To me it seems probable given the high level of hostility in the UK to membership of the European Union (EU) that in 2016 at the promised referendum, a majority of voters will opt to remove the UK from the union. I no longer mix with politicians but do come across middle and working class members of the public who seem happy, especially at this time of the year, to talk about politics. They assume the EU is a bad thing and that leaving it will 'free' the UK from all its rules. I was speaking to such a man just before Christmas and for me he summed up the next difficulty that the UK faces which the government does not seem to have considered, but I imagine (I hope) that civil servants are working on contingency plans for even now.
I said that the question of whether we left the EU seemed settled. However, the question of what relationship we would have with it afterwards had to be hammered out. I used the example of three countries which are outside the EU but have very different relationships with it: Norway, Morocco and the USA. He dismissed this as any serious concern, because he said the referendum would simply be in/out. I accepted that that was the case, but said that someone had to work out the precise details of the relationship. I asked him what he thought the relationship would be like and he seemed to believe he could have his cake and eat it.
Norway is often cited as the model that Britain would favour, but it is a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) which means that while it has no right to vote on any EU legislation, it still has to accept the free movement of EU citizens into its country. Now, the free movement of EU citizens is one of the key reasons why parties like UKIP and fellow travellers want to leave the EU. Consequently the UK moving into the EEA would not remove that aspect.
Morocco is an associate member of the EU. This might be the model most favoured by those seeking UK exit from the EU. There are a range of associate agreements; they were started in 1961. However, typically they allow the country to have access to specific markets, e.g. in agricultural or industrial goods or more recently free trade with the EU. They have been focused on the Mediterranean littoral, the Balkans and Eastern Europe, but there are agreements with former colonies and states across the world. Interestingly even this kind of relationship implies that the country works towards political, economic, trade and human rights reform to bring it in line with the EU. Given that the UK is not a full democracy (the House of Lords is unelected as is the Head of State) and is seeking to abandon human rights legislation, we might find it difficult to get an agreement. However, this one seems to be the status that people would favour, retaining the trade privileges without being bothered with the mobility of people or quotas.
The USA is friendly to the EU and has some bilateral agreements such as on extradition and on airline ownership. There have been efforts at tariff agreements but anyone who has bought anything from the USA or tried to sell stuff there knows you get customs duties slapped on them at one end or the other. It is the administration of these which is as painful as the actual cost. If the UK wants to be out of the EU as much as the USA does, then this would be the model for selling even to France or between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, where much more stringent border controls would have to be introduced. The UK could close its doors to anyone under this model just as the USA does and we could insist even daytrippers from France needed a visa if we so chose.
The thing is, no-one is yet speaking about the model that the UK will end up with, no doubt at the end of a lot of discussion. You cannot simply walk out of an organisation you have been tied into for over forty years, especially if you want to keep many of the privileges that a majority of the anti-EU Britons seem to think are their right and not the result of that membership.
We spoke about the need to disengage from EU legislation in the British legal system. The UK would be free from EU quotas on farming and fishing, but human rights legislation which is at the top of the list for many of those opposed to the EU, does not come from the EU, it comes from an often forgotten body, the Council of Europe which is entirely separate. Unlike the EEC (the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the EU), the UK was a founder member of the Council of Europe in 1949. The EEC was not established until 1957 and the UK did not join it until 1973. The Council of Europe has 47 members; the EU only 28. Thus, if we are to purge human rights from British law, the UK will also have to leave the Council of Europe and, as yet, that is not on the cards.
I asked the man whether he knew how difficult it is for people from outside the EU and EEA to travel to countries in the EU. Anyone in the UK who has relations from Australia or South Africa or a host of other countries (though US citizens do not need a visa for tourism) knows how difficult it is for them to simply 'pop over' to France from the UK. Generally it means 8 hours being interviewed at the French Embassy in London in order to be issued for a visa lasting 6 months. The man said he was sure the French would not impose that on the British and surely we would go back to the situation in 1972. I said that was making big assumptions about the willingness of the other EU states to tolerate the British leaving perhaps even the EEA but still making use of the benefits. I also pointed out that the world of 2016 is very different from the world of 1972 in terms of protecting borders. Given that those who want to leave the EU want to close the gates on EU citizens coming to our country, why can we assume the French and others will not simply do the same in return?
