How effectively did Harold Wilson’s government manage the winding down of Britain’s “world role”? Was this an “orderly” or a “haphazard” process? (2). P. L. Pham’s Ending “East of Suez” tracks the decreasing British willingness to maintain its army, navy, and air force bases on Singapore and the Malay Peninsula in the wake of domestic political pressures fueled by economic downturn and regional events in Southeast Asia, such as the separation of Singapore from Malaysia and the end of the “Confrontation” with Indonesia. The author reconstructs the decision-making process that ultimately led the Wilson Government to propose scrapping Britain’s overseas military presence, its “East of Suez” role, much to the consternation of its Australian and American allies. Based on archival research in England, Australia, and the United States, the book offers readers an accounting of British policy toward Southeast Asia in the mid-1960s. The best part of reading Ending “East of Suez” is getting lost in Pham’s exhaustive reconstructions of the behind-closed-doors conversations, strategy sessions, bilateral and multilateral negotiations, and Cabinet fights that engaged members of the British government as they developed their Singapore and Malaysia policy. Pham is to be credited for his reconstruction of this complicated, and contradictory, world of British policy makers. Ironically, this attention to detail is also a slight downside—the all-encompassing description occasionally would make readers feel as if they were losing sight of the broader policy-making narrative. However, this feeling can be overcome by referring back to the very helpful introductions and conclusions that bookend major sections of the work. An appendix identifying key figures in the governments of Australia, Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United States is also incredibly useful for reorienting oneself.

Ending “East of Suez” is divided into three sections; the divisions between them are marked by the publication of the government’s two main foreign policy statements, the 1966 Defence White Paper and the 1967 Supplementary Statement on Defence. Part 1, focusing on 1964 to mid-1966, covers the newly elected Labour government’s attempt to balance its desire to “maintain Britain’s globally oriented, interventionist foreign policy” with visible evidence of cost-cutting measures necessary to quiet domestic political opposition (19). The three chapters in this part track the emergence of the government’s initial proposal to maintain a scaled-down force in Singapore over the shorter term, with the possibility of eventually relocating to bases in northern Australia. Explaining the evolution of this position, Pham illustrates how international events and international allies can shape the bounds of what is permissible in foreign policy. The unexpected ejection of Singapore from the Malaysian Federation in 1965 and the de-escalation of the “Confrontation” conflict between Indonesia and Malaysia gave Britain cover to claim that moment as a suitable time to leave Southeast Asia, while the Indonesian threat was decreasing but before Malaysian nationalism forced them out. While the Wilson Government attempted to use events east of the Suez to justify scaling back the British overseas presence, Pham argues that it was ultimately Britain’s obligations to Australia, New Zealand, and the United States (ANZUS) that most directly influenced what would become the policy laid out in the 1966 Defence White Paper. Australia and New Zealand’s security fears in the shadow of Chinese Communism and the U.S. insistence that Britain help promote regional stability during the Vietnam War are both emphasized as major factors in the determination of British foreign policy. Pham charts how the Wilson Government was pressured by the ANZUS allies to alter its policy from leaving “as soon as” Southeast Asian circumstances permitted to staying “as long as” possible, in essence making themselves “hostage to events” in Malaysia and Singapore, while losing the power to make an orderly exit (75).

Part 2 shifts the focus from international relationships and events to the internal political conflicts among the ministries of government and the increasingly “unruly” Labour Party (96). Pham details the unraveling consensus, from 1966 to 1967, about whether Britain could afford to continue playing any type of military role in Southeast Asia. The three chapters in this section document how, in the face of strong pressures from Labour MPs and the Treasury to cut spending, the Wilson Government’s position on the British presence in Southeast Asia abruptly changed. Staying as long as possible was replaced with a two-phase withdrawal to be completed by the mid-1970s. Any meaningful military presence in Northern Australia also became increasingly unlikely. Pham demonstrates how this program for phasing out British military influence east of the Suez, outlined in the 1967 Supplementary Statement on Defence, changed the nature of the discussion over Britain’s world role. A specific time frame for the end of Britain’s overseas military presence meant working out a policy for presenting this reality to domestic audiences and international allies. Part 3 details the final unwelcome event that undermined the plan for an orderly withdrawal, the need to devalue the British pound in November 1967. Instead of a mid-1970’s time frame for ending the British presence in Southeast Asia, the departure date was moved up to December 1971. Pham argues that devaluation itself did not require the Wilson Government to take this extreme step. Instead, it was the desire of the Labour Party leadership to manage the negative political consequences of having to devalue the pound that put them on the course to the proposed 1971 departure date. A desire to look tough on spending cuts made Britain’s world role a “symbolic sacrifice” on the altar of fiscal responsibility (236).

