Britain: The European power: a review of Brendan Simms book
Dr. Simms’ most important conclusion in his book Three Victories and a Defeat: The rise and fall of the First British Empire, 1714-1783: "It is only through exercising influence on the continent of which Britain is a part—today meaning the European Union—that the United Kingdom can effectively exercise global power. Extrapolated, it is only by gaining greater leverage over the nascent European government in Brussels that British interests can be protected, defended and extended in partnership with other Europeans, particularly Germany, France, Poland and the Netherlands. Moreover, given the rapid rise of China, the aggressive re-emergence of Russia and the infiltration of Islamism into the rimlands around the European Union, it is only through pooling power and compentences at the European level that Britons and other Europeans will be able to protect themselves and shape the world of tomorrow. The real guardians of British—and of course, European—interests are not therefore the globalists, Eurosceptics and the Europhobes, but the Europeanists. Three Victories and a Defeat ends with a powerful statement, which contemporary Britons would do well to remember (pointer: Brussels is located in the middle of Flanders).
Britain’s security depended on maintaining her “ramparts” in Europe. It was there, in Germany and Flanders, in the “counterscarp” of England, that Britain’s fate would be decided, always had been and always would be.
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