Reviewing Britain’s Presence East of Suez

Australian, Canadian and New Zealand Foreign Policy Considerations Surrounding Southeast Asia, 1956-1971

by Maike Hausen

Book cover: Reviewing Britain’s Presence East of Suez

Extent: 336 pages

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Subjects: Social Sciences , Twentieth- & Twenty-First- Century History

Series: Bedrohte Ordnungen

Series volume number: 17

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(June 2022)

ISBN: 9783161614170

9.29 x 6.5 inches

Price: $37.00

In stock

Maike Hausen examines the foreign and security policies of the former British white settler colonies of Australia, Canada and New Zealand at the end of the British Empire. Following the British decision to withdraw their military ‘East of Suez’ from Southeast Asia, all three countries reviewed their relationship to Great Britain.


Maike Hausen presents a transnational, multi-perspective review of strategic and security discussions among the former British white settler colonies Australia, Canada and New Zealand in the 1960s. Focusing on the foreign policy debate surrounding the British decision to withdraw their military ‘East of Suez’ from Southeast Asia, she reviews extensive source material to examine the transformation of political, diplomatic and strategic ties between Great Britain and Australia, Canada and New Zealand. By embedding the East of Suez discussion into a larger framework of long-term postcolonial transformations and developments of the Cold War and decolonisation, the study traces how the British decision upset the traditional conduct of concerted foreign policy and led to notions of crisis and uncertainty as well as to reviews that would ultimately contribute to more independent national outlooks and policies.

  • By (author) Maike Hausen