Arthur Snell

How Britain Broke the World

War, Greed and Blunders from Kosovo to Afghanistan, 1997-2022

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Why is the world so dangerous now? Former senior British diplomat Arthur Snell reveals the role of the United Kingdom in raising tension and creating global flashpoints around the world. He looks at British interventions from Kosovo to Iraq to Afghanistan, as well as policy on Russia, Saudi Arabia, USA, India and China.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Canbury Press
• Seitenzahl: 416
• Erscheinungstermin: 21. Juli 2022
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 238mm x 157mm x 36mm
• Gewicht: 652g
• ISBN-13: 9781912454600
• ISBN-10: 1912454602
• Artikelnr.: 63425833

Autorenporträt

After graduating from Oxford with a first class degree in history, Arthur Snell joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. A fluent Arabic speaker, he served in 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