ABSTRACT
In his book The Lost Victory, Correlli Barnett accused the first Attlee government of being complacent about the harsh economic realities faced by Britain at the end of the war. He claims that British politicians should not have deluded themselves about Britain's continued great power status or the country's ability to afford what he describes as a lavish welfare state. Barnett argues that this spirit of complacency arose from a belief "... that in Britain's war record lay the assurance that in every way she was, and would remain, a first class world power."1 Barnett suggests that the general attitude of complacency therefore prevented the fundamental reforms of British government and industry needed to revive the country's fortunes by failing to develop a comprehensive development strategy in order to compete successfully with its rivals. This criticism reflects the underlying premise for his analysis of the decline of British power, the concept of total strategy, which he conceives "... as encompassing all factors relevant to preserving or extending the power of a human group in the face of rivalry from other groups." In line with this premise, Barnett tries to understand the phenomenon of "the decay of British power" as a multifaceted process involving a broad spectrum of social factors "ranging from religion to technology, from education to foreign policy, from literature to grand strategy."2 The concept of total strategy implies that in the struggle between nation states, governments and societies should aim to improve a nation's ability to project power and suggests that the primary objective of government economic policy should be to extend the military capabilities of the nation. However, the very vagueness of his concept of total strategy allows Barnett to imply that the Attlee government contributed to the decay of British power through its policies
His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1946), 4-6. David Edgerton, 'Whatever happened to the British warfare state? The Ministry of
Supply, 1945-1951," in Labour Governments and Private Industry: The Experience of 1945-1951, eds. Helen Mercer, Neil Rollings, and Jim Tomlinson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992).
