The British Empire and the Origins of the Cold War, 1944–49

Abstract

Standard accounts of postwar foreign and colonial policy assume that Britain’s imperial role had to be adapted to the increased international tensions resulting from the breakup of the wartime alliance. The failure of Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin’s attempts to overcome Soviet intransigence and hostility allegedly produced the Brussels Treaty and the securing of an American military commitment to western Europe. The cold war therefore encouraged policies geared to the acceptance of a subordinate, if special, position in an American-dominated alliance.