He maps the web connecting dark think tanks to Downing Street, the journalists involved in selling it to the public and the media bosses pushing their own agendas. The saddest thing about this story of national decline is that none of the right people will ever read it. Throwing in just enough resource to keep the war going for a long time, but never putting any boots on the ground. Some industries, such as aircraft manufacture, were far larger than was now needed, while others, such as railways and coal mines, were desperately short of new equipment and in bad repair.

It's scarcely different from what Russia is trying to do in Ukraine, the only difference is that we told ourselves it was a noble cause. We talk about choices and democracy and representation, but what can people do when they have such a corrupt, oppressive and violent government? Meanwhile Putin, who accused the West of having anally raped Serbia, was prompted to foster aggressive nationalism in Russia, leading to a renewed assault on the breakaway republic of Chechnya and the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.Truman, as he was required to do by law, ended lend-lease, upon which Britain had depended for its necessities as well as its arms.

He expected the accounts to have been well thumbed in recent years, by analysts on behalf of government, but the archivist confirmed that the sources had not been disturbed for decades. Without the UK's marginal but key role, he argues convincingly, the wars in Kosovo, Iraq, and Libya would not have happened and our world today would be safer.Last month, the UK quietly removed “human rights” and the “rule of law” from its list of objectives in negotiating a trade deal with six Gulf states. The reality is that Britain is a large economy, with a powerful military, and is disproportionally influential. They served up to anxious voters a menu of scary outsiders: bureaucrats in Brussels, immigrants, asylum seekers—anybody but the actual decision makers who had kneecapped British competitiveness. it is essential to identify the people and organisations which, sometimes by accident and sometimes quite deliberately, set the United Kingdom on a course of unnecessary domestic decline and international diminishment.

In How Britain Broke the World, his first book, former senior British diplomat Arthur Snell (Magdalen, 1994) serves up gracefully written history of ‘Britain in the world’ that goes from Blair/Kosovo and Blair/Iraq right through to Brexit and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, taking account of many chapters in between such as Afghanistan, Libya and other UK geo-political relations including China, India and Russia. In a piercing analysis, Arthur Snell reveals the role the United Kingdom has played in raising tension and creating global flashpoints in the 21st Century. The intervention in Libya was justified by securing a limited UN resolution and then expanding its scope.By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. Brexit, which made us the “first country to impose economic sanctions on itself”, only added to government debt. And, significantly, all of his points are packed with enough evidence and examples to show that the decline is provable and measurable.

His point is that whereas the Weapons of Mass Destruction defence led to the destruction of an entire state, with dire long-term consequences for international security, in Syria there really was a terrible massacre of the innocents but we did nothing. He has the sense to see that it was not one grand master conspiracy, but that Britain was broken “sometimes by design” and “sometimes by incompetence”. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more. Rather than transforming into some post-economic Eden of good vibes, it becomes bitter, flailing, and nonsensical. This book is essentially a catalogue of the UK governments diplomatic screw-ups over the last quarter century.With decades of service in the Foreign Office, Snell, an Arabic speaker who has worked with UK intelligence, looks at British interventions from Kosovo to Iraq to Afghanistan, along with the UK policy towards Russia, Saudi Arabia and China.