ABSTRACT
World War Two brought about the demise of the old European colonial empires. France and Italy had been defeated, and victorious Britain was debilitated and bankrupt. Britain and Germany were the only belligerents who had been in the conflict from beginning to end. The war had been won by Soviet brawn and American industrial power. Britain had been humiliated in the Far East by the Japanese, and was now overshadowed by the two extraEuropean superpowers – the Soviet Union and the United States – the new arbiters of world affairs. The anti-colonialism of the two superpowers made it harder for Britain to reassert her authority without jeopardizing her allimportant alliance with the Americans. However, two points need to be noted. First, in the context of their joint preparations for the possibility of a new world conflict, this time against the USSR, the Americans were dependent upon British strategic air bases, both in East Anglia and in the Middle East, for at least the first decade after World War Two. Second, the American insurance against Soviet aggression in Europe in fact gave Britain more security than she had enjoyed in the 1930s.2
