The British Imperial Establishment, Post Imperial Era, and the ‘Churchillian’ World View, 1945-2016. (Adjustments & Challenges in Contemporary British Diplomatic Strategy)

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built
an economy, and a population which grew up within it, that relied for
survival on the security of sea
communications and on foreign trade. “As a great
trading nation Britain came to lean upon a wide
trading connection and, to an
important extent, upon specialised services such as banking, insurance
and
shipping, and upon special skill in the production of finished articles, the raw
material for
which was imported from overseas.”10 The implication of this
was
that she became more dependent than most states on the maintenance of world
peace simply for her
own livelihood and a retention of a high standard of living.
“Bonds of tradition, sympathy and
interest linked her with other peoples all over
the world, in the Pacific, Atlantic and Mediterranean, in
Africa, Asia, America
and Australia. These bonds at their closest took the form of a common
allegiance
to the Crown; these scattered peoples had the same principles of law and
traditions of
government and used the same language. In Europe and in the
Middle East Britain had other traditional
ties, resulting from friendship and
strategic needs.”11

British Power.

The
United Kingdom’s imperial power throughout most of the nineteenth
century and until the mid twentieth
century, as we have seen, relied upon the
Royal Navy (with strategic bases), as well as territories
providing extensive
resources and a large population to exploit; but its essence was firstly trade
and
secondly investment. As a result of being the first industrial country, Britain
became the
trading giant, for whom the whole world was considered an outlet.
The home or colonial markets were not
the only markets that traders considered
for selling the manufactured goods. Selling went far beyond
these places. The
factories in the United Kingdom could produce goods to saturate the home and

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