Fundamentals of British Foreign Policy

Abstract

rTHhe fundamentals of British Foreign Policy are pretty well -■known to all who have given any thought to the subject. Everybody is aware that our policy has depended on our insular position; on our naval power; on our intimate connection with Europe and our determination that it should not fall under the control of any one state; and on our position as manufacturers and traders from whose activities came the Empire, out of which the Commonwealth developed, and by whose means we were able to preserve our position in Europe. To these should be added, I think, two others, though these are less universally recognized. First our interest in preserving the peace of the world so that we played a principal part in the efforts to organize a European and later a world system of co-operation for the maintenance of international peace and security; and secondly the recognition that it is to our advantage that other nations should obtain the same national independence and democratic institutions that we ourselves possess. All these need some qualification, except perhaps the first, our insular position, but by and large they have determined the course of our policy. What I propose to do is to consider them in the light of the history of the last 150 years and discuss how far they are still valid today. Now the most obvious fundamental is our insular position. That alone, however, is an insufficient explanation of our role as a Great Power as is shown by the difference between our history and that of Japan. But it distinguished us in two ways from all the other European Great Powers. It gave us special security so long as we controlled our sea approaches and it removed from us the temptation to expand at the expense of other European states. We had no frontier in Europe except the sea and the line round the Rock of Gibraltar. For this reason, even when nearly all Europe has been combined against us under