From this I moved on to how many Britons live outside the UK in other EU countries. There are 761,000 living in Spain alone, probably augmented by about another 200,000 who live there for part of the year. 200,000 Britons live in France and again many others own property there; 115,000 live in Germany; 44,000 in the Netherlands; 28,000 in Belgium; 26,000 in Italy and 18,000 in Greece. There are around another 48,000 in other EU countries. This does not include UK students who study in EU universities; 9,500 UK students study in France, Spain, Germany and Italy. Many of the Netherlands 41 universities have hundreds of British students. With free movement of citizens Britons can apply to these universities and in some countries like Denmark have to pay no fees. With numerous courses taught entirely in English (as these appeal to Chinese students as well) it is very easy to do. However, once we leave the EU this will stop. I know many who support the UK leaving the EU have no time for students anyway, but is is just another factor. The man I was talking to said he did not think Spain or France would eject Britons resident in those countries. I said: why not? Given that UKIP has spoken of sending EU citizens home what is to stop these other countries doing the same in return? An influx of over 1 million Britons being sent home, many of those from Spain being elderly, is going to be worked out. Remember, before Greece joined the EEC it did not permit foreigners to own property in the country and Australia does not allow this either.
This is one challenge for those pressing for exit from the EU. They assume that the rest of the EU will let the UK go quietly and to retain many of the privileges that it has in relation to those states, unchallenged. No-one seems to be thinking this through and simply making assumptions that it will be all very nice for the UK and that EU states will not be resentful to Britain. I know Britons think their country is special, but they have to recognise that other countries see it very differently. The UK has long been a troublemaker in the EU and is exacerbating this situation at a time when the EU has enough to deal with handling terrorist attacks and the refugee situation. The UK is making no concessions but in return expects the EU to just go on allowing tens of thousands of Britons to live, work and own property and to travel freely back and forth even when the UK is trying to stop that for EU citizens coming in. To expect the rest of the EU to tolerate such treatment of their citizens and not seek a balance against UK people, is incredibly naive. If we must leave the EU we need to be far better prepared for the consequences than is currently the case.
Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
Monday, 28 December 2015
Saturday, 3 August 2013
What If Edward VIII Had Remained King of the United Kingdom?
My views on this topic can be found in my e-book ‘Other
Lives: 'What If?' Essays about Famous People in History’. It is available for purchase on Amazon:
UK readers might prefer to access it through: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Other-Lives-Essays-History-ebook/dp/B00E6SODN2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375524378&sr=8-1&keywords=Rooksmoor+Other
Canadian readers can access it through: http://www.amazon.ca/Other-Lives-Essays-History-ebook/dp/B00E6SODN2/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375524438&sr=1-17&keywords=Rooksmoor
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
What If Britain And Russia Had Gone To War In 1878?
My views on this topic can be found in my e-book ‘Down
Other Tracks: Alternate Outcomes of the 19th Century’ by Alexander
Rooksmoor. It is available for purchase
on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Down-Other-Tracks-Alternate-ebook/dp/B0087QDK88/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338820140&sr=8-1
UK readers might prefer to access it through: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Down-Other-Tracks-Alternate-ebook/dp/B0087QDK88/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1338820087&sr=1-5
Canadian readers might like to access it through: http://www.amazon.ca/Down-Other-Tracks-Alternate-ebook/dp/B0087QDK88/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1376043896&sr=8-3&keywords=Rooksmoor
Friday, 6 June 2008
The US Empire Expands - 19th Century Imperialism Lives On
Just when I thought we were beginning to witness a bit of maturity in US politics with the primaries for the Democratic candidate which seemed to suggest parts of the American public were putting aside some of the bigotry and narrow-minded attitudes that they have become renowned for, suddenly we find that with the last gasp of his regime George Bush is busily expanding the American empire. Of course the Americans have never liked to be categorised as imperialists because they feel they were the first nation to throw off imperial rule when they defeated the British in the American War of Independence. However, they were really no different from Japan which came from at least a degree of imperial control in the mid-19th century to begin carving out their own empire in China and elsewhere in East Asia. Of course a lot of people assume that imperialism is all about colonies with the country being totally controlled by the imperial power and settlement by that power. The old empires like the British, French, Belgian, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese did this across the world, but what people forget is that there are many forms of imperialism and it is some of these other forms that the USA carried out and is still, it seems carrying out today. Of course the USA still has clear imperial control over Guam in the Pacific and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean as those countries have their laws made in Washington, but the empire is expanding elsewhere in less controlling forms.
