Flattering the Passions: Or, the Bomb and Britain's Bid for a World Role

by Hugh Beach, Nadine Gurr

""Nations are like me,"" wrote Talleyrand, ""They prefer what flatters their passions to what serves their interests."" This ground-breaking and provocative book explores the effectiveness of British defense strategies and examines the skeptical US and NATO response to British capabilities. The authors argue that Britain's political, diplomatic and military elites have clung doggedly and irrationally to a worldview which they are culturally and psychologically incapable of shaking off. As a result, the massive expenditures on British nuclear arms, far from strengthening the country, actually weaken it by diverting precious capital resources from more necessary social programs. The only winners in the British nuclear game (other than the arms industry) are those politicians, diplomats and generals who can strut with greater self-assurance on the stage of world diplomacy.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published December 10, 1999