Relations with the USA and the USSR (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes
Relations with the USA and the USSR
Churchill's vision of Britain's global role
When Winston Churchill became Prime Minister in October 1951, he retained direct control over foreign policy, particularly relations with the superpowers. Churchill understood Britain's international position through three interconnected spheres. These three interlinking circles comprised Britain's continuing role as a great imperial power, the Atlantic community founded upon Churchill's valued Special Relationship with the United States, and the leadership of western Europe. Churchill believed that Britain's status as one of the wartime Big Three provided distinct opportunities to exercise power and authority at the highest level of international diplomacy.
Churchill's vision of three interlinking circles represented his understanding of how Britain could maintain its global influence: through its Empire and Commonwealth, its close relationship with the United States, and its potential leadership role in European affairs. This framework shaped British foreign policy throughout his second premiership.
However, Churchill's optimistic perspective faced numerous challenges. If Britain remained one of the world's three great powers in 1945, it did so as the least of the three. The gap between Britain and the other two in wealth, military power and global influence could only increase. Churchill greatly overestimated the United States' willingness to recreate the sort of relationship with Britain that had existed during the War. American officials grew frustrated with Churchill's sentimental attachment to wartime cooperation. He was tolerated but largely ignored. This became particularly apparent at talks in Bermuda in 1953, when observers noted Eisenhower's impatience with Churchill's rambling flights of fancy.
Despite Churchill's vision and wartime leadership credentials, Britain faced a fundamental reality: it was the weakest of the three great powers by the early 1950s. The gap in wealth, military power, and global influence between Britain and the superpowers would only widen over time, making Churchill's ambitious diplomatic goals increasingly difficult to achieve.
The Empire remained an asset, but it was a waning one. Its self-governing components in the Commonwealth, such as Australia and Canada, had long shown their determination to go their own way in the world. Meanwhile, the dependent territories in Africa and Asia would reach independence much sooner than Churchill envisaged. The concept of British leadership of western Europe could only become a reality if Britain engaged from the outset in moves towards integration in both political and economic terms, which the government was not prepared to do.
Churchill's approach to personal diplomacy often appeared unrealistic and unsuccessful. Though his government decided that Britain should move on to the next stage of nuclear weaponry and construct its own hydrogen bomb, Churchill became haunted by the nightmare of thermonuclear warfare. With his global prestige, he believed himself uniquely placed to save the world from self-destruction, if only he could bring the competing sides in the Cold War together in a summit conference. However, Churchill faced substantial opposition. The Americans believed that little could be achieved by what they regarded as a diplomatic stunt. Even leading members of the government, including Eden, remained sceptical, not least because of doubts over whether Churchill still possessed the intellectual strength to successfully handle such a gathering. Churchill persisted, partly because this last crusade offered repeated opportunities to postpone his long-promised retirement. However, no summit conference took place, at least until after his retirement, when leaders of the great powers gathered in Geneva in 1955 to negotiate a belated peace treaty with Austria.
Eden's diplomatic achievements and the Suez crisis
As Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden secured numerous substantial diplomatic successes, not least in bringing a temporary resolution to the crisis in South-East Asia, where the end of French colonial control had led to threats of American military intervention and even talk of a third world war. On the European stage, Eden's patient skills helped resolve a diplomatic impasse over the rearming of West Germany and laid the groundwork for its admission to NATO. Eden's attitude towards the United States was altogether more hard-headed than Churchill's. Even so, the Foreign Secretary's successes, underpinned by national pride in such diverse events as the royal coronation, the conquest of Everest by a British-led expedition and even the regaining of the Ashes by England's cricket team, may have led him to an unrealistic view of Britain's world position and its capacity to pursue its interests independently of even its most important allies.
Eden's diplomatic achievements as Foreign Secretary were significant and wide-ranging. His success in preventing the South-East Asian crisis from escalating into potential global conflict, combined with his skillful handling of West German rearmament, demonstrated considerable diplomatic ability. However, these successes may have contributed to overconfidence about Britain's independent capabilities.
As Prime Minister, during the Suez Crisis of 1956, Eden allowed Anglo-American relations to reach a low point unequalled in the post-war era. The damage was speedily repaired, but a lasting legacy of Suez was the realisation of the difficulties Britain would face in the future in pursuing a major foreign policy objective without, at least tacit, American support.