Before looking at different forms of imperialism, it is important to note one issue that I will come back to later that tends to be common to anywhere which is coming under any form of imperial control, that is 'extraterritoriality' which means that if you are from the imperial power or one of its friends, then you are immune to local laws no matter what you do in the country. This applies to all diplomats, but when there is imperialism going on it is extended to soldiers, business people and so on. This is always controversial as it means that people from the imperial state can commit what would be seen as crimes and get away with it or only be punished by the rules of their home country. Having extraterritoriality removed was a goal of Chinese nationalists and Communists right through the first half of the 20th century.
Imperialism breaks first of all into 'informal' and 'formal' imperialism. Informal imperialism is effectively economic dominance of a country and this was what tended to happen to developed societies in the 19th century for example in China, the Ottoman Empire and South America where states had shaken formal imperialism of Spain and Portugal by the 1820s only to come under informal imperialism from Britain and the USA. Informal imperialism is very common nowadays. Developing countries have their economies distorted so that they provide the resources that the Western world needs at cheap prices. Once it was things like fruit, sugar and coffee, increasingly it is becoming bio-fuels. Until they asserted their autonomy in the 1950s-70s even the rich oil countries of the Middle East were under such control. Interestingly like the Japanese 150 years ago, the Chinese are now turning from exploited to exploiters and carrying out informal imperialism not only in Africa but also Australia and Canada. The advantage of informal imperialism is that it is pretty cheap and does not look like imperialism, but this was the form that the British and the Dutch East India Companies began with in the 18th century in India and Indonesia, only later did it become more formal, state-run imperialism. The USA was carrying out informal imperialism in Central and South America from the 1820s onwards and moved into East Asia during the Cold War. Alongside states it ran informally there were ones like Cuba, Panama and the Philippines which it controlled more formally. In China whilst none of the colonial powers conquered the whole country in the 19th century they did rule directly over small areas or particular cities, especially the treaty ports, where their law rather than that of China prevailed.
Formal imperialism is when a country takes over the other country and runs its economy and foreign policy, though as I discuss below this may leave a lot of autonomy in the hands of local elites. There are various grades of formal imperialism.
Spheres of influence: with these you are not far away from informal imperialism. An example was Persia (now Iraq) in the 19th century and up to the end of the Second World War. Neither Russia/USSR or the UK actually took control of Persia but it was accepted that the Russians would be dominant in the North and the British in the South; Russian and British companies would be the ones getting all the contracts and in the case of trouble it would be the Russian or British who would intervene in their respective areas. To some extent the French still have this kind of relationship with much of West Africa and the French military intervenes if there is unrest. The British do this on a smaller scale, as with former colony, Sierra Leone. It is argued that during the Cold War Western Europe was effectively the US sphere of influence and Eastern Europe much more clearly the Soviet sphere of influence.
Dominions: this is a very British mode of imperialism and is often a legacy of tighter control. It is for countries like New Zealand, Australia and Canada, that were heavily settled by Europeans so that the indigenous cultures almost disappeared and they are now considered 'White' countries. These states though independent in domestic and foreign policy retain the British monarch as their head of state rather than having their own president and they refer
Dependent Territories: these can be defined differently and have a particular technical meaning when talking about the UK. These are countries, often small ones, which effectively cannot subsist without the economic input of the imperial power. They run their own affairs but are heavily dependent on trade with the imperial power and may be compelled to be guided on things like defence and foreign policy. They may also provide military bases for the imperial power. Ironically this is what Cuba had become for the USA before Fidel Castro pulled off the revolution in 1958 and even then the US base at Guantanamo Bay remains a legacy of that imperial relationship that even Castro could not remove.
