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Long after the end of World War II, the United States and Canada provided Britain with a total of $5 billion in financial credit, giving Britain a temporary respite, and the increase in export trade in 1946 also improved its balance of payments, and Britain's economy appeared to be recovering, but in fact it was false prosperity.
Due to the lack of raw materials and basic necessities, Britain had to import from abroad, but rising prices in countries such as the United States and Canada made the original loan amount deplete faster.
The economic crisis continues to deepen
The fuel crisis of late 1946 and early 1947 exacerbated the already fragile British economy. Although coal production continued to increase in 1946, it still could not meet industrial needs, and the shortage worsened by the end of the year.
The sudden winter has made energy shortages a daily top priority for the cabinet, and the crisis has pushed Attlee's government to the forefront faster than expected. On January 20, the Attlee government issued a White Paper, saying: "Britain is in an extremely dangerous situation, the whole world has seen that the British Empire is weak to the point of death, and everyone is talking about Dunkirk."
The deepening of the economic crisis and the intensification of the East-West confrontation made Britain understand that the original Sargent Memorandum could no longer be adapted to the current situation, so foreign policy needed to be rethought, and as a result, the "allies" of Britain and the United States were closer, and the Foreign Office also strengthened its analysis and assessment of Soviet policy.
Prior to this, Britain's decision to retain its role as one of the three major powers in order to maintain the so-called "global mission" prompted the Foreign Office to conclude that, given its weakness, it must have the support of the United States in order to carry out its own policy.
The reason Britain conceived this way was that the United States became richer and more powerful after World War II, and the United States was not destroyed during the war, but there was a surplus of industrial capacity.
At the same time, the United Kingdom and the United States share common political and cultural values, rich ties, and considerable interdependence. Faced with the situation in postwar Europe, the United States, frustrated that it believed that it had saved the world from the disaster, seemed incapable of an orderly return to the desired state of normalcy.
A number of factors led Foreign Ministry officials to believe that with their wealth of experience and superior intelligence, they could guide this "clumsy giant" to his ends. American isolationism will be overcome. As a "junior partner", Britain will use the power of the United States to achieve its own policy goals.
However, the reality is that from 1945 to early 1946, the British Foreign Office was acutely aware that the United States was unwilling to "ally" with Britain and suspected that Britain was trying to build an Anglo-American front against the Soviet Union.
In the autumn of 1946, Anglo-American relations underwent a major shift, and in the case of the Soviet Union, the rise of anti-Sovietism in the United States led to questions about Britain's commitment to the West. This change is due in large part to the communist doctrine that spread from Moscow, which seems to have found fertile ground in a large number of Eastern European countries, including Western Europe.
Some argue that the socialist-style reforms introduced by the Labour government left Britain vulnerable to communism. Developments threaten the peace that has just been won, impede opportunities for economic development and pose a strategic threat.
At the same time, in the face of the aggressive posture of the Soviet Union, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs further analyzed the relations between Britain and the Soviet Union. Both Ome Sargent and Attlee believed that Britain needed to adjust its foreign policy on the own.
Bevin did not immediately make a decision after receiving the memorandum , believing that Britain's current economic difficulties would be unwise to have a showdown with the Soviet Union, and did not want to abandon the three-power system, which would put Britain under excessive diplomatic pressure, and then discussed it with Prime Minister Attlee on 5 January 1947.
Attlee suggested: "Unless the Soviet Union is firmly committed to a policy of world domination, this strategy should be pursued in such a way as possible to try to reach a compromise with the Soviet Union." This reflects the differences in his and Bevin policy toward the Soviet Union, despite their good cooperative relations and common diplomatic principles, largely due to their different policy philosophies.
The shift in Soviet policy marked the collapse of Bevin's vision of continuing the system of the Three Powers, with the British government believing that the Soviet Union had gained superiority in Europe.
Since the intelligence came mainly from the documents of ambassadors, London's policy analysis and adjustments were also based on this, and Bevin was also deeply influenced by it, and economic and security issues throughout his tenure severely constrained Bevin's strategic vision. Britain in 1947 believed that diplomatic independence was necessary, but in view of its weaknesses and Soviet considerations, it was more dangerous to be too independent.
At this time, compared with 1945, when the United States considered the Soviet Union to be a more threat, Bevan recognized the significant change in the situation and began to consciously increase his dependence on the United States, while trying to maintain Britain's "autonomy", and the prospects for the "third way" became increasingly uncertain.
The escalation of the Cold War, diplomatic differences between Britain and the United States and Western Europe, and Bevin's rejection of the "Little England Plan"
On February 21, 1947, the Attlee government issued a defense white paper, acknowledging that the fiscal deficit of 1946 was 450 million pounds and had to be drastically reduced in overseas spending and obligations, and on the same day issued a note to the United States, claiming that severe domestic economic difficulties forced Britain to be unable to provide assistance to Greece and Turkey after March 31.
