Someone Else's Empire

SOMEONE ELSE’S EMPIRE dispels the myth of a ‘Global Britain’ that punches above its weight in the world. The reality, argues Tom Stevenson, is that Britain lacks even the barest outline of an independent foreign policy. The impetus for so many policy decisions, from Iraq to AUKUS, comes from a supine desire to maintain lieutenant rank in the Washington hierarchy, whatever the consequences. Nostalgia for global influence has produced a compulsive Atlanticism and a reflexive resort to military actions that the UK is near incapable of actually performing. The net effect of Brexit has been an increase in vassalage. Yet for what must ultimately be psychological reasons, British leaders and national security clerks have tended to dislike seeing Britain framed by American power. Someone Else’s Empire looks at the infrastructure of a US world order re-energised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and fits the UK into the picture without the usual euphemisms. It is one thing to station military forces around the world to maintain your empire, but quite another to do so for someone else’s.

Tom Stevenson is a contributing editor at the London Review of Books where he writes about energy, defence and international politics. He has reported from Ukraine, the Middle East and North Africa for the LRB, Times Literary Supplement, Financial Times and the BBC.

I. Equerry Dreams 1. Eternal Allies 2. Someone Else’s Empire 3. The British Defence Intellectual 4. The Anglo-settler Societies and World History 5. Green Bamboo, Red Snow II. Instruments of Order 6. The Economic Weapon 7. Keys to the World 8. The Proxy Doctrine 9. On Thermonuclear War 10. Astrostrategy III. A Prize from Fairyland 11. What Are We There For? 12. The Benefits of Lawlessness 13. In Egypt’s Prisons 14. Successors on the Earth 15. The Revolutionary Decade 16. Kinetic Strikes Postscript: Reactive Management of the World Empire