Political Crossfire Forums

[thundertaker]

I'm doing a presentation on the role of the superpowers on the dismanteling of the European Empires. Anything you think I ought to include?

So far, I've got american national identity deriving from the anti-imperialist struggle against the colonial masters, Britain, the reaction to the Phillipine Insurrection and the anti-imperialist league, the Soviet Union's opposition to imperialism as the 'highest form of capitalist exploitation' and the refusal of America to support Britain and France over the Suez Crisis....

[Johannes]

Well, I don't have much to add, however you might want to check your facts. I don't think that France was helping Britain during the Suez Canal Crisis or the war in the Sinai either. Eh, maybe I'm wrong, but I'd double check. The French have, for the most part, been very supportive of Israel. Not to get off topic...

[thundertaker]

Johannes wrote: Well, I don't have much to add, however you might want to check your facts. I don't think that France was helping Britain during the Suez Canal Crisis or the war in the Sinai either. Eh, maybe I'm wrong, but I'd double check. The French have, for the most part, been very supportive of Israel. Not to get off topic...

I can assure you, the Suez Canal crisis was a collaboration between Britain, France and Israel.......

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/suez.htm

[Angela]

thundertaker wrote: I'm doing a presentation on the role of the superpowers on the dismanteling of the European Empires. Anything you think I ought to include?

So far, I've got american national identity deriving from the anti-imperialist struggle against the colonial masters, Britain, the reaction to the Phillipine Insurrection and the anti-imperialist league, the Soviet Union's opposition to imperialism as the 'highest form of capitalist exploitation' and the refusal of America to support Britain and France over the Suez Crisis....

I don’t know I think that the fall of European empires was more an outcome of WWII (and WWI): neither the UK nor France (end even less Belgium and the Netherlands) had the strength, especially from an economic point of view, to keep together such large empires. While it’s true that both the US and the USSR were nominally against empires (pretty funny considering they were both imperial powers) They didn’t do anything, at least until Suez. On the contrary the US sometimes helped when they decided to return the European possession in Asia after WWII, or to support France in Indochina

[battleax86]

thundertaker wrote: I'm doing a presentation on the role of the superpowers on the dismanteling of the European Empires. Anything you think I ought to include?

So far, I've got american national identity deriving from the anti-imperialist struggle against the colonial masters, Britain, the reaction to the Phillipine Insurrection and the anti-imperialist league, the Soviet Union's opposition to imperialism as the 'highest form of capitalist exploitation' and the refusal of America to support Britain and France over the Suez Crisis....
Hmm...I don't know if I can help that much, but I don't really see how the Soviet Union had any role in dismantling the European empires. They were all but gone by the time that the Soviet Union became a superpower.

As for the United States, our very existence helped dismantle part of the British Empire in North America, and we later took control of Spanish and French holdings in the surrounding area. The Monroe Doctrine and the threat of war played a tiny role in the fall of French control over Mexico. We took away what was left of the Spanish empire in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Beyond that though, the empires fell for various reasons, usually by either indigenous resistance or the colonial power's inability to further manage them because of the strain of European conflicts.

[thundertaker]

I've always had this idea the Soviets sponsored communist independence movements such as the Vietminh in French Indo-China, and the americans were unsympathetic to British and French attemps to act like old imperialist powers during the Suez Crisis, threatening to destroy Britain's economy by selling it's reserves of pound-sterling. Plus the americans wanted access to free markets that were denied by the protetionist tendencies of the imperial powers and their colonies...

[antonio62]

Could add about how the Americans wouldn't let British troops go in and take out any nationalist movements in Malaysia and Indonesia. This let them take hold in peoples minds and let them gather in strength and although they did crush the nationalists to begin with they eventually gained independence.

[battleax86]

thundertaker wrote: I've always had this idea the Soviets sponsored communist independence movements such as the Vietminh in French Indo-China, and the americans were unsympathetic to British and French attemps to act like old imperialist powers during the Suez Crisis, threatening to destroy Britain's economy by selling it's reserves of pound-sterling. Plus the americans wanted access to free markets that were denied by the protetionist tendencies of the imperial powers and their colonies...
Well, I must admit, I only have a marginal knowledge of the Suez Crisis and it surprises me that the United States didn't back Israel, considering that Egypt would have cut off a considerable chunk of the Israeli economy if their actions had been allowed to stand...like I said in the other thread, you learn something new every day.

As for the Vietminh, I was under the impression that they were mainly sponsored by the Chinese, who by that time, had become openly hostile to the Soviets. Did the Soviets have more influence than the Chinese in Southeast Asia?