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31. The Unpredictable Course of Naval Innovation – The Guns of HMS Thunderer

Author:
Ben Lombardi
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
In January 1879, a muzzle-loading gun aboard HMS Thunderer, one of the Royal Navy’s most powerful warships, exploded. A parliamentary investigation determined that the accident occurred because of human error brought about by a highly innovative, but complicated, loading mechanism. Given earlier unsatisfactory experience with early breech-loading guns, contemporary naval engagements and expectations of the future nature of conflict at sea, retention of muzzle-loaders seemed a reasonable course of action. Vast sums were, therefore, spent in ensuring that Britain’s navy had the biggest and most powerful of that type of ordnance. But the explosion and other advances in gun design meant that muzzle-loaders were a dead end, and the incident on Thunderer became the impetus for the Royal Navy to adopt breech-loaders. This incident shines light upon the thinking within the Royal Navy at the time regarding advanced guns. But it also underscores the uncertainty and unpredictability that is inevitably attached to rapid innovation by a large military institution such as the Royal Navy was in the late-19th century. This story is highly relevant to force development considerations today because in any era of continuous technological change, mistakes are inevitable and their expectation should be accommodated within planning.
Topic:
Military Strategy, Military Affairs, Navy, and Maritime
Political Geography:
Britain and Europe

32. My British Exequatur, “By Her Majesty’s Command”

Author:
Jonathan B. Rickert
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
In order to join the U.S. foreign service, applicants pass through a gauntlet of written and oral assessments, physical examinations, and security clearance. Once those steps are successfully completed, the Secretary of State sends to the President for approval a list of those to be commissioned as diplomatic and consular officers. The commission is what makes one officially a Foreign Service officer. It’s our only badge of membership, unaccompanied by the diplomatic uniform or other regalia used by some other countries to denote diplomatic status. When I sailed into the port of Southampton in the United Kingdom on the S.S. United States on October 26, 1965, as a newly minted and very junior U.S. diplomatic and consular officer, I was armed with my diplomatic passport and commission, issued by President Johnson and signed by Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Those signatures, of course, were printed on the form, but my name, title, the date, etc. had been entered, elegantly in cursive, apparently by hand. The document, on velum-like paper adorned with an impression seal of the United States, looked to me more like a fancy university diploma than anything else. However, it meant that I was a “real” diplomat and authorized to take on the responsibilities required by my career.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Memoir, and Bureaucracy
Political Geography:
Britain and United States of America

33. Looking Beyond England: Slavery, Settler Colonialism and the Development of Industrial Capitalism

Author:
Paula Reisdorf
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex
Abstract:
This paper examines the debates surrounding industrial capitalism’s origins, critiquing the Eurocentrism in the Political Marxist approach. Instead, using a dialectical framework, I argue that the transition from agrarian to industrial capitalism in Britain required the existence of slavery and settler colonialism in the New World. The reason for this is threefold: Firstly, the removal of surplus populations either to colonies or domestically by employing them in colony- related industries was necessary to avoid stagnation in capitalist development. Secondly, the cheapening of basic commodities leading to a reduction in wages (i.e. relative surplus value extraction) in Britain necessitated enslaved labour in the New World. Thirdly, British industrialisation itself required settler colonialism and slavery because of: 1) the importation of slave-produced raw materials that were manufactured in Britain, 2) the exportation of manufactured products to settler colonies in the Americas, 3) the investment into industry by slaveowners and 4) the credit provision by banks that were tightly linked to the slave trade. I, therefore, conclude by suggesting that taking seriously the links between capitalism and slavery/colonialism could unify post-colonialism and Marxism by demonstrating the interconnectedness between post-colonialism’s principal object of analysis – colonialism – and Marxism’s main object of analysis – capitalism.
Topic:
Post Colonialism, Socialism/Marxism, Capitalism, Slavery, Colonialism, Settler Colonialism, and Eurocentrism
Political Geography:
Britain and Global Focus

