Imperial Psychology in Britain’s Foreign Policy since 1945: From “Three Circles” to “Global Britain”

The integrated review document named Global Britain in a Competitive Age, published in March 2021, has once again triggered a discussion on the positioning of Britain s international role. As a de facto middle power, Britain has never given up its pursuit of great power status since World War II, scholars over the world have analyzed the reasons for this phenomenon from different perspectives, but not many studies have examined the impact of imperial psychology on British foreign policy. This paper selects imperial psychology as a research perspective, uses qualitative and case study research method, takes typical and major foreign policies as samples, such as “three-circle” policy, Britain s entry into the European Community, Falklands War, Blair s “new interventionist” foreign policy towards Kosovo and Iraq, Brexit and “Global Britain”, to examine the sources of imperial psychology, its characteristics, reasons for its existence, its manifestation in British foreign policy, positive and negative effects, and the reasons why it is still reflected in modern foreign policy. It is found that there are four characteristics of imperial psychology: the sphere of influence consciousness, superiority and suzerainty mentality, nostalgia, and great power mentality. Imperial psychology runs like a thread throughout the history of British foreign policy since 1945. The impacts of imperial psychology on British foreign policy are twofold, on the one hand, it helps Britain to perpetuate its status and influence as a great power, allows Britain to play a relatively bigger role in international affairs beyond its own capacity. On the other hand, it prevents Britain from properly defining its role in a timely manner and from setting its foreign policy goals in accordance with its available resources. The current Global Britain strategy also sets goals beyond UK s actual capabilities, it is more about appealing to voters than about actually achieving global power status. The paper concludes that a glorious imperial history has ingrained imperial psychology in the minds of British policy elites. Among all the factors that influenced post-war British foreign policy, imperial psychology is not the most important one, but it is at least the most persistent one. It has kept British policy makers reluctant to give up their quest for great power status, which has influenced British foreign policy both positively and negatively. This study lacks quantitative analysis, however, and can only determine that imperial psychology has indeed been influencing British foreign policy, not to what extent. Still, it can help modern people understand why Britain is so obsessed with global power status.