2S - Foreign relations: EFTA and attempts to join the EEC
Learn how Britain tried to reconcile Atlantic security, European trade and imperial commitments as its power and resources changed between 1951 and 1964.
Cold War choices and Korea
Britain entered 1951 committed to the Western alliance in the Cold War. NATO linked its defence to the United States and other allies against possible Soviet expansion. Britain remained a significant military and diplomatic power, but its economy could not sustain every claim to a global role without difficult choices over spending.
The Korean War began in 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. British forces joined the United Nations effort, dominated by the United States. Chinese intervention widened the war and increased fears of confrontation among major powers. The campaign continued after Churchill returned to office in 1951 and ended with an armistice in July 1953, leaving Korea divided. The National Army Museum explains Britain's contribution and the conflict's setting.
Participation demonstrated commitment to collective security and the American alliance. Rearmament also strained the budget, linking overseas obligations to domestic disagreements over NHS charges and spending. Britain generally supported containment of communism but sought to limit escalation. Its recognition of the People's Republic of China in 1950, unlike the American position at that time, shows that alliance did not require identical policy.
Relations with the USSR combined suspicion and negotiation. Soviet repression in Eastern Europe and the crushing of the Hungarian uprising in 1956 reinforced distrust. Churchill nevertheless hoped that summit diplomacy might ease tensions after Stalin's death in 1953. Macmillan visited Moscow in 1959. Contact was an attempt to manage risks, not proof that ideological hostility had vanished. The Cold War thus created both an incentive to remain close to Washington and a reason to seek independent diplomatic influence.
The nuclear deterrent debate
Britain tested an atomic bomb in 1952 and developed a thermonuclear capability during the later 1950s. Supporters argued that an independent nuclear deterrent would discourage attack by making retaliation possible, preserve influence with allies and protect Britain if American guarantees proved uncertain. Deterrence rested on an adversary's expectations; possessing a bomb did not automatically establish that every deployment or threat was credible.
Critics disputed the cost, morality and independence of the policy. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, founded in 1958, urged unilateral renunciation rather than waiting for all nuclear powers to agree. Supporters saw this as a way to reduce danger and give a moral lead. Opponents feared that unilateral action would weaken collective defence without changing Soviet weapons. Labour's conference decisions in 1960 and 1961 revealed how this strategic issue divided domestic politics.
Technical dependence complicated claims of independence. At Nassau in December 1962, Macmillan secured American Polaris missiles after the cancellation of the Skybolt project threatened Britain's plans. Britain would supply its own submarines and warheads, but reliance on American missile technology limited complete autonomy. The agreement could be judged as a practical way to retain a deterrent or as evidence that status depended on American cooperation.
The 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, signed by Britain, the USA and USSR, prohibited tests in the atmosphere, outer space and underwater, while leaving underground tests possible. Cooperation therefore reduced one danger without ending nuclear competition. Evaluate the policy through security, influence, financial cost and dependence, rather than assuming that possessing nuclear weapons either solved or caused every foreign-policy problem.
Suez and American dependence
In July 1956, Egypt's president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company. Britain had strategic and commercial interests in the canal and Middle Eastern oil. Eden also regarded Nasser as a threat to British influence. Nationalisation did not itself mean that shipping had stopped; the decision to use force involved a judgement about power and security, not merely a technical need to reopen a closed canal.
Britain, France and Israel secretly arranged a military plan. Israel invaded Egypt in October; Britain and France issued an ultimatum and intervened under the stated aim of separating the combatants and protecting the canal. The concealed collaboration undermined that explanation. It matters because the government's public justification and its actual planning were not the same.
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