to prompt greater attention to the merits of the argument in favour of a ‘responsibility to protect’. If NATO's 1999 action were repeated today in a similarly unauthorized manner it would still be unlawful, but it would perhaps be seen as a legitimate means to preventing a mass atrocity crime.     

Intellectual preparedness: Dr. Hu Shih,Lake Forest College,and Chinese diplomacy during World War II

The summer of 1941 was a critical juncture in WWII history. As the war intensified and threatened the security of the United States, the American people were sharply divided into two opposing political camps, one sympathetic to interventionism and the other in favor of isolationism. Frightened by the recent memory of WWI and the reality of a worldwide economic depression, many Americans believed that their country should separate itself from troubling events in the world, thereby refuting President Roosevelt’s call for America to intervene against Hitler’s aggression in Europe and Japan’s atrocities in Asia. Against this historical background, Dr. Hu Shih, Chinese ambassador to the United States, came to Lake Forest in Illinois, the center of the isolationist movement, in the summer of 1941 to deliver a speech at Lake Forest College’s Sixty-Third Annual Commencement. This article uses various archives to reveal an untold story about Dr. Hu’s speech-diplomacy during his ambassadorial career. Tied to this event was a drama conveyed via multiple layers of historical accounts and contextualized by a series of political discourses ranging from the rise of isolationism in America to China’s use of soft-power diplomacy in the international arena, in which Dr. Hu played a significant role.     

‘Hustlers vs dynasties’: Confronting patrimonial capitalism in Kenya's 2022 elections

During Kenya's 2022 presidential race, William Samoei Ruto, the country's ex-Deputy President, successfully leveraged his ‘Hustler Nation’ campaign to clinch victory. This campaign played on the struggles of the informal economy labourers, pledging a ‘hustler’ government dedicated to their cause. However, Ruto's campaign also utilized rhetoric against the deeply rooted ‘dynasties’ of Kenya's patrimonial capitalism, exploiting widespread dissatisfaction with the political and economic dominance of the Kenyatta family, including the incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta. Throughout the campaign, voters debated the acceptable extent of wealth held by the country's affluent families and the potential of such wealth to manipulate democratic politics. This concise article unpacks the moral undertones of Kenyan disillusionment with Kenyatta supremacy, calling for reinvigorated anthropological scrutiny of the confrontations against modern patrimonial capital and the emerging resistances framed in the discourse of economic justice.