The Greco-Turkish crisis was hotly debated within the British government. As early as September 1946, when Greece completed democratic elections, the British government considered withdrawing its troops as part of a planned reduction in overseas obligations.
The Treasury believed that Britain was facing a financial "Dunkirk" due to export problems, unforeseen dollar consumption, and the fuel shortage crisis of February 1947, and that the Attlee government had suffered a serious crisis of domination, so Hugh Dalton recommended that all economic and military aid be stopped.
However, the General Staff again analyzed the Greco-Turkish problem, deemed the need to increase the Greek army and obtain financial assistance from the United States, and referred the matter to the Cabinet, which agreed to the request.
On February 8, Bevin met with Dalton to discuss the Greek-Turkish issue, with the former wanting a short-term increase in aid, slowly reducing it and eventually withdrawing from Greece, while the latter believed that aid should be immediately withdrawn and obligations abroad reduced to begin solving domestic economic problems. After weighing the pros and cons, Bevan bowed to Chancellor Dalton despite the objections of the Foreign Office and decided to stop the aid to Greece.
The news that the British Foreign Office will not be able to assist Greece and Turkey in a short period of time informed the United States that there are multiple considerations. First, on this issue, the views of the Ministry of Finance prevailed, subordinated to the grand strategy of minimizing overseas obligations and maximizing the interests of the post-war British Empire.
Second, as early as 1946, the United States took advantage of the Soviet-Turkish dispute and the plight of Britain's huge cost but could not eliminate the Greek Democratic Army, and infiltrated its forces into Greece and Turkey in the form of aid. Believing that it was no longer able to change the situation, Britain withdrew voluntarily and took the opportunity to offload some of its overseas burdens.
The third is to guide the United States to respond the same way as itself, and use this opportunity to attract American power into Europe, and use American power to counter the Soviet Union to ease its own military pressure and strengthen Europe's defense. This British approach succeeded in creating a sense of urgency in the United States and galvanizing public opinion in the latter.
Bevan's actions largely contributed to the formation of the Truman Doctrine and containment policies. Under Attlee's administration, the Foreign Office sought to influence American public opinion, focusing on convincing Britain as a good long-term investment, an indispensable ally and European leader during the Cold War, and using the sensitivities of socialism in the United States to pursue British policy.
However, in 1946-1947, Britain's performance made the United States doubt its ability to do so, fearing that Western European countries would not be able to resist the Soviet Union, and Britain also understood that it could not bear the corresponding responsibility, and given that it was a fortress against communism in Europe, it was likely to receive further American support.
It was precisely this subtle connection that Bevan took advantage of to cater to the strategic needs and public opinion trends of the United States and promote the escalation of the Cold War situation. Professor Robert Fraser argues that this seems to be neither determined by financial difficulties nor the end result of normal policy-making processes, but rather by the wit of a statesmanship.
The introduction of the Truman Doctrine marked a revolutionary shift in U.S. foreign policy, the formal rupture of the wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the end of the idea of "isolationism", which was also in line with British diplomatic strategy, but deepened dependence on the United States, and the conflict between the two sides intensified.
In Western Europe, as early as 1944, Western European countries hoped that Britain would lead Europe to economic unity and assume the important task of defending Europe. For postwar France, its military power was exhausted, so its security goals needed to be achieved diplomatically, and a European and global order was needed.
With the escalation of the Cold War situation, France's new "1947 Objectives" became more and more incompatible with the "1944 Goals", and its internal weaknesses were gradually exposed.
For Britain, it is true that the danger of the Soviet Union has risen, but Bevan does not want to strengthen the antagonism between Britain and the Soviet Union, but only wants to use external threats to seek US military security commitments against Europe and promote all-round unity in Western Europe.
Moreover, the national strategic needs of the United States and France and the Soviet Union's response to this exacerbated the East-West confrontation, and Bevan had to succumb to the policy pressures of the two countries and changes in the European situation.
The crux of the criticism of government policy by members of the left in the country lies in two aspects: the perception that Britain is unnecessarily hostile to the Soviet Union, and the second is that it is too submissive to the United States. The former is due to the "natural" close relationship between these people and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, while the latter is due to the fact that Britain and the United States are often in a position of inferiority and concession in the game.
For example, in November 1946, the Anglo-American negotiations on the unified air defense identification zone negotiated a domestic compromise, which led leftists to believe that the price paid by Britain in 1945 was the same as the British loan to the United States in 1945, so the United States did not give Britain a fair treatment.
This idea was actually endorsed by Bevan and Attlee, but due to the overall shift in domestic public opinion and the rapid changes in the international situation, it was eventually abandoned by Bevan out of consideration for the overall national strategic interests.
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