Protectorates: this was a common form of imperial rule over much of the British and other European empires in the 19th century, notably the Netherlands over Indonesia. It is not as expensive as a full blown colonisation and in theory the protectorate enters into an agreement for protection though in reality it was generally forced. Some people use the supposed voluntary entry into being a protectorate to compare that form of imperialism positively compared to the formation of 'Mandates' by the League of Nations at the end of the First World War which was imposed on these countries when they were removed from control of Germany and allocated to other colonial powers. However, the treatment was much the same in both cases. What distinguishes protectorates and mandates from colonies is that local rulers stay in control, though they have to deal economically with the imperial power like dependent territories and have their defence and foreign policy and often many other policies determined by the imperial state. Large areas of India such as Mysore, Hyderabad, the Rajput States and Baluchistan (now inPakistan) were such protectorates, under local princes rather than direct British control like the rest of India.
Colonies: in the British Empire these became 'Crown Colonies' to designate that control moved from the hands of companies, notably the East India Company which lost control of its parts of India in 1858 and they were run by the British government. The Belgian and German governments were also obliged to take over colonies started by companies in Africa in the late 19th century as it proved impossible for anything less than a state to run colonies. As the name suggests, the aim was generally for settlers from the home country to colonise the imperial territory. This generally happened far less than was expected as people preferred to emigrate to the Americas. However, there were notable exceptions such as South Africa, Kenya, French Indochina and especially Algeria, where by the time of independence 1 out of 9 of the population was European. In colonies the imperial power ran everything replacing government of the country by governors and the military and large chunks of the economy came under direct control of the imperial state. In extreme cases, as with Algeria for France, the colony effectively became part of the metropolitan country; in 1945, 12% of the members of parliament sitting in Paris were elected from the colonies. Other countries did not engage so closely with their colonies, though there were discussions in the 1950s about Malta returning MPs to parliament in London.
Right, so with terms established, why do I think the American Empire is expanding. Well, we all know, as I was predicting last year, that it is in Iraq. This is a country which was under the Ottoman Empire until 1918 but the Germans were attempting informal imperialism there in the 1900s. After 1918 it became a mandate of the British until gaining seemingly gaining independence in 1945 when it became a full member of the United Nations. The British had re-invaded the country in 1941 to suppress uprisings and presumably fearful of the country's oil falling into German hands. As we know the USA invaded Iraq in 1991 following its recapture of Kuwait (a state Iraq had claimed sovereignty over as early as 1961) and then again in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein. It appeared that there were steps to Iraq again becoming independent, but it seems that it is not the level of independence it had up until 2003. Bush is negotiating for the USA not to just have a single military base in Iraq but 50 bases across the country. In addition US troops would have extraterritoriality but not simply to go about their business but to carry out arrests and military activities without referring to any Iraqi government. This is the kind of power Austria-Hungary asked Serbia to give in July 1914 and the Japanese demanded of China in 1937 which in both cases led to war. It is like the power foreigners had in Japan in the late 19th century which led to unrest in the country and a coup in 1867, the so-called Meiji Restoration. A new twist for the 21st century is that the USA wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000 feet (about 9700 metres). In addition to all this, US companies since the war have been the key economic players in the country and will continue to be so even if this so-called 'Strategic Alliance' is not signed and you can guarantee that the US will have an effective monopoly on sale of Iraqi oil.
Iraq is already a dependent territory of the USA and the agreement would solidify that. The ongoing military presence and the extraterritoriality plus the supposed 'agreement' smacks very much of a protectorate being formed. One could envisage this being 1888 rather than 2008 with the USA having overthrown some local despot, restoring some local elites but effectively running the country as their own. Certainly the influence of any other power, notably Iran, is being excluded. The USA has seen the Middle East as to some extent in its sphere of influence since the Eisenhower Doctrine of the 1950s, but what we are now witnessing is not a kind of 'new imperialism' talked about during the Cold War, this is simply reheated 19th century imperialism. People argued that the Cold War was a natural development in history and when it ended a certain phase was concluded, but to me, it appears that the Cold War was an aberration and in fact there are more continuities between the world in 1908 and 2008 than there ever were between 1948/58/68 even 1978 and today. Predictions of American, Russian (notice their colonial moves on the seabed of the Arctic and the UK doing the same in the mid-Atlantic) and China as dividing up the world seem more accurate now than ever. Imperialism is not dead, we are witnessing it occurring this very moment.
