Arms, Economics and British Strategy: From Dreadnoughts to Hydrogen Bombs

Cambridge Military Histories

by George C. Peden

This book integrates strategy, technology and economics and presents a new way of looking at twentieth-century military history and Britain's decline as a great power. G. C. Peden explores how from the Edwardian era to the 1960s warfare was transformed by a series of innovations, including dreadnoughts, submarines, aircraft, tanks, radar, nuclear weapons and guided missiles. He shows that the cost of these new weapons tended to rise more quickly than national income and argues that strategy had to be adapted to take account of both the increased potency of new weapons and the economy's diminishing ability to sustain armed forces of a given size. Prior to the development of nuclear weapons, British strategy was based on an ability to wear down an enemy through blockade, attrition (in the First World War) and strategic bombing (in the Second), and therefore power rested as much on economic strength as on armaments.

Genres: History, War, Military Fiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

George Cameron Peden was educated at Grove Academy, Broughty Ferry, and, after a period as a sub-editor on the Dundee Evening Telegraph, he studied as a mature student at the universities of Dundee and Oxford. He taught at the universities of Dundee, Leeds and Bristol before coming to the University Stirling in 1990, where he is currently Emeritus Professor of History.

Reviews

[Shrike58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a specter haunting this book and it's the body of work produced by Correlli Barnett in regards to the supposed failures of the British state and society in terms of remaining a great power. Building on a generation's worth of scholarship, Peden illustrates how the accusations about Britain being technologically backward and reactive have very little ground in reality. If anything, the picture is a positive one of a series of British governments who were acutely aware of the technological and economic issues that needed to be dealt with and were serious about squaring accounts considering the strategic challenges that loomed before them. To Peden, the most disruptive element faced by those who made British security policy was probably dealing with inter-service rivalry; particularly in the era when the great controversy was whether the independent bomber force should or should not be the foundation of British military power.

Originally written: August 3, 2016.