MONARCHS NEW, EMPIRES OLD

I much enjoyed watching the coronation of King Charles III on
Saturday. It's really quite convenient that the live coverage
happened to be right at prime evening viewing time here in (the
Commonwealth of) Australia. I had planned to point to the photos
and newspaper feature from the coronation of Elizabeth II over in
the History Snippets section before the event, but the sun was
shining that morning (they certainly could have done with that in
London) so I went to work on one of my outdoor projects instead.
Anyway, head over here and scroll down a fair way:
gopher://aussies.space/1/~freet/historysnip

They certainly scaled back the street decorations for the
procession compared to 1953, but of course back then many still
beleived London was the centre of an empire. In fact from the end
of the second world war the British empire was already a fading
echo, but one still loud enough to be heard by very many of those
within it, including many politicians. Lately I've been watching a
few documentaries that highlight some milestones in the British
government's subsequent failures to keep the more practical
traditions of empire running in the new age of cold war
superpowers. So, at the risk of bringing down the mood (or maybe
lifting it, if you're a republican).

The classic turning point in the political history is the Suez
Crisis, and the three-part BBC doumentary series "Suez: A Very
British Crisis" shows how even secret dealings to justify starting
an invasion weren't enough for Britain to win at old colonial games
without support from the USA. Nuclear threats from the Soviet Union
and paniced financial markets were the decisive factors for the
failed invasion of Egypt in 1956, rather than the actual fight on
the ground.

Suez: A Very British Crisis (2008)
https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Suez:_A_Very_British_Crisis

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkeDOHb0scc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvrY7MQu0aI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dlAvhcmeec

There's also a follow-up documentary "The Other Side of Suez" which
has something of a condensed version of the whole story.

The Other Side of Suez (2008)
https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=The_Other_Side_of_Suez

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETOUALw2EIs

But an aspect that I find very interesting is how the wheels kept
on turning within the UK to develop the technology fit for a global
superpower. Around the time of Suez crisis, the government was
ordering new aerospace projects to keep pace with Cold War weapons
technology, on the back of their already hard won nuclear weapons
capability developed without the assistance of the United States.
Two of the most advanced projects kept on going into the 60s and
reached a late stage of development before both were eventually
abandoned before ever going into use. The corresponding waste of
technology and money is saddening, and the later particularly given
the gloomy economic period that Britain was entering in the 70s.
But the technology itself is also a glimpse at the answer to a
great "what if?" of modern history. Were Britain to have remained a
global superpower in the cold war era, here are two weapons, the
Blue Streak missile programme and the TSR2 supersonic jet aircraft,
that might have distinguished the era.

TSR2 - The Untold Story (2005)
https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=TSR2_-_The_Untold_Story

BBC Time Shift - The British Space Race (2004)
https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=British_Space_Race

The Blue Streak Rocket (1964)
https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=The_Blue_Streak_Rocket

Beyond Britain, the Suez crisis is also an interesting lens through
which to consider other points of military history in the modern
era. The BBC documentary makes clear the parallels between that
1956 invasion of Egypt, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, where the US
proved itself powerful enough to win the war, but perhaps not wise
enough to win the following ill-conceived peace. But it also
highlights some less well remembered points in history.

A decade after starting the Suez conflict under a secret agreement
with the French and British governments, Israel again went to war
with Egypt, and, while again remaining withdrawn from the conflict
itself, the US sent a spy ship to monitor radio communications on
both sides. Amazingly the Israeli air force and navy attacked the
US spy ship, attempting to sink it and killing many of of the men
on board, apparantly to prevent it from intercepting more of their
transmissions, although this was later explained by both sides as
an unlikely case of mistaken identity. The way the event was
downplayed for the US media is also facinating. The torpedoed ship,
which barely limped away, was even secretly patched up and
repainted before returning to the US in order to disguise the
severity of the attack in front of the media.

The Day Israel Attacked America (2014)
https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=The_Day_Israel_Attacked_America

Later of course, the Soviet Union attempted its last roar of empire
in the familiar fighting grounds of Afghanistan, withdrawing from
there in defeat during the communist government's own dying years
(a correlation that's notable as something of a historical trend in
Russia). This 1980s US documentary, remarkably granted access
within the withdrawing soviet army far beyond what seems to have
been allowed by the US military during its recent repeat
performance, is an excellent accompaniment to Adam Curtis'
TraumaZone series. The footage is the best I've ever seen of the
soviet war in Afghanistan, tripping over itself with parallels to
the later US invasion, and also surprisingly musical.

Afgan - The Soviet Experience (1989)
https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Afgan_-_The_Soviet_Experience

Finally, next on my to-watch list is an Academy Award winning
documentary about a war which I'm embarrassed to admit to not being
aware of, taking place in the world's other great canal country,
Panama. Although it happened not that long ago, in 1989, the
strikingly familiar-sounding story of the US Invasion of Panama is
something that I really just haven't heard about, or at least
remembered. Indeed PBS even banned its TV stations from
broadcasting this documetary in the US, so clearly that alone makes
it worth watching.

The Panama Deception (1992)
https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=The_Panama_Deception
http://www.empowermentproject.org/pages/panama.html

- The Free Thinker

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