Before looking at different forms of imperialism, it is important to note one issue that I will come back to later that tends to be common to anywhere which is coming under any form of imperial control, that is 'extraterritoriality' which means that if you are from the imperial power or one of its friends, then you are immune to local laws no matter what you do in the country. This applies to all diplomats, but when there is imperialism going on it is extended to soldiers, business people and so on. This is always controversial as it means that people from the imperial state can commit what would be seen as crimes and get away with it or only be punished by the rules of their home country. Having extraterritoriality removed was a goal of Chinese nationalists and Communists right through the first half of the 20th century.
Imperialism breaks first of all into 'informal' and 'formal' imperialism. Informal imperialism is effectively economic dominance of a country and this was what tended to happen to developed societies in the 19th century for example in China, the Ottoman Empire and South America where states had shaken formal imperialism of Spain and Portugal by the 1820s only to come under informal imperialism from Britain and the USA. Informal imperialism is very common nowadays. Developing countries have their economies distorted so that they provide the resources that the Western world needs at cheap prices. Once it was things like fruit, sugar and coffee, increasingly it is becoming bio-fuels. Until they asserted their autonomy in the 1950s-70s even the rich oil countries of the Middle East were under such control. Interestingly like the Japanese 150 years ago, the Chinese are now turning from exploited to exploiters and carrying out informal imperialism not only in Africa but also Australia and Canada. The advantage of informal imperialism is that it is pretty cheap and does not look like imperialism, but this was the form that the British and the Dutch East India Companies began with in the 18th century in India and Indonesia, only later did it become more formal, state-run imperialism. The USA was carrying out informal imperialism in Central and South America from the 1820s onwards and moved into East Asia during the Cold War. Alongside states it ran informally there were ones like Cuba, Panama and the Philippines which it controlled more formally. In China whilst none of the colonial powers conquered the whole country in the 19th century they did rule directly over small areas or particular cities, especially the treaty ports, where their law rather than that of China prevailed.
Formal imperialism is when a country takes over the other country and runs its economy and foreign policy, though as I discuss below this may leave a lot of autonomy in the hands of local elites. There are various grades of formal imperialism.
Spheres of influence: with these you are not far away from informal imperialism. An example was Persia (now Iraq) in the 19th century and up to the end of the Second World War. Neither Russia/USSR or the UK actually took control of Persia but it was accepted that the Russians would be dominant in the North and the British in the South; Russian and British companies would be the ones getting all the contracts and in the case of trouble it would be the Russian or British who would intervene in their respective areas. To some extent the French still have this kind of relationship with much of West Africa and the French military intervenes if there is unrest. The British do this on a smaller scale, as with former colony, Sierra Leone. It is argued that during the Cold War Western Europe was effectively the US sphere of influence and Eastern Europe much more clearly the Soviet sphere of influence.
Dominions: this is a very British mode of imperialism and is often a legacy of tighter control. It is for countries like New Zealand, Australia and Canada, that were heavily settled by Europeans so that the indigenous cultures almost disappeared and they are now considered 'White' countries. These states though independent in domestic and foreign policy retain the British monarch as their head of state rather than having their own president and they refer
Dependent Territories: these can be defined differently and have a particular technical meaning when talking about the UK. These are countries, often small ones, which effectively cannot subsist without the economic input of the imperial power. They run their own affairs but are heavily dependent on trade with the imperial power and may be compelled to be guided on things like defence and foreign policy. They may also provide military bases for the imperial power. Ironically this is what Cuba had become for the USA before Fidel Castro pulled off the revolution in 1958 and even then the US base at Guantanamo Bay remains a legacy of that imperial relationship that even Castro could not remove.
