How Britain Broke the World

Reviewed by: Imran H Khan Suddahazai, The One Institute, UK

Published by: Canbury Press, Kingston-upon Thames, 2022, 384pp. ISBN: 9781912454600.

The focal point of this insightful and reflective account, by the former British diplomat Arthur Snell, contends that Britain’s foreign policy has appreciably contributed to the rupture of the post-Cold War global order. He argues that the seeds for the effective disrobing and disregard for the existing equivocal rules-based international order were implanted by a British policy in 1999. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, espoused in his “doctrine of international community”, that a UN resolution was unnecessary for humanitarian military action. Snell argues that this so-called humanitarian interventionist policy conjured to address the Balkans conflict, later justified the disastrous invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, which have both resulted in abject failure. He further cites the example of Libya, a decade after Britain under the leadership of the Tory Cameron decided to unequivocally support rebel forces to effectively assassinate Colonel Gaddafi and remove his government during the Arab Spring uprisings.