Britain’s Defence Policy Towards Northern Europe Early After The Second World War

In the study of the postwar British foreign policy, Northern Europe is never the focus of attention. Relevant researches abroad are limited, and their counterparts in China are even rarer. However, the relation with Northern Europe was not dispensable for Britain as we might think. It was important in the angle of both economics and strategies. Economically, it was not only an important market for British exports and financial investment, but also a channel of imports of raw materials and agriculture/forestry products. Its economic importance was even more prominent in the postwar period when Britain faced with grim task of economic recovery. Strategically, World War II has changed the long last situation when Northern Europe kept away from the center of international politics. The tension between east and west after war made it even more important since it was on the boundary of two sides. In front of the possible conflict between east and west, any side will get a more forward warning and defense system, more useful naval and air bases and curtate attacking routes if it got Northern Europe controlled. As a result, any side of them would be interested in getting Northern Europe as a partner and try to keep the other away from there. Therefore, Britain made a lot of efforts to win over Northern Europe after war and its policy can be distinguished into two categories, namely its policy to Finland and its policy to the rest of the four Nordic countries—Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland.In regard to Finland, British foreign policy was based on the acknowledgement of Soviet special interests in Finland, since from both the historical and strategic consideration, Finland would be Soviet sphere after war. Geographic proximity and violent confrontation in 1939-1944 made it clear that the Soviet Union would not allow Finnish hostility anymore. In this context, Britain admitted Soviet dominant position in Finnish affairs and tried to avoid disagreement with it since the very beginning. However, with the split between east and west, Britain made corresponding adjustments. While acknowledging Soviet military dominance in Finland, Britain tried to strengthen links with Finland in other areas and encourage Finland to maintain its independence and democracy so that to prevent it from entirely falling into the Soviet orbit. British postwar foreign policy towards Finland has proved to be a success since Finland never became a satellite of the Soviet Union. However, this could not just attribute to Britain, the restraint of the Soviet Union and the rationality of Finnish government also contributed a lot.Unlike Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland are undoubtedly western countries both historically and culturally and it was Britain’s goal to bring the four countries into the western camp in the context of the cold war. However, Britain was faced with two obstacles on the way:one is Northern Europe’s extremely weak defense and its neutral tradition. To solve the first problem, Britain came up with two strategies:the first was to encourage the establishment of Scandinavia Union and the second was to integrate Northern Europe into the Western defence alliance. The first proposal of defence alliance from Britain was Western Union. However, with escalate intense between west and east, it got more and more urgent and important to involve the United States into the European defence and here came another proposal from Britain which covered both sides of the Atlantic, namely the Atlantic Union. The Nordic countries showed different attitude to this proposal. Norway had the strongest willingness to join and Denmark came second. Iceland wanted to wait and see the other three’s preference before deciding, while Sweden firmly support neutrality. In this situation, Britain made a lot of efforts to involve Northern Europe as a whole into the Atlantic Union, however, those efforts failed to get the support from either Sweden or the United States. In this case, Britain reluctantly gave up Sweden and focused on accelerating the formation of the Atlantic Union. As a result, Norway, Denmark and Iceland became members of the alliance, but Sweden stayed out. This result was more or less closer to the embodiment of America’s will, nevertheless it seldom dimmed the role of Britain as a designer and import propeller of the Atlantic Union. Remarkably, Britain’s policy towards Northern Europe remained notable extent of independence even when it faced with continuing pressure from the United States and this could easily be seen in Britain’s insistence of non-pressure policy to Northern Europe.