Britain, America and the Cold War

Abstract

The Second World War ended sooner than anticipated. When the Western Allies celebrated VE-day on 8 May 1945 it still looked as though the subjugation of Japan would take at least another year. Since May 1942, Japanese forces had been gradually driven back from the areas they had overrun in the first six months of the war, but it was proving a slow process. The battles for Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Okinawa were seen as a gruesome preview of what was to be expected when it came to invading the Japanese homeland. In preparation for such an assault, British and Commonwealth forces in the Pacific area were put under American orders. For many Americans this had all along been the war that really mattered. As the United States would be contributing the lion’s share of the forces, Americans increasingly took matters into their own hands. Henceforward it was the American Joint Chiefs of Staff rather than the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs who determined strategy. There was little the British could do but acquiesce. Their diminishing role was reflected in the handling of the decision to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At Ottawa in August 1943 the two powers had agreed that atomic weapons would not be used without British consent. In the event, Britain was consulted only perfunctorily, more or less as an afterthought. There was no longer any doubt, at least in the minds of Americans, that they were now the senior partners.