Protectorates: this was a common form of imperial rule over much of the British and other European empires in the 19th century, notably the Netherlands over Indonesia. It is not as expensive as a full blown colonisation and in theory the protectorate enters into an agreement for protection though in reality it was generally forced. Some people use the supposed voluntary entry into being a protectorate to compare that form of imperialism positively compared to the formation of 'Mandates' by the League of Nations at the end of the First World War which was imposed on these countries when they were removed from control of Germany and allocated to other colonial powers. However, the treatment was much the same in both cases. What distinguishes protectorates and mandates from colonies is that local rulers stay in control, though they have to deal economically with the imperial power like dependent territories and have their defence and foreign policy and often many other policies determined by the imperial state. Large areas of India such as Mysore, Hyderabad, the Rajput States and Baluchistan (now inPakistan) were such protectorates, under local princes rather than direct British control like the rest of India.
Colonies: in the British Empire these became 'Crown Colonies' to designate that control moved from the hands of companies, notably the East India Company which lost control of its parts of India in 1858 and they were run by the British government. The Belgian and German governments were also obliged to take over colonies started by companies in Africa in the late 19th century as it proved impossible for anything less than a state to run colonies. As the name suggests, the aim was generally for settlers from the home country to colonise the imperial territory. This generally happened far less than was expected as people preferred to emigrate to the Americas. However, there were notable exceptions such as South Africa, Kenya, French Indochina and especially Algeria, where by the time of independence 1 out of 9 of the population was European. In colonies the imperial power ran everything replacing government of the country by governors and the military and large chunks of the economy came under direct control of the imperial state. In extreme cases, as with Algeria for France, the colony effectively became part of the metropolitan country; in 1945, 12% of the members of parliament sitting in Paris were elected from the colonies. Other countries did not engage so closely with their colonies, though there were discussions in the 1950s about Malta returning MPs to parliament in London.
Right, so with terms established, why do I think the American Empire is expanding. Well, we all know, as I was predicting last year, that it is in Iraq. This is a country which was under the Ottoman Empire until 1918 but the Germans were attempting informal imperialism there in the 1900s. After 1918 it became a mandate of the British until gaining seemingly gaining independence in 1945 when it became a full member of the United Nations. The British had re-invaded the country in 1941 to suppress uprisings and presumably fearful of the country's oil falling into German hands. As we know the USA invaded Iraq in 1991 following its recapture of Kuwait (a state Iraq had claimed sovereignty over as early as 1961) and then again in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein. It appeared that there were steps to Iraq again becoming independent, but it seems that it is not the level of independence it had up until 2003. Bush is negotiating for the USA not to just have a single military base in Iraq but 50 bases across the country. In addition US troops would have extraterritoriality but not simply to go about their business but to carry out arrests and military activities without referring to any Iraqi government. This is the kind of power Austria-Hungary asked Serbia to give in July 1914 and the Japanese demanded of China in 1937 which in both cases led to war. It is like the power foreigners had in Japan in the late 19th century which led to unrest in the country and a coup in 1867, the so-called Meiji Restoration. A new twist for the 21st century is that the USA wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000 feet (about 9700 metres). In addition to all this, US companies since the war have been the key economic players in the country and will continue to be so even if this so-called 'Strategic Alliance' is not signed and you can guarantee that the US will have an effective monopoly on sale of Iraqi oil.
Iraq is already a dependent territory of the USA and the agreement would solidify that. The ongoing military presence and the extraterritoriality plus the supposed 'agreement' smacks very much of a protectorate being formed. One could envisage this being 1888 rather than 2008 with the USA having overthrown some local despot, restoring some local elites but effectively running the country as their own. Certainly the influence of any other power, notably Iran, is being excluded. The USA has seen the Middle East as to some extent in its sphere of influence since the Eisenhower Doctrine of the 1950s, but what we are now witnessing is not a kind of 'new imperialism' talked about during the Cold War, this is simply reheated 19th century imperialism. People argued that the Cold War was a natural development in history and when it ended a certain phase was concluded, but to me, it appears that the Cold War was an aberration and in fact there are more continuities between the world in 1908 and 2008 than there ever were between 1948/58/68 even 1978 and today. Predictions of American, Russian (notice their colonial moves on the seabed of the Arctic and the UK doing the same in the mid-Atlantic) and China as dividing up the world seem more accurate now than ever. Imperialism is not dead, we are witnessing it occurring this very moment.
Saturday, 14 July 2007
What If, During The First World War, Mutinies In The French And British Armies Had Been More Extensive?