34. Imperial Mecca: An Interview with Prof. Michael Low

Author:
Michael Low and Mahdi Chowdhury
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Toynbee Prize Foundation
Abstract:
The hajj—that is, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca—is a pillar of faith for Muslims, but in the late nineteenth century, it was also a legal, epidemiological, and imperial frontier. In his long-anticipated Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj, Michael Christopher Low offers an account how that “very heart of Islam”—Mecca and the Hijaz—came to straddle “two imperial worlds.” Imperial Mecca charts how the British Empire came to challenge Ottoman imperial legitimacy and, subsequently, affect its pilgrimage administration, its relationship to non-Ottoman Muslims, and inspire administrative anxieties around the semi-autonomous province of the Hijaz. Since his widely-read 2008 article, “Empire and the Hajj,” Low has been a leading contributor in the now flourishing field of hajj studies. Based on archives largely based in Istanbul and London, Imperial Mecca consolidates nearly fifteen years of research, reflection, and labour and reasserts an understudied “Ottoman sense of space, place, population, environment, and territory back [into] our understanding of the transimperial hajj.” Michael Christopher Low is an Assistant Professor of History at Iowa State University and, presently, a Senior Humanities Research Fellow at NYU Abu Dhabi. Along with the publication of Imperial Mecca, he is also the co-editor of the recently published volume, The Subjects of Ottoman International Law. In our interview, we discuss—among many topics—Low’s intellectual and biographical journey as a historian, Ottoman archives and historiography, and the present and future of hajj studies.
Topic:
Imperialism, Islam, Religion, History, Ottoman Empire, and British Empire
Political Geography:
Britain, Mecca, Arabian Peninsula, and Indian Ocean

35. Great Britain and Africa: Boris Johnson's Strategic Reversals

Author:
François Gaulme
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI)
Abstract:
In 2020-2021, Prime Minister Boris Johnson undertook to fundamentally change the operational mode and strategy of relations between the United Kingdom and the African continent bequeathed by his predecessors since 1997. Great Britain and Africa : Boris Johnson's Strategic Reversals He first put an end to the autonomy and power of the great Department for International Development (DfID), by merging it with the Foreign Office. Deciding to make the granting of aid political, he also reduced its amount on the grounds of the recession hitting the country but against British legislation itself. His strategy for external deployment, adopted in March 2021 and based primarily on an “Indo-Pacific tilt”, has marginalised the relationship with Africa to which Theresa May had wanted to give new impetus in the perspective of the Brexit in 2018. While taking up her concept of “Global Britain”, her successor now seems to want to limit ties with Africa to business relations, highly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as minimal participation in security efforts on the continent. This note analyses such reversals in a historical perspective of the end of a relational cycle. It concludes that Boris Johnson’s very personal policy towards Africa is too reductive not to be amended. In particular on aid and fundamental rights, it neglects the complexity of British positions towards this continent. By reaffirming the strength of the strategic relationship with the United States, it will also have to adapt to the new African policy of the Biden administration.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Foreign Aid, and Boris Johnson
Political Geography:
Britain, Africa, and Europe

36. Turkish-Greek Rapprochement in the 1930s: The British Factor as a Third Party

Author:
Emine Tutku Vardağlı
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Academic Inquiries
Institution:
Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:
The third party effect in international relations gained popularity in 1990s in the context of conflict resolution. However, the Turkish-Greek relations in the modern era have always been discussed in reference to a third party involvement and Britain has always prevailed over the other countries as the most prominent third party. This study searches for the British influence on the Turkish-Greek rapprochement in 1930s. The British factor influence is usually taken as a matter of Great Power dominance or the “provocateur of rivalries between the two nations” from the Turkish point of view or “cooperation of allies” from the Greek point of view. Whereas, this study focuses on a specific conjuncture in which Britain acted neither as a “provocateur” nor as an “ally” for any party. In reference to the historical sources, it is documented that from the late 1920s the British approach to the Turkish-Greek affairs was altered dramatically, parallel to the overarching systemic changes in the interwar period Specifically, it is argued that the revision of British financial policy in response to the Great Depression and its retreat from the Eastern Mediterranean as a naval power directed Greece to change its foreign policy orientations with a sudden demarche and offer Turkey a peace settlement. Rather than attributing this rapprochement to the efforts of charismatic leaders, this study analyses the issue with a realist mind in reference to the British policies modified in parallel to the systemic changes during the interwar years.
Topic:
International Relations, History, and Rapprochement
Political Geography:
Britain, Turkey, Greece, and Mediterranean

