| Popis: |
This thesis traces the development of Anglo-American naval relations throughout the Chamberlain premiership and the various attempts that were made during this period to extend and broaden the existing level of cooperation in the hope that it might be used for politico-strategic purposes. It deals in some depth with the background to and course of Eden's various initiatives to the Roosevelt Administration in the six months following the July 7th incident of 1937 and explains why his attempts to construct some form of naval partnership with the United States evoked such opposition from within the ranks of the British Government. In this connection, Chamberlain's rather ambivalent role in Anglo-American relations and the contrast between Eden and himself in their use of different methods, style and policy is closely examined in the first half of the thesis. After Eden's resignation and until appeasement became discredited, Anglo-American naval cooperation continued to be a mainly technical rather than strategic nature. In the last few months of peace, however, the British again looked to the Americans for strategic assistance and tried unsuccessfully to encourage them to deploy their fleet in the Western Pacific in order to counter the threat of the Japanese in the Far East. The thesis goes on to explore the changing naval relationship between Britain and the United States after the outbreak of the Second World War and how it led to greater involvement between them on detailed day-to-day technical matters related to the war in Europe.Although predominantly a study in the formation of British policy, the thesis has also drawn extensively on the official American records in an attempt to establish that a close link existed between naval strategy and foreign policy in Anglo-American relations during this period. |