My views on this topic can be found in my e-book ‘In Other
Trenches: Alternate Outcomes of the First World War’ It is available for
purchase on Amazon:
UK readers might prefer to access it through:
Canadian readers can access it through: http://www.amazon.ca/Other-Trenches-Alternate-Outcomes-First-ebook/dp/B00ILVJ4C0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395342669&sr=1-1
Thursday, 12 July 2007
What If Britain Had Not Entered The First World War?
My views on this topic can be found in my e-book ‘In Other
Trenches: Alternate Outcomes of the First World War’ It is available for
purchase on Amazon:
UK readers might prefer to access it through:
Canadian readers can access it through: http://www.amazon.ca/Other-Trenches-Alternate-Outcomes-First-ebook/dp/B00ILVJ4C0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395342669&sr=1-1
Friday, 8 June 2007
The G8 - the Imperial Powers continue to meet
When I began this blog I had so much in me that I was furious or disappointed about and that I wanted to get out of my system. A month on I seem to expelled so much of it from me. I can understand why the average life of a blog is 3 months because that gives you time to send off all the things that have been bugging you. Maybe, also, it is a consequence of the time of the year, what journalists used to call the 'silly season'. Also we are in limbo, Blair has left but he is still here and so without current pricks from the advance of dictatorship in the UK or other behaviour to make me indignant, my fuel source wanes. I did find out this week that there is no point trying to us a mobile phone on the train between Sheffield and Leeds as you can get no signal at all. Just in case you happen to be travelling that way. This was even the case on a Virgin Trains train which claimed to have better connectivity. Anyway, that is hardly an issue to form the basis of overthrowing the government!
It is a time for conferences and the most noticeable one is the G8 summit. It is interesting that more attention is paid to this than anything that ever goes on at the United Nations. The G8 are the USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Japan and Canada. It used to be the G7 until Russia abandoned Communism. Aside from Canada, the members of the organisation are the same as if you had assembled the leading imperial powers in 1907. I think this reinforces my point made in an earlier post, that views of the world being divided between the empires put forward before the First World War retain relevance today. Personally I have always argued that the Second World War and the Cold War was like putting a 'freeze frame' on developments in the world and with the end of the Cold War this came off and we are back to the issues of the Edwardian period (strictly 1901-10, but usually seen as stretching to 1914). Some argue that the ideologies of the Cold War simply concealed a much longer term tension between the two continental powers Russia and the USA, going back to the 1860s, particularly over control of the third - China.
It is more than likely that China will become the ninth power to join the G8, not least because it is so economically tied to the USA. The USA is in billions of dollars of debt to China for things it has imported. In turn China is seeking to invest in the USA as it already has in Canada and Australia as well as in Africa and South-East Asia seeking raw materials. As at the end of the 19th century, the USA portrays itself as being democratic in the face of Russia's non-democratic perspective. In turn Russia feels weak and seeks to reinforce its position by blustering militarily.
In some ways the G8 wield the powers over other parts of the world that their predecessors did. For example, the fate of millions in Africa is still determined by them. Who gets AIDS drugs, what levels of debt will countries face, who will be sold arms? All of these things have parallel to the imperial period. Climate change is often presented as something new, but those of the 19th century with their factory filled cities knew about it. Rules about fires in cities like London date back centuries. People since the Stone Age have been witnessing deforestation and particularly since the 18th century saw industrial revolutions. The imperial powers, despite concepts such as the 'white man's burden' in that they should contribute something to the developing countries, have mainly focused on pushing their economies forward and that remains the issue today. This is the key reason why Bush remains hesitant on doing anything regarding emissions.
Given the approach Al Gore has adopted on climate change and his movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' (2006), it is an interesting to speculate on the 'what if?' of if he had scraped sufficient votes in 2000 to have become president. My guess is that he would have been tied down heavily by US industry not to pursue as strong restrictions as he now advocates. The twist of this 'what if?' may not be played out yet. Sitting here in 2047 we may say 'well wasn't it a good thing Gore lost the presidency because he was able to make far greater an impact on climate change than if he had done'.
