| ID | 084567 |
| Title Proper | Security studies and the use of history |
| Other Title Information | neville chamberlain's grand strategy revisited |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Layne, Christopher |
| Publication | 2008. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | In The Gathering Storm, Winston S. Churchill claimed that during the 1930s British leaders were willfully blind to the German threat and failed to meet it by rearming. Accepting the Churchillian narrative, leading IR scholars regard British grand strategy during the 1930s as glaring example of strategic adjustment failure. This article reappraises British grand strategy during the 1930s and rejects both the Churchillian narrative, and the scholarly claims that Britain did not adjust its strategy to the German threat. In the 1930s, Britain did balance against Germany and focused on countering what policy makers perceived as the key threat facing Britain: its vulnerability to German air attack. Britain's grand strategic options were limited by external conditions and by domestic economic constraints. Neville Chamberlain, therefore, was playing a weak hand, and did the best that he could with the cards he was dealt. Britain's 1930s grand strategy is one of the historical cases most frequently used by IR scholars for theory testing. For that reason alone, it is important to get the history right. This is not the only reason, however. The 1930s have provided many of the concepts, images, and metaphors that have dominated the discourse about American foreign policy since World War II. Because scholarship about the events of the 1930s shapes the discourse about real-world policy, getting the history right matters |
| `In' analytical Note | Security Studies Vol. 17, No. 3; Jul-Sep 2008: p397-437 |
| Journal Source | Security Studies Vol. 17, No. 3; Jul-Sep 2008: p397-437 |
| Key Words | Grand Strategy ; Security ; United States ; Foreign Policy |