37. Gauging the Gravity of the Situation: The Use and Abuse of Expertise in Estimating the Economic Costs of Brexit

Author:
Christoph Semken and Colin Hay
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo)
Abstract:
HM Treasury’s estimation of the economic consequences of Brexit – using standard macroeconomic models – during the EU referendum campaign represents a remarkable intervention in a highly politicized public debate. It raises a series of questions about the use of economic expertise. Through a detailed theoretical and empirical critique of the Treasury’s methodology – and a reassessment of the likely effects of Brexit in light of this – we cast doubt on the utility of their approach, highlighting methodological issues, unrealistic assumptions, and misrepresentations of established facts. In the process we seek to identify some of the wider implications for the use and potential abuse of economic expertise in highly charged political contexts, such as the EU referendum debate.
Topic:
European Union, Economy, Brexit, and Methodology
Political Geography:
Britain and Europe

38. The implications of a no-deal Brexit for the EU

Author:
Jannike Wachowiak
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Policy Centre (EPC)
Abstract:
As the end of the transition period nears, the EU must prepare for a fundamentally different and more conflictual relationship with the UK. Whatever the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, there will be profound economic, political and geopolitical implications for the EU. While the EU as a whole might be better placed than the UK to absorb the economic shock of a no-deal, the fallout within the EU will be uneven, resulting in winners and losers. The asymmetrical impact and differential capacity and willingness of national governments to mitigate the shock could exacerbate regional disparities and unbalance the EU’s internal level playing field. As such, it might become more difficult to maintain the same level of EU unity post-no-deal.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Treaties and Agreements, European Union, and Brexit
Political Geography:
Britain and Europe

39. Brexit and the British in Spain

Author:
Karen O'Reilly
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
UK in a Changing Europe, King's College London
Abstract:
This report is based on findings from the BrExpats research project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council through UK in a Changing Europe Initiative (Grant Number ES/R000875/1). This was a longitudinal study of Brexit and its implications for UK nationals living in other European Union member states. From May 2017 until January 2020, the project team tracked the Brexit negotiations and what they mean for the political rights, social and financial entitlements, identity, citizenship and belonging of Britons living in the EU-27. In particular, the project team documented how the protracted uncertainties about what Brexit means for citizens’ rights—the rights and entitlements derived from exercising Freedom of Movement—were experienced by UK nationals living across the EU-27, and with what consequences for their ongoing emotional and practical choices.
Topic:
European Union, Brexit, Negotiation, and Public Policy
Political Geography:
Britain, United Kingdom, Europe, and Spain

40. Brexit and the British in France

Author:
Michaela Benson
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
UK in a Changing Europe, King's College London
Abstract:
This report is based on findings from the BrExpats research project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council through the UK in a Changing Europe Initiative. This was a longitudinal study of Brexit and its implications for UK nationals living in other European Union member states. From May 2017 until January 2020, the project team tracked the Brexit negotiations and what they mean for the political rights, social and financial entitlements, identity, citizenship and belonging of Britons living in the EU-27. In particular, the project team documented how the protracted uncertainties about what Brexit means for citizens’ rights—the rights and entitlements derived from exercising Freedom of Movement—were experienced by UK nationals living across the EU-27, and with what consequences for their ongoing emotional and practical choices.
Topic:
Treaties and Agreements, European Union, Brexit, and Freedom of Movement
Political Geography:
Britain, Europe, and France