British Egypt and PNM Theory Part I

In Blueprint for Action, Thomas Barnett outlines his plan for successfully moving states from the Gap into the Core. He proposes a new international system to do so and also discusses the important factors that are necessary for a state to make such progress. The measure of the effectiveness of military intervention is whether the military improved local security enough to trigger an influx of connectivity. Connectivity can be broadly defined as

Connectivity – The enormous changes being brought on by the Information Revolution, including the emerging financial and technological architecture of the global economy. During the boom times of the 1990s, many thought that advances in communications such as the Internet and mobile phones would trump all, erasing the business cycle, erasing national borders, erasing the very utility of the state in managing a global security order that seemed more virtual than real. 9/11 proved differently: that connectivity, while a profoundly transforming force, could not by itself maintain global security.

And as Zenpundit notes:

In other words, Barnett is defining globalization as a dynamic exchange relationship involving migration, resources, money and power.

Additionally, it has been aruged the flow of ideas should be added as a fifth flow. Thus there are 5 vital flows: People, Resources, Money, Security and Ideas.

Keeping these things in mind, I’d like now to turn to the British Empire during the Victorian Era and the British occupation of Egypt. Niall Ferguson has argued that it provides the closest historical model to the US occupation of Iraq and is rife with insight for the present day administration. In 1882, after crushing a revolt against Ottoman and European domination of the country, British troops occupied in Egypt. They remained there until 1956 despite numerous pledges to leave.

According to Ferguson, the similarities are as follow. Britain invaded Egypt to oust a Said Ahmed Arabiw, a military officer who’d seized power in a coup. He was no Saddam and the pretext for intervention was violence against European residents of Alexandria. The British government under Gladstone, like Bush, had also pledged not to engage in imperialism and nation building. In terms of strategic importance, the Suez canal was what oil is now. Over 80% of the canal’s traffic was British, 13% of their overall worldwide trade. Egypt was also heavilly in debt, largely to the British (not surprisingly, Gladstone himself held many such bonds). England intervened in Egypt against the will of the other great powers (France, Germany, Austria, Russia), which met to discuss international problems and as if almost on queue, the French protested. The British won a swift victory and remained there almost 80 years.

So what did Egypt gain from British occupation? More than critics may suspect. Yet was it enough? In a follow up post, I’ll investigate what Egypt gained from indirect rule by England using PNM theory to attempt to answer the question: Was British intervention successful? And if so, could it be a valuable template for future intervention?