Anniversaries 2026
Is 2026 the New 1956?
The Suez Crisis, which has its 70th anniversary this year, is probably one of the most well-known events in history. Briefly, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, who consolidated his power in Egypt after the revolution led by the Free Officers (July 23-26, 1952) and was gaining more and more influence internationally, for example by the Non-Aligned Movement on which he worked together with Yugoslavian President and Prime Minister Yosip Broz Tito and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. And Nasser, who himself, was Prime Minister and President of Egypt – he had been acting President after he put his former comrade, Mohamed Naguib (Neguib) aside in 1954, he was later reinforced on June 23, 1956 –, wanted Western assistance to his grandiose project of the Aswan High Dam.
On the other side, the West wasn’t necessarily hostile towards the new regime in Egypt. They didn’t feel too much sorry for the exiled King Farouk, and they saw a potential ally in the ideologically not really resolute Egyptian leadership. Egypt had a reputation as the most populated Arab country as well. The Western efforts aimed to involve Egypt in the regional pacts, and gain Nasser over for some kind of reconciliation with Israel. Nasser, however, was reluctant, because any rapprochement towards Israel could have had negative effects on his status in the Arab world, and, as a revolutionary, he had hostile feelings towards the Western sponsored monarchies, like Jordan, Iraq or Saudi Arabia.
All in all, the tension was growing between the Egyptian regime and the West, which gave an opportunity for the new character of the drama, the Soviet Union, to gain ground. There are debates, the steps were planned or not on the side of Nasser. He bought armaments from the Communist Bloc; Prime Minister Anthony Eden held him responsible for the dismissal of Lieutenant-General John Bagot Glubb – ‘Glubb Pasha’- and other British officers from the Arab Legion (the Jordanian army); he diplomatically recognized the People’s Republic of China (another new character of the drama), and soon he established diplomatic relations with it; France held Nasser responsible, as the symbol of Arab nationalism, for the unrest of its own colonies, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco; even the USA wasn’t really happy with Nasser’s attitude in connection with Israel. On the ground of these details, you easily can have the feeling that the American leadership wanted to teach a lesson to Nasser, when US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles informed Egyptian Ambassador Ahmed Hussein that the US withdrew its offer for assistance in the Aswan High Dam project on July 19, 1956, in Washington, which was followed by the similar steps of Great Britain and the World Bank. (However, there are debates whether the US tried to cause some problems to weaken the positions of the old colonists or the US domestic politics had some role in the decision, because the elections were approaching).
One week later, on July 26, 1956 Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal. There are – could be – debates, whether it was a revenge or he really wanted to use the profit of the Canal for his beloved project – latter was the official explanation – or it was the ‘revolutionary act’ to get the trust of the Soviet Union. The next three months there were diplomatic efforts on the surface – like the London conferences (August 16-23 and September 19-21, 1956), referral to the UN –, but France and Great Britain already started to plan a military action, according to the old colonist reflexes. What they forgot, that it was 1956, and not, for example, 1856 or 1882. Israel joined them in the planning, they had their own issues with Nasser, like the fedayeen activity and the Strait of Tiran.
The rest is history. On October 22-24 the plan was finalized, and on October 29 Israel attacked Egypt. On October 30 France and Great Britain gave ultimatum – as it was planned – to Egypt and Israel to withdraw from the Suez Canal, then, after both countries practically ignored it, started air raids, and on November 5 British and French troops landed in Port Said and Port Fuad. Thanks to mistakes, the collusion between Great-Britain, France and Israel seemed to be very obvious, even if Prime Minister Guy Mollet and Prime Minister Antony Eden tried to deny it for two decades. However, the US, which insisted the necessity of a peaceful solution from the beginning – while they were partly responsible for the escalation of the tension in the Middle East – and held presidential elections on November 6, and the Soviet Union, which got a chance to expand its influence – while they had to handle the Hungarian Uprising which started on October 23 –, made France and Britain stop and later withdraw their troops, and sent the two countries to the naughty step. The results weren’t so bad for Israel, which, practically, achieved its goals by the UNEF (United Nations Emergency Force) presence in the Sinai and Gaza, and one of the crucial steps towards the next conflict (Six-Day War, June 5-10, 1967) was the withdrawal of this force.
Why is the story of the Suez Crisis important? As a historian, we can see at least two theories ‘in practice’. The first says, briefly, that sooner or later every empire reaches its limits, then overstretches what leads eventually to its collapse. In our case, we may say, the British and French empires reached their limits by about 1914 or before. However, there are other rules how empires work. The fall of an empire doesn’t start when the system is already crumbling. The fall starts at the top. And there is some kind of inertial force as well, which makes the empire move forward. Also, there is the other theory about the power vacuum, which, in case of an empire, means that when a power withdraws from a sphere of influence, another power will – have to – move in. We can see it when Great Britain and France gained new territories in the Middle East, for example, after WWI or when these two powers withdrew from their possessions the Soviet Union and the US moved in. In 1956 Great Britain and France reacted like they missed fifty or one hundred years. The two powers played their historical roles, times changed, new powers came.
Today, we can see something similar from Russia and the US. Putin seems to try to rebuild the Russian/Soviet Empire, however, he might have led his country into a Chinese satellite position instead. Think over, that the Soviet Union defeated Germany and its allies within four years, and redeployed its troops to attack Japan in WWII. In the last four and a half years Russia haven’t been able to defeat Ukraine, and, for example, couldn’t help his ally in Syria, doesn’t have significant role in the events of the Middle East. The US was forced to abandon Afghanistan, and lately Trump went into a war against Iran unprepared, and looks like a lurching and confused heavy weight boxer, who punches everything near to it randomly, many times its own allies.
The former two superpowers seem to have played their roles, and, as well as Great Britain and France in 1956, not to realize that their time is over. However, there are two very important questions. Who can come after them? At the moment, most likely, China could be the next superpower, having Russia as a satellite and threatening constantly the US in Taiwan. What will happen with the nuclear weapons? Russia and the US still have the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons. Will they accept defeat without using them? Will the ‘use it or lose it’ idea ever go into effect? In that case, unfortunately, the question is: who will survive them?
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