British Power and International Relations during the 1950s: A Tenable Position? by Michael J. Turner (review)

Michael Turner's extremely thorough and scholarly book has an unusually optimistic argument about British foreign policy. He challenges the many scholars who argue that British foreign policy was in constant decline after the Second World War and that Britain for many years failed to come to terms with this erosion of national power and status in international politics. He claims, for example, that Britain's setback at Suez was only temporary. It is both refreshing and challenging to read this insightful account (despite its lack of a bibliography), although this reader was not entirely convinced by the overall argument. Turner concentrates on five big issues and builds his argument around this analysis. The issues are the Korean War; what he calls tension in Europe; extra-European problems; the changing nature of the Cold War; and the Suez and Hungarian crises of 1956. He writes narrative history with great confidence and with considerable attention to detail, drawing on a wide range of secondary sources, with occasional references to primary material.

However, an alternative argument still seems plausible. The die was already cast by 1951, when Turner's narrative begins, and not after this. By 1951, the international system was not as fluid as Turner supposes. To be sure, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was still at the formative stage—and the military elements had not yet been worked out, giving scope for the creation of the intergovernmental Western European Union and the subsequent entry of West Germany in 1955 into NATO—but the key shift in the U.S. commitment to Western Europe had nevertheless been made in 1949-1950. Likewise, the Franco-German Schuman Plan of 1950 was the moment at which French policy toward West Germany changed in the most unexpected way with a commitment to supranational integration through the dry-sounding European Coal and Steel Community, and this was done without the United Kingdom. This breakthrough is what allowed the Rome Treaty to emerge by 1957. So the paradigm shift in West European politics took place in 1950, which was also the year that the contours and fears in Britain about the European Community became engraved on decision-makers' minds. In this reading, the British slipped further from the center of decision-making throughout the 1950s.

The most gripping section of the book is Turner's assessment of Suez and the concurrent Soviet invasion of Hungary. He deploys a vast range of secondary sources and gives his readers sharp analytical summaries and reflections on these and on some of the memoir accounts. (His university students should be eternally grateful for this.) The trouble is that his dispassionate historical skills oblige him to trim his core thesis. As he says, the resort to military action over Suez

was a sign of the reduced condition of Britain as a world power. Force was used partly through fear—fear of losing more influence and prestige. . . . Something had to be done. There was a determination to resist and to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. . . . To betray weakness was to become more vulnerable

(pp. 290-291).

So, although Turner argues that the impact of Suez has been overrated and although the UK did not vanish from the top table of international politics, the situation in fact could never be the same after Suez. The United States became far more watchful about the Middle East, as crises in Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq in the late 1950s showed. France's decisions to work more closely with West Germany were reinforced by the fallout from Suez, and then Charles de Gaulle piloted France'sMiddle East policy away from its earlier emphasis on Israel to a greater focus on the Arab world. Turkey, a staunch ally and NATO member, which had looked to the UK for leadership, turned to the United States after 1956. Even the United Nations was reduced in stature by the actions of its members...