The Suez Crisis Legacy
The Suez Crisis of 1956 provided a critical lesson for British foreign policy: Britain could no longer pursue major foreign policy objectives independently without at least tacit American support. This realization fundamentally reshaped Britain's approach to international relations and its understanding of its position in the post-war world order.
Macmillan's restoration of the Special Relationship
Despite his own deep involvement in the Suez fiasco, Harold Macmillan saw it as his primary foreign policy goal as Prime Minister to restore the Special Relationship to its former intimacy. Events worked in his favour. Reconciliation with the Americans had not been possible under Eden, but Macmillan was able to build upon his wartime friendship with Eisenhower to ensure that international bridges were rebuilt. The two men struck up a renewed rapport when meeting in Bermuda in March 1957. Indeed, the personal factor remained important throughout Macmillan's premiership and, somewhat surprisingly, an equally warm relationship developed post-1961 with Eisenhower's successor, John F. Kennedy, notwithstanding a 23-year age gap between President and Prime Minister.
Macmillan had no ambition to rein in Britain's pretensions to great power status. The Special Relationship remained at the heart of his vision, but in what became known as his Grand Design, Macmillan also envisaged Britain assuming a leading role in the European Economic Community. He personally sought to maintain a high profile on the world stage, his Moscow visit in 1959 being particularly successful, though more in terms of enhancing his credentials as a world statesman than in any tangible reduction in Cold War tension. Like Churchill, he advocated a summit conference and achieved this goal in Paris in 1960. Unfortunately for Macmillan, the atmosphere at the summit was poisoned by the recent shooting down of an American spy plane over Soviet territory. Nonetheless, Macmillan successfully persuaded Kennedy to supply Polaris nuclear missiles to maintain Britain's 'independent' nuclear deterrent and the country took part in the 1963 Test Ban Treaty, perhaps the last time that the pretence of equality with the superpowers was maintained.
Macmillan's success in rebuilding Anglo-American relations relied heavily on personal relationships. His wartime friendship with Eisenhower and his surprisingly close bond with the much younger Kennedy demonstrated the continuing importance of personal diplomacy in international relations. The securing of Polaris missiles represented a major diplomatic achievement that helped maintain Britain's nuclear deterrent capabilities.
The development of Britain's nuclear deterrent
British universities were at the forefront of experimental work in the 1930s on splitting the atom and understanding the process of nuclear fission. Scientific work done by refugee scientists in Britain in the early part of the War, and Britain's participation in the secret Manhattan Project to produce the world's first atomic bomb, facilitated ending the struggle against Japan. In September 1944, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed that full atomic collaboration should continue once the War ended.
Following Roosevelt's death in April 1945, however, his successor Truman went back on this agreement. The American Atomic Energy Act of August 1946, promoted by Senator McMahon, even made the communication of classified atomic information to any foreign power punishable by life imprisonment or even death. By this time the Attlee government had begun considering a British nuclear programme. Nuclear capacity was seen as essential to 'great power' status. The government accepted that the bomb's deterrent effect offered the best available protection against attack from the Soviets, particularly if, as after the First World War, the United States withdrew at some future time from the defence of western Europe. Precisely the same combination of national identity and national interests determined the approach of Churchill and the Conservatives. Britain's first atomic test was carried out off the coast of north-west Australia in October 1952.
Almost immediately, however, the exacting problems of competing in the super league of world powers were revealed. A month after the successful British test, the Americans detonated the substantially more powerful hydrogen bomb, followed by the Soviets in August 1953. Having made the fundamental decision that Britain should not be excluded from this arms race, the government had little alternative but to follow suit.
Churchill's Justification for the Hydrogen Bomb
As Churchill put it: "We must do it; it is the price we pay to sit at the top table." This quote encapsulates the British government's rationale for pursuing nuclear weapons development despite the enormous economic cost. Nuclear capability was viewed not merely as a military necessity, but as an essential prerequisite for maintaining Britain's status as a great power and ensuring its voice was heard in international affairs.
By the end of 1957 Britain had, with some American technical assistance, managed to test its first megaton thermonuclear bomb, with a destructive capacity 75 times that of the atomic device exploded five years earlier. The strain placed on the British economy in attempting to stay in touch with the two superpowers was considerable, though reliance on a nuclear defence, as set out by Duncan Sandys in a white paper of April 1957, did permit substantial savings in the nation's bill for conventional forces.
