ABSTRACT
After the Second World War the Soviets had seemingly tried to force their way into the Middle East by direct pressure on the ‘northern tier’ countries. They demanded territory and base rights from Turkey, promoted separatist movements in Iran, and sponsored (so it was believed) the communist side in the Greek civil war. Although these pressures were successfully resisted, they were seen as part of an emerging pattern of Soviet aggression worldwide. The Soviets had taken advantage of their wartime occupation of Eastern Europe and parts of the Far East to establish communist-dominated regimes in Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania and North Korea; in 1948 communists seized power in Czechoslovakia and the Soviets blockaded West Berlin; in 1949 China fell to the communists; and in 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea, precipitating a war which would last until 1953.1
The emergence of this Soviet threat coincided with signs that Britain was facing increasing difficulties in maintaining her imperial or ‘world’ role. The Second World War had imposed great strains on the British economy, and economic and financial difficulties continued throughout the 1940s. They were aggravated by Britain’s worldwide defence commitments, despite her withdrawal from India in 1947, and from Burma, Ceylon and Palestine in 1948. As early as 1947 Britain faced a major crisis on the northern fringes of the Middle East, where she could no longer sustain the financial and military burden of supporting Greece and Turkey against Soviet pressure. The Labour government turned the problem over to the United States, where President Truman responded in March by enunciating the ‘Truman Doctrine’, which promised American financial and military aid to Greece and Turkey, and to all ‘free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure’. For the British this was a major gain, but it was also a warning that their world role, in the Middle East as elsewhere, would henceforth depend upon American support.2
