Arthur Snell

How Britain Broke the World

War, Greed and Blunders, 1997-2022

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

"Engrossing and frankly deeply troubling" - The Bookseller "I cannot recommend this book highly enough" - Monocle "One of the most engaging and original analyses I've read of events of the last quarter century" - Shakespeare & Co "Buy this book" - John Sweeney, journalist Turmoil in the 2020s.Russia has invaded Ukraine. China threatens Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Endless war in the Middle East sends waves of migrants and terrorists around the world. And the biggest nations on Earth cannot agree effective action to stop global heating. Instead of being a global force for good and actively preventing some of these problems, Britain has all too often fostered instability and division. In fact, the UK's careless 'humanitarian' interventions, grandiosity and greed have helped to fracture the global order built after World War II, argues former British diplomat Arthur Snell in this pithy book. Why is the world so dangerous now? How Britain Broke the World critically assesses UK foreign policy over the past 25 years, from Kosovo in 1998 to Afghanistan in 2021, while also scrutinising British policy towards the powerhouses of the USA, Russia, India, and China. Far from being unimportant, Snell reveals, Britain has often played a pivotal role in world affairs, for instance, by supplying the false intelligence that justified the Allied invasion of Iraq and and by plugging Russia's corrupt elite into Western economies. Then come the bungled humanitarian interventions in foreign states. Without the UK's marginal but key role, the author argues, it's likely that wars would not have blighted the Balkans, Iraq, and Libya, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved, and the world would be a safer place in the 2020s. Taking in Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Snell charts the key political, economic and geographic factors that drive the behaviour of the most powerful and populous countries. Like a diplomatic version of Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall, How Britain Broke the World reveals the ignominious reality of UK foreign policy and the true state of world affairs. It is a must-read for anyone interested in Britain's role in international affairs. Review 'In this engrossing and frankly deeply troubling book, former senior British diplomat Snell explains how Britain's often incompetent, inconsistent and sometimes downright greedy foreign policy has played a pivotal role in rendering the world a more dangerous place. Not only in regard to Russia, where successive British governments have helped to plug Putin's oligarchy into the Western economic system, but also when it comes to the wars in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya and more' - The Bookseller's Caroline Sanderson, awarding an 'Editor's Choice' for Non-fiction ¿¿¿"Diplomats are masters of urbane double-talk, so it is refreshing to find a former Foreign Office mandarin issuing a trenchant indictment of Britain's deplorable geopolitical performance over the last twenty-five years." - Literary Review

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Canbury Press
• Seitenzahl: 410
• Erscheinungstermin: 25. Mai 2023
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 156mm x 24mm
• Gewicht: 695g
• ISBN-13: 9781912454648
• ISBN-10: 1912454645
• Artikelnr.: 68127117

Autorenporträt

After graduating from Oxford with a first class degree in history, Arthur Snell joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He took and passed the Arabic language course, becoming a fluent Arabic speaker.He served Britain in many troubleshoots around the world, including Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Yemen, and Iraq.He headed the international strand of the UK Government's Prevent counterterrorism programme.He is currently a geopolitical consultant and host of the hit podcast Doomsday Watch.

Inhaltsangabe

INTRODUCTION. Former diplomat Arthur Snell starts with a car boom in
Baghdad in 2005, amid the failure of the Allied operation after the Iraq
War - which was a blow to the International rules-based order and shredded
the credibility of Western governments, benefitting autocratic China and
Russia
1. AN 'ETHICAL' FOREIGN POLICY. In 1997 the Labour Foreign Secretary Robin
Cook set out the 'ethical' approach of Tony Blair's government to foreign
policy. It spawned a doctrine of liberal intervention in foreign countries,
starting with Kosovo, but extending to Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan
2. KOSOVO: WAR IN KOSOVO. Tony Blair's Labour government put together a
global coalition to bomb Serbia to protect Kosovar Albanians, but, despite
headlines to the contrary, the operation was not a success. Slobodan
Milošević's forces increased their repression before NATO ground troops
invaded
3. IRAQ, MI6 AND A BOTCHED INVASION. The Allied invasion of Iraq in 2003
was built on bogus intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction, largely supplied by Britain's Secret Intelligence Service,
MI6. Mismanagement of Iraq post-Invasion fomented strife between Sunni and
Shia
4. AFGHANISTAN: 'GOVERNMENT IN A BOX'. Britain failed to learn from the
failures of its previous embarrassments in Afghanistan when it joined US
forces in invading the country after the 9/11 attacks. The UK and US
wrongly believed they could impose top-down rule on a massive, complex
tribal country
5. LIBYA: CREATING A POWER VACUUM. Britain's role in unseating Libyan
dictator Muammar Qadhafi in 2011 shows that Britain had not learnt the
lessons from earlier failed liberal interventions. Its basis was false: no
massacres were imminent. Post-invasion Libya has collapsed into chaos
6. SYRIA: A CONFLICT WITHOUT END. The ethnic composition of Syria is such
that Bashar Al-Assad was always likely to cling to power. While there have
been actual massacres involving actual weapons of mass destruction, Britain
and other Western powers have allowed the Syrian civil war to rage for
years
7. RUSSIA AND THE LONDON LAUNDROMAT. Britain has welcomed Russian
billionaires to London, where they spend lavishly on financiers, lawyers,
accountants. Ill-gotten riches have been ploughed into the heart of the UK
financial system
8. CHINA: THE GOLDEN ERROR OF KOWTOW. Despite China respecting power and
toughness, David Cameron's government prostrated itself before Beijing in
an attempt to lure Chinese money, which has been pumped into UK
telecommunications and the nuclear industry
9. SAUDI ARABIA, OIL AND INFLUENCE. Britain helps run the Saudi military in
exchange for big defence deals and other riches, while turning a blind eye
to Saudi human rights abuses, sponsorship of Islamic extremism and its
destruction of Yemen
10. INDIA AND THE POLITICS OF EMPIRE. Britain has swithered over its
response to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has fostered Hindu
extremism that threatens other religious groups in India such as Muslims
and Christians. More recently the UK has misunderstood India's post-Brexit
demands
11. THE US AND THE UK 'SPECIAL' RELATIONSHIP. Britain has consistently
overestimated the strength of its strategic alignment with America, which
is on a par with that of France or Germany. The US-UK relationship is
primarily about security as part of the 'Five Eyes' intelligence network
12. BREXIT: ISOLATION IN EUROPE. While an important regional power, with
considerable resources, the UK can overestimate its ability to shape events
and in recent decades has tended to be chronically short-termist
CONCLUSION. Britain has considerable gusto for bold initiatives, such as
the interventions in Kosovo, Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq. But it does not
have the enthusiasm for considering their long-term implications. The
system lacks expertise and is unwilling to listen to external experts.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 'Many of the people I owe the most to cannot be named.
They know who they are and I am eternally grateful. These people
collectively have centuries of experience in every corner of the world and
it has been my privilege to work alongside them.'
REFERENCES. A full list of notes and sources for key facts about British
foreign policy. The sources range from books about the UK's military
interventions to think tank reports to newspaper coverage.
INDEX. From Abdullah, King of Saudi Arabis, to Zimbabwe, an extensive list
of pages references