HOW TO SURVIVE SUEZ? THE MACMILLAN GOVERNMENT AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Conventional wisdom asserts that British decolonization in the Middle East took place in an ordered manner, a process which began with the Suez disaster. However, historical evidence demonstrates that the Macmillan government's choice was aimed at the maintenance of the Empire through the use of strategies of muddling through and moderate retrenchment, which implied that new military interventions were required to guarantee the survival of the existing alliances. Nevertheless, some factors like British weakness, the activity of Arab nationalism, and the problems to conciliate its interests with those of the US rendered the Macmillan government's efforts useless.