The Cold War is often considered to be the quintessential intelligence conflict. Yet secret intelligence remains the `missing dimension' of Britain's Cold War history. This volume offers an authoritative picture of Britain's clandestine role in the development of the Cold War focusing upon the key issues of intelligence and strategy.
The first full account of British policy towards China, Japan and Korea from the final stages of the Second World War to the outbreak of the Korean War, set against the backdrop of the Anglo-American relationship, broader Far Eastern developments, the beginnings of the Cold War, and Britain's relationship with the Commonwealth.
“Rollicking, readable new history of Britain’s famous spy organization.” —Los Angeles Times A complete and up-to-date account of the two oldest and still the most powerful, secretive intelligence services in the world: MI5, the security service, and MI6, the secret intelligence service, which have been in existence for over a century. This is a story of spectacular triumphs, treachery, their frigid relationship, their untold work with the CIA, Mossad and the spy services of Europe, and their part in the fight against terror. It is also the story of two agencies led by men who are enigmatic, eccentric and controversial and who ruthlessly control their spies. From the unique partnership between Mossad and MI6, how MI5 and MI6 became a breeding ground for Soviet spies post-war, their exploitation of the collapse of the Soviet Union and their role in biological warfare, and including how both services monitor the spies of every nation based in London, it reads like fiction. But it’s not. Based on prodigious research and interviews with significant players Inside British Intelligence is packed with new and startling information. “An irresistible picture of an age of global terrorism, drug trafficking and economic warfare.” —Sunday Telegraph “ . . . a fascinating cast of moles and double agents, whistle-blowers and politicians. For the ambience of the closed world that inspired James Bond and George Smiley, this book is a winner.” —Publishers Weekly “A well-written page-turner.” —Kirkus Reviews “Thomas brings to the agencies histories a high level of expertise, a fluent style, accessible to lay reader and expert alike.” —Booklist
Celebrated as a trading port, Hong Kong was also Britain’s “eastern fortress”. Likened by many to Gibraltar and Malta, the colony was a vital but vulnerable link in imperial strategy, exposed to a succession of enemies in a turbulent age and a troubled region. This book examines Hong Kong’s developing role in the Victorian imperial defence system, the emerging challenges from Russia, France, the United States, Germany, Japan and other powers, and preparations in the years leading up to the Second World War. A detailed chapter offers new interpretations of the Battle of Hong Kong of 1941, when the colony succumbed to the Japanese invasion. The remaining chapters discuss Hong Kong’s changing strategic role during the Cold War and the winding down of the military presence. The book not only focuses on policies and events, but also explores the social life of the garrison in Hong Kong, the struggles between military and civil authorities, and relations between the armed forces and civilians in Hong Kong. Drawing on original research in archives around the world, including English, Japanese, and Chinese sources, this is the first full-length study of the defence of Hong Kong from the beginning of the colonial period to the end of British military interests East of Suez in 1970. Illustrated with images and detailed maps, Eastern Fortress will be of interest to both students of history and general readers. Kwong Chi Man is an assistant professor in the History Department of Hong Kong Baptist University. Tsoi Yiu Lun teaches history and liberal studies at Mu Kuang English School, Hong Kong. “Armed with a range of declassified archives—many of them unpublished—Kwong and Tsoi expertly weave together military, political, social, and economic history to show how Hong Kong played a strategic role in East Asia and the British Empire from the early 1840s to the 1970s. Eastern Fortress is a must-read for anyone interested in Hong Kong and its history.” —John Carroll, author of A Concise History of Hong Kong and Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong “This careful and well-written study does a difficult balancing act very well indeed. It connects the military history of Hong Kong to both the general Hong Kong experience and the wider military history of the region and beyond. Weaving its way with confidence from archive to library, from grand strategy to battlefield, this volume provides what we have long needed. Hong Kong’s experience was unique, but at the same time it was integrally connected to the wider circles of empire, region, and Asia. Nothing brings that trajectory out more strongly than the military dimension, and by ranging from the Opium War to the Cold War, with a critical eye, this volume does that story justice. It is the capstone that brings together a generation of good scholarship on the military history of Hong Kong.” —Brian Farrell, author of The Basis and Making of British Grand Strategy 1940–1943: Was There a Plan? and co-author of Between Two Oceans: A Military History of Singapore from First Settlement to Final British Withdrawal
In this long-awaited sequel to his acclaimed Russia's Road to the Cold War (1979), Vojtech Mastny offers a thorough history of the early years of the Cold War, drawing upon his extensive research in newly opened Soviet archives. Just as the earlier volume offered the definitive portrait of Joseph Stalin's foreign policy during World War II, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity affords readers an equally superb account of Stalin's foreign policy during his last years. Combining important new data with the fascinating insights of one of our leading authorities on Soviet affairs, this book illuminates a crucial period in recent world history.
After 1949, the British Empire in Hong Kong was more vulnerable than the lack of Chinese demand for return and the success of Hong Kong's economic transformations might have suggested. Its vulnerability stemmed as much from Britain's imperial decline and America's Cold War requirements as from a Chinese threat. It culminated in the little known '1957 Question', a year when the British position in Hong Kong appeared more uncertain than any time since 1949. This is the first scholarly study that places Hong Kong at the heart of the Anglo-American relationship in the wider context of the Cold War in Asia. Unlike existing works, which tend to treat British and US policies in isolation, this book explores their dynamic interactions - how the two allies perceived, responded to, and attempted to influence each other's policies and actions. It also provides a major reinterpretation of Hong Kong's involvement in the containment of China. Dr Mark argues that, concerned about possible Chinese retaliation, the British insisted and the Americans accepted that Hong Kong's role should be as discreet and non-confrontational in nature as possible. Above all, top decision-makers in Washington evaluated Hong Kong's significance not in its own right, but in the context of the Anglo-American relationship: Hong Kong was seen primarily as a bargaining chip to obtain British support for US policy elsewhere in Asia. By using a variety of British and US archival material as well as Chinese sources, Dr Mark examines how the British and US government discussed, debated, and disagreed over Hong Kong's role in the Cold War, and reveals the dynamics of the Anglo-American alliance and the dilemmas of small allies in a global conflict.
This description of Allied contingency plans for military operations in the Middle East - in the event of conflict with the Soviet Union - argues that diplomatic events and crises in the Middle East in 1945-55 are understandable only in the context of assets sought by the Allies in that region.
This book challenges the standard orthodox and neo-revisionist accounts of the origins of the Cold War, which portray the West as containing an expansionist Soviet Union. Initially showing the importance of all three major wartime leaders attached to cooperation in the post-war international order, the book then focuses on imperial rivalries, particularly between Britain and the Soviet Union in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean, but also between the US and the Soviet Union in East Asia The book provides a nuanced account, evaluating the responsibilities of the three major Allies for the breakdown of wartime cooperation by covering in detail the issues in Germany, Poland, Romania, Greece, Iran and Egypt. It thereby provides an analysis of specific interests to enable an accurate chronology of leaders’ and foreign ministers’ conferences. Uniquely, it treats Britain’s role as comparatively more important in the alliance’s breakdown and the Cold War’s origins.
Why did NATO expand its membership during the Cold War years, and what was its attraction to new members? This book locates the answers to these questions not solely in the Cold War, but in the historical problems of international order in Europe and the growing idea of the West. A wide range of sources is used, and the analysis looks at a process of neo-enlargement during NATO's inception as well as the formal accessions that followed.