We have 8 leaders now assembled, they seem powerful and probably are more so than another selection of 8 leaders one might pick (there are some candidates such as Brazil, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, India and certainly China who would probably outrank countries like Italy and Canada in terms of 'power') and yet, do they truly hold power? I would argue no. Some have more power than they have the intelligence to use, notably Bush. However, the others are shackled by big business, its wealth, its connections. Even when they have the foresight, understanding and will to bring about change such as reducing global poverty, developing world debt or to provide reasonably priced drugs, they often cannot. Their abilities to act are hampered by business leaders who run companies that have held such power now for over 100 years and have gone through wars often with minimal harm. Imperialism is still around, but note as V.I. Lenin suggested, imperialism is the highest stage of capitalisms, hence it is the capitalists, not the politicians, who are the highest imperialists.
Coming all rather old school there at the end, which was unexpected. Maybe anti-globalisation is much older than current campaigners and myself think and so may the responses are older too? I will give this some thought.
It is a time for conferences and the most noticeable one is the G8 summit. It is interesting that more attention is paid to this than anything that ever goes on at the United Nations. The G8 are the USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Japan and Canada. It used to be the G7 until Russia abandoned Communism. Aside from Canada, the members of the organisation are the same as if you had assembled the leading imperial powers in 1907. I think this reinforces my point made in an earlier post, that views of the world being divided between the empires put forward before the First World War retain relevance today. Personally I have always argued that the Second World War and the Cold War was like putting a 'freeze frame' on developments in the world and with the end of the Cold War this came off and we are back to the issues of the Edwardian period (strictly 1901-10, but usually seen as stretching to 1914). Some argue that the ideologies of the Cold War simply concealed a much longer term tension between the two continental powers Russia and the USA, going back to the 1860s, particularly over control of the third - China.
It is more than likely that China will become the ninth power to join the G8, not least because it is so economically tied to the USA. The USA is in billions of dollars of debt to China for things it has imported. In turn China is seeking to invest in the USA as it already has in Canada and Australia as well as in Africa and South-East Asia seeking raw materials. As at the end of the 19th century, the USA portrays itself as being democratic in the face of Russia's non-democratic perspective. In turn Russia feels weak and seeks to reinforce its position by blustering militarily.
In some ways the G8 wield the powers over other parts of the world that their predecessors did. For example, the fate of millions in Africa is still determined by them. Who gets AIDS drugs, what levels of debt will countries face, who will be sold arms? All of these things have parallel to the imperial period. Climate change is often presented as something new, but those of the 19th century with their factory filled cities knew about it. Rules about fires in cities like London date back centuries. People since the Stone Age have been witnessing deforestation and particularly since the 18th century saw industrial revolutions. The imperial powers, despite concepts such as the 'white man's burden' in that they should contribute something to the developing countries, have mainly focused on pushing their economies forward and that remains the issue today. This is the key reason why Bush remains hesitant on doing anything regarding emissions.
Given the approach Al Gore has adopted on climate change and his movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' (2006), it is an interesting to speculate on the 'what if?' of if he had scraped sufficient votes in 2000 to have become president. My guess is that he would have been tied down heavily by US industry not to pursue as strong restrictions as he now advocates. The twist of this 'what if?' may not be played out yet. Sitting here in 2047 we may say 'well wasn't it a good thing Gore lost the presidency because he was able to make far greater an impact on climate change than if he had done'.
We have 8 leaders now assembled, they seem powerful and probably are more so than another selection of 8 leaders one might pick (there are some candidates such as Brazil, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, India and certainly China who would probably outrank countries like Italy and Canada in terms of 'power') and yet, do they truly hold power? I would argue no. Some have more power than they have the intelligence to use, notably Bush. However, the others are shackled by big business, its wealth, its connections. Even when they have the foresight, understanding and will to bring about change such as reducing global poverty, developing world debt or to provide reasonably priced drugs, they often cannot. Their abilities to act are hampered by business leaders who run companies that have held such power now for over 100 years and have gone through wars often with minimal harm. Imperialism is still around, but note as V.I. Lenin suggested, imperialism is the highest stage of capitalisms, hence it is the capitalists, not the politicians, who are the highest imperialists.
Coming all rather old school there at the end, which was unexpected. Maybe anti-globalisation is much older than current campaigners and myself think and so may the responses are older too? I will give this some thought.
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