Foreign Relations

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  • Foreign Relations
    • EFTA and attempts to join the EEC
      • The Schuman Plan of 1950: named after the French foreign minister, Robert Schuman, set out the proposals for a coal and steel community that would integrate French and Germny heavy industry in order to promote rapid economic reconstruction and also to bind together the historic enemies, France and Germany and elimiate the dangers of furture wars between them
      • Reasons why Britain didn't get involved in the Cold War: there was an assumption that Briatin was still a great world power, Britian wanted to balance its involvement in Europe with maintaining the special relationship with the United Staes
      • The EEC took shape in an international onference at Messina in Sicily in 1955
      • The EEC is dominated by France and Germany
      • In 1959, Britain took the lead in the formation if the European Free Trade Assosiation
      • Britain wanted to keep its position in two other areas of world affairs: the Commonwealth and the United States
      • The negotiations seemed to have reached a succesful conlcusion in January 1963 but at the last minute the French president Cahrles de Gauelle exercied France's right of veto and blocked Britain's applicatio n
    • Relations with, and policies towards, USA and USSR
      • British relations with and policies towards, the United States and the USSR were dominated by the early of the Cold War
      • Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union had been allies during the Second World War
      • Harold Macmillan was involved in plans for a summit conference with Soviet Leader Nikita Krushchev in 1960
    • Debates over the nuclear deterrent
      • The United Sates had stopped sharing its nuclear secrets with Britain so if Britain wanted to become a nuclear power then it would have to do itself
      • Concerns over these devleopments led to the formation of CND (The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) in 1958
        • By 1958, the United States had once again agreed to share nuclear techonolgy with Britain under the Mutal Defence Agreement
      • Around 8000 people took partt in a demonstration at the weapons research base at Aldermaston in Berkshire in 1958
    • The Korean War 1950-53
      • At the end of WW2, Korea which had previously been ruled by Japan, was occupied by the Soviet Union in the north, and by the United States in the south
      • Two seperate governments were subsequently set up, each one claiming to be legitimate
      • In 1950, forces from north Korea supported by the Soviet Union and China, invaded the south. The United Nations condemned the action and sent UN forces to combat the invasio
      • There was heavy fighting resulting in a stalemate, a ceasefire was agreed in 1953. Over 1000 British troops had died
    • Suez 1956
      • 80%of Western Europe's oil imports passed through the canal
      • Eden saw Nasser as: 'an evil dictator who could not be allowed to get away with unprovoked aggression'
      • The military action did not go as smoothly as planned, though it might well have succeeded in the end
      • The Labour party opposed the conflict, anti-war protests were held and public opinion was split on the need for intervention
    • The winds of change and decolonisation
      • By 1951, Britains retreat from Empire had already begun, the decision to withdraw from India in 1947 was the most dramatic example of this
      • Britain, France, Vietnam, Algeria, Belgium and Portugal had to deal with revolts in African colonies
      • 1950s, Britains rulers believed they could manage a gradual transition from the Empire to the New Commonwealth and that colonial resistance movements could be controlled util their poeples were 'ready' for independence
      • Whe the Mau Mau rebellion broke out in Kenya in 1952, it was assumed that it could be quashed by the military
      • In 1957, Ghana became the first of Britains African colonies to be granted independance
      • Before 1960, the central aim of British imperial policy was to defeat nationalist revolts and to maintain control over Britain's African colonies

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