By the end of World War II, strategists in Washington and London
looked ahead to a new era in which the United States shouldered
global responsibilities and Britain concentrated its regional
interests more narrowly. The two powers also viewed the Muslim
world through very different lenses. Mapping the End of Empire"
reveals how Anglo-American perceptions of geography shaped
postcolonial futures from the Middle East to South Asia.
Aiyaz Husain shows that American and British postwar strategy
drew on popular notions of geography as well as academic and
military knowledge. Once codified in maps and memoranda, these
perspectives became foundations of foreign policy. In South Asia,
American officials envisioned an independent Pakistan blocking
Soviet influence, an objective that outweighed other considerations
in the contested Kashmir region. Shoring up Pakistan meshed
perfectly with British hopes for a quiescent Indian subcontinent
once partition became inevitable. But serious differences with
Britain arose over America's support for the new state of Israel.
Viewing the Mediterranean as a European lake of sorts, U.S.
officials--even in parts of the State Department--linked Palestine
with Europe, deeming it a perfectly logical destination for Jewish
refugees. But British strategists feared that the installation of a
Jewish state in Palestine could incite Muslim ire from one corner
of the Islamic world to the other.
As Husain makes clear, these perspectives also influenced the
Dumbarton Oaks Conference and blueprints for the UN Security
Council and shaped French and Dutch colonial fortunes in the Levant
and the East Indies.
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