ABSTRACT
The signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance on 29 January 1902 is often discussed in the context of the ending of British isolation and the first step on a path that would lead, through the signing of the Entente Cordiale with France (1904) and the Anglo-Russian Convention (1907), towards a Triple (perhaps Quadruple) Entente designed to check Germany in Europe.1 A necessary corollary of such thinking is that the Anglo-Japanese alliance was necessary due to Britain’s relative decline as a Great Power, particularly her ability to maintain a naval supremacy against the burgeoning strength of Imperial Germany.2 The Anglo-Japanese Alliance is less viewed (if at all) in the context of British strategic foreign policy, that is to say, in the way that the British policy-making élite considered how the Alliance affected its naval, military, economic, financial and foreign policy positions.3 Nor is the Alliance generally analyzed to see whether it achieved its goal of protecting Britain’s global interests.
