ABSTRACT
Britain’s global outlook Former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s scathing assessment of the state of British foreign policy in 1962 continues to rankle with British politicians of all the major parties. Membership of many of the world’s leading regional and international organisations gives Britain a profi le and infl uence that very few other states can match. However, the image of a former great power only slowly and reluctantly coming to terms with its fall from grace has come to characterise assessments of Britain’s place in the world by observers from within and outside the country. In no small measure the criticisms act as a useful reality check to politicians from across the board who have continually claimed ‘great’ global status for Britain in the face of many facts to the contrary, not least the country’s decreasing ability to fi nance an infl uential global role since the end of the Second World War in 1945. Th is chapter will study the tension between the rhetoric and reality in British foreign policy as they pertain to discussions about its role in the world, and some of the paradoxes this has thrown up over the decades since 1945.
