Historicising intervention: Strategy and synchronicity in British intervention 1815-50

Abstract

This article identifies three key themes in British intervention for purposes of liberal reordering in the period 1815–50, namely the ‘opening-up’ of new market spaces (discussed in relation to Uruguay/the Argentine Confederation in the 1840s), a cosmopolitan humanitarianism evident in the campaign for the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade that ran throughout this period, and the political-ideological contest between constitutionalist and absolutist forces and represented here by intervention in the Iberian Peninsula in the late 1820s to1830s. In developing a strategic perspective upon military/naval intervention the analysis shows its utility to have been subordinate to more fundamental sociopolitical, cultural, and institutional determinants. With regard to understanding the outcomes of specific intervention the analysis shows the importance of systematically evaluating developments in the domestic political environments of both intervening and target state as well as the military campaign itself and the need for sufficient general alignment or synchronisation in the timeline of developments in each of these three domains. This model helps to explain that whilst liberal interventions are not necessarily bound to fail, they frequently prove more difficult, complex, and protracted than the interveners expect.