This is the first book of its kind. In this vividly written and meticulously researched book, readers will experience each level of war from the debates over grand strategy in London to the horrors of combat engulfing soldiers and sailors in distant lands and seas.
Haunting voices of participants echo from two centuries ago, culled from speeches, diaries, and letters. John s University, New York, is the author of thirty-seven books on history and politics. Go to menu Go to content Go to search. The Treaty of Paris ending the war gave Cuba its independence and also ceded important Spanish possessions to the United States—notably Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and the small island of Guam.
The United States was suddenly a colonial power with overseas dependencies. This assumption of colonial responsibilities reflected not only the temporary enthusiasms of but also marked a profound change in the diplomatic posture of the United States.
They self-confidently redrew the map of eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa according to their own interests and with minimal concern about the effect on others.
In the case of the US, the retreat from hegemony was made manifest this year when Iran carried out a devastating drone and missile attack on Saudi oil facilities in September. He may be putting maximum economic pressure on Iran, but he made clear he is not going to fight a war against them. In October, it was the turn of the Syrian Kurds to become the next victims of the new American realpolitik when Trump greenlighted a Turkish invasion of northern Syria.
Despite having fought heroically and lost 10, dead as the US on-the-ground ally in the fight against Isis , the Kurds suffered immediate and predictable ethnic cleansing by Turkey. The fate of the Saudis and Kurds carried a message about future American actions in the world that was ignored by a largely Trump-bashing media. None of the Nato leaders gathered in their hotel in Watford this week seemed to have taken on board the lessons of the failed US-led military in the Middle East since Bill Clinton intervened so disastrously in Somalia in — a war that is still going on.
In , the balance had shifted to 62 against By this time the Russian empire had expanded across Asia to the Pacific, generating friction along the borders of British India. And other new non-European powers were emerging. Japan had industrialised and turned its economic strength into military might, defeating Russia in a war triggered by rival imperial ambitions in north-east Asia in — Britain was not a vast continental empire like the USA or the USSR after each had surmounted its crisis of civil war — in —65 and —22 respectively.
During the Second World War, the German and global challenges became intertwined, with devastating consequences for Britain. And the Nazi triumph emboldened Italy and Japan to jump into the war, obliging the Royal Navy to confront three foes when it had only enough seapower to deal with two. Pearl Harbor triggered a Japanese blitzkrieg across south-east Asia that undermined the credibility of the European empires.
Images of gawky British officers in baggy shorts signing the surrender of Singapore and then marching off to Japanese prison camps were beamed around the world, shattering the image of racial superiority on which British power relied.
And the panic offer of independence to India in the crisis of had to be honoured after the war — beginning the domino-like process of decolonisation. Technologies of warfare were also changing. And in the atomic age, Britain lacked the means to repel, or even deter, aggressors. None of this means that Britain is irrelevant in world affairs.
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