Duncan Sandys and Defence Strategy
Duncan Sandys, deliberately appointed Minister of Defence by Macmillan in 1957 because of his 'no-nonsense' reputation for getting things done, presented a thorough review of British defence strategy, incorporating the lessons of the Suez adventure. His white paper made the nuclear deterrent the unequivocal centrepiece of Britain's national security, while enabling cuts to conventional forces that helped offset some of the costs of nuclear development.
Britain's relationship with the Soviet Union
Anglo-Soviet relations between 1951 and 1964 passed through several distinct phases. The death of Stalin in March 1953 opened possibilities for a thaw in Cold War tensions. The Soviet Union tested its first hydrogen bomb in August 1953, demonstrating its growing nuclear capability. In April 1954, the opening of the Geneva Conference on South-East Asia saw Anglo-Soviet co-chairmen working together diplomatically.
The Geneva Summit Conference of July 1955 marked the first meeting of heads of government since 1945. This was followed by a symbolic gesture in October 1955 when British and Soviet warships exchanged courtesy visits. In February 1956, Khrushchev announced his policy of de-Stalinisation, signalling a shift away from Stalin's legacy of terror and repression.
The period between Stalin's death in 1953 and the Hungarian uprising in 1956 represented a brief thaw in Anglo-Soviet relations. The Geneva Summit of 1955 and Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation policy suggested the possibility of reduced Cold War tensions, though subsequent events would demonstrate the fragility of this détente.
In April 1956, Khrushchev and Bulganin visited Britain, though the visit was overshadowed by the 'Crabb incident' involving a British naval diver. Anglo-Soviet relations deteriorated sharply in November 1956 when Soviet forces crushed the Hungarian uprising. During the same month, Bulganin threatened Britain over its invasion of Egypt during the Suez Crisis.
The Soviet Union launched the world's first space satellite in October 1957, demonstrating its technological capabilities. In October 1958, a conference opened in Geneva on the suspension of nuclear tests, reflecting growing concern about fallout in the earth's atmosphere. Macmillan made an official trip to Moscow in February 1959, attempting to position himself as a mediator between the superpowers. An Anglo-Soviet cultural agreement was signed in December 1959.
The Paris Summit Conference collapsed in May 1960 after the U-2 incident, when an American spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory. The erection of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 further heightened tensions. However, progress on arms control came with the Partial Test Ban Treaty signed in August 1963, which banned surface tests but not those underground. Khrushchev fell from power in October 1964.
Douglas-Home and the limits of the Special Relationship
Alec Douglas-Home's short premiership, dominated by the inevitability of the forthcoming general election, saw few new foreign policy developments. In any case, he was not looking to change the main lines of policy laid down by his predecessors. A visit to Washington in February 1964 for talks with the President was only partially successful. The personal factor, so important during the Macmillan years, had evaporated following Kennedy's assassination in November 1963.
His successor, Lyndon Johnson, felt no particular fraternity with Britain. The atmosphere at the talks was friendly enough, but tension developed over Britain's decision not to block the sale of British Leyland buses to Cuba and the wording of the end of conference communiqué was, at best, anodyne. Britain did not know it, but advice given to Johnson before Douglas-Home's arrival drew attention to the essential truth about the Special Relationship.
The Reality of the Special Relationship
Whereas the 'close US-UK association [was] the most important single factor in British foreign policy', for America Britain's friendship was valuable but not pre-eminent. In short, the relationship was far more special for Britain than for the United States. This fundamental asymmetry would shape British foreign policy for decades to come, as Britain consistently valued and prioritized the relationship more highly than its American counterpart.
Key Points to Remember:
- Churchill's foreign policy was shaped by three interlinking circles: the Empire, the Atlantic community, and leadership of western Europe, but Britain was the weakest of the three great powers by the early 1950s.
- The Suez Crisis of 1956 damaged Anglo-American relations and demonstrated that Britain could not pursue major foreign policy objectives without at least tacit American support.
- Macmillan prioritised restoring the Special Relationship, building on personal friendships with Eisenhower and Kennedy, and securing Polaris missiles to maintain Britain's nuclear deterrent.
- Britain developed its own atomic bomb (tested 1952) and hydrogen bomb (tested 1957), despite the strain on the economy, because nuclear capacity was seen as essential to great power status.
- Anglo-Soviet relations fluctuated between periods of tension (Hungarian uprising 1956, Berlin Wall 1961) and cautious cooperation (Geneva conferences, cultural agreements, Test Ban Treaty 1963).
- The Special Relationship was fundamentally asymmetric: it was far more important to Britain than to the United States, a reality that became increasingly clear during Douglas-Home's premiership.