'In the Mutual Interest': The Making and Breaking of the United Kingdom-Ceylon Defence Agreement, 1947–1957.
Historians have lavished enormous attention on British decolonisation but Britain's post-imperial military relationships with its former colonies have too often been overlooked. The 1947 United Kingdom-Ceylon Defence Agreement established as a condition of the island's independence was the first suc...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History Vol. 50; no. 6; pp. 1093 - 1123 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Dec2022
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=160564513&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 160564513 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 03086534 RIB jtl: Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History issn: 03086534 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Dec2022 vid: 50 iid: 6 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 160564513 10.1080/03086534.2022.2084932 ppf: 1093 ppct: 30 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 2MB tig: atl: 'In the Mutual Interest': The Making and Breaking of the United Kingdom-Ceylon Defence Agreement, 1947–1957. aug: au: Barnes, Robert affil: York St John University, York, UK su: British prime ministers British military Cold War, 1945-1991 British colonies Armed forces Decolonization Military invasion Sri Lanka United Kingdom sug: subj: Sri Lanka United Kingdom British prime ministers British military Cold War, 1945-1991 British colonies Armed forces Decolonization Military invasion keyword: Britain Ceylon (Sri Lanka) Cold War Commonwealth decolonisation defence empire ab: Historians have lavished enormous attention on British decolonisation but Britain's post-imperial military relationships with its former colonies have too often been overlooked. The 1947 United Kingdom-Ceylon Defence Agreement established as a condition of the island's independence was the first such military arrangement. Crucially, this agreement was vaguely conceived to serve 'in the mutual interest' of both states. Yet this article demonstrates that negotiations to implement the United Kingdom-Ceylon Defence Agreement produced deep rifts between London and Colombo. Both Labour and Conservative governments viewed Ceylon as vital to the defence of the Empire-Commonwealth in the Cold War due to its geostrategic position. Britain thus had to retain access to its bases on the island. Still, Britain's financial constraints and global military commitments forced London to press Ceylon to contribute more to Commonwealth defence. In contrast, Ceylon's first three prime ministers desired a British military presence to provide a cheap deterrent to an apparently imminent Indian invasion. Nevertheless, Colombo also sought to dispel claims the Defence Agreement derogated Ceylon's sovereignty. By 1956, therefore, the election of a Sinhalese nationalist government in Ceylon and Britain's Suez fiasco confirmed the Defence Agreement no longer served 'in the mutual interest' and it was swiftly terminated. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2022 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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