In the span of four years, the Wilson Government had gone from a commitment to maintain Britain’s East of Suez role as long as regional circumstances permitted, to announcing a mid-1970s end to that role, to declaring that British troops would be out of Singapore and Malaysia by the end of 1971. Pham concludes that these abrupt policy shifts undermined Britain’s ability to have an orderly wrap-up of its postimperial presence in Southeast Asia; he characterizes the process as a “rout” (242). Ending “East of Suez” demonstrates how quickly a government’s foreign policy can change and how economic concerns, and the political fears associated with making unpopular fiscal decisions, can pose challenges for the development of workable foreign policy stances. It also nicely highlights the clash of domestic and international concerns that drove mid-1960’s British foreign policy.

Pham contends repeatedly throughout his book that his research reframes our understanding of the Wilson Government’s handling of Britain’s retreat from empire. He argues, for example, that his analysis of the political struggles that resulted in the 1966 Defence White Paper (pt. 1) demonstrates why previous scholars’ characterizations of the Wilson Government as overly attached to Britain’s former imperial glory are “fundamentally mistaken” (88). Overall, I think the reader will find much in Pham’s account to support such claims. However, I also think the author’s decision not to engage explicitly with the existing historiography in the actual text hampers the readers’ ability to assess the innovation of his arguments. While scholars including Saki Dockrill, Matthew Jones, and Phillip Darby are included in footnotes and the bibliography, unless the reader is already well acquainted with the literature on British Decolonization, East of Suez foreign policy, the Wilson Government, Britain’s economic struggles in the mid-1960s, and the diplomatic relationships between Britain and the ANZUS states, it is difficult to gauge how much of a reframing of the existing historical scholarship is occurring. A more direct discussion of the arguments, evidence, and conclusions of the historians whose work Pham is disagreeing with would have greatly improved the reader’s ability to follow along.

This is definitely not a general audience book. There is much for the specialist in mid-1960s British foreign policy to enjoy here. But readers who do not already have a familiarity with the political leaders involved in the decision to withdraw from East of Suez—including Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Roy Jenkins, George Brown, Barbara Castle, Richard Crossman, Sir Robert Menzies, Paul Hasluck, Lee Kuan Yew, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Keith Holyoake, Lyndon Johnson, Dean Rusk, George Ball, McGeorge Bundy—will miss the nuances of Pham’s arguments. By contrast, any scholar writing an intellectual history or foreign policy study on a subject related to any of these individuals absolutely must read this book.

While Ending “East of Suez” offers a detailed analysis of how Britain chose to resolve its Southeast Asian military commitments in the mid-1960s, one of the book’s most significant contributions lies in the perspective it offers on reactions beyond the British Isles. Pham’s description of how non-British stakeholders reacted to potential changes in the nation’s East of Suez policy helps us understand the transnational web of obligations, expectations, fears, threats, and disappointments that drove foreign policy development in this era and continues to shape it in the present. Although the military forces were to be removed from Malaysia and Singapore, Pham reminds us that it was the governments of Australia and New Zealand that were initially the most alarmed at the prospect of British retreat from Southeast Asia. While the Indonesian “Confrontation” against Malaysia had originally been a reason for Britain to maintain a military presence in Southeast Asia, American threats designed to prevent abrupt changes in the East of Suez policy that might jeopardize their prospects for winning the Vietnam War complicated Britain’s ability to leave.