Suez: How America Brought Britain to Its Knees… And Destroyed Its Empire

This is clearly this vid is in response to the BBC series on British Forgotten Wars with Tony Robinson. I wouldn't be surprised if Dommic and Tom will invite Tony to join them for a vid or two.
I believe some of the blame for the Suez Crisis has to be lay at the door of the USA government. Time after time the US government missread the situations since 1946. Even with the change in presidents, the State Department along with the CIA continues to come up with these hairball operations and think with arrogance that our allies are a bunch of schoolboys to be bullied about by the American cousin.

The USA set a very bad example of how to solve international problems. Sure the Marshall Plan was an excellent solution, use all that money USA manufactories made in supplying Allied forces by rebuilding Europe and Asia, but at the same time, the USA planted the seeds of chaos that we are still reaping.

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The assertion that the 1956 Suez Crisis was the moment America "brought Britain to its knees and destroyed its empire" is historically fair in its description of the financial mechanics, but overly dramatic regarding the "destruction" of the empire.
Historically, the assertion holds true regarding the financial warfare deployed by the United States. However, mainstream historians view the Suez Crisis not as the cause of the British Empire's destruction, but rather as the definitive, public exposure of its existing post-WWII decline.
An analysis of why this assertion is accurate in its details—but nuanced in its grand conclusion—reveals several key trade-offs and perspectives:

⚖ Where the Assertion is Fair: Financial Submission

The assertion accurately captures the brutal economic leverage the U.S. used to force a British retreat:
• The Attack on Sterling: When Britain, France, and Israel secretly invaded Egypt to reclaim the nationalized Suez Canal, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower felt politically betrayed. To halt the invasion without firing a shot, the U.S. threatened to aggressively dump its holdings of British pound sterling bonds, which would have triggered a total collapse of the currency.
• The IMF Blockade: As Britain's gold and dollar reserves plummeted below the critical $2 billion floor, Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan sought an emergency rescue loan. The U.S. explicitly ordered the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to block any financial assistance to London until British troops agreed to an unconditional withdrawal.
• The Oil Embargo: Egypt blocked the canal by sinking ships, cutting off Britain’s oil lifeline. Eisenhower refused to allow U.S. oil companies to fill the supply gap, leaving the British public facing imminent energy rationing unless the government capitulated. Faced with total financial ruin, Prime Minister Anthony Eden was forced into a humiliating retreat.

🔍 Where the Assertion Overreaches: The "Destruction" of Empire

The claim that America destroyed the empire misinterprets a process that was already well underway:
• The Pre-Existing Decline: World War II had already effectively bankrupted Britain. It emerged from the war as the world's largest debtor nation, having liquidated its massive overseas investments to fight Germany.
• Decolonization Was Already Happening: The crown jewel of the empire, India, had already achieved independence in 1947—nearly a decade before Suez. The economic and political momentum toward decolonization was already structural and unstoppable.
• A "Revelation" Rather than a "Destruction": As Eden himself later reflected, the Suez experience did not change Britain's fortunes so much as it "revealed our realities." It proved to the world that Britain was no longer a first-rate superpower and could no longer wage independent military campaigns without explicit American consent.

All the bungling into cars sounds hilarious. Making foreign policy on amphetamines, Demerol and Barbiturates is not advisable. Especially using techniques and a mind set designed for the previous war.

It's interesting to hear British foreign policy and morals in the same sentence

what vexes me about suez is how nobody asks the most pertinent question of them all: why was america capable of bringing britain to its knees by economic means, for what the americans did could not be done to, say, france or germany.
the answer: because our economy was dung: costly, inefficient, run to favour lethargic unions and unimaginative bosses.
every sensible analyst of american foreign policy i've read believes that america's reaction was a mistake.

the empire collapsed because our electoral choices emptied the nation of the money and will to uphold those parts of the empire (the middle east) worth owning.

Lester B. Peason, anyone?

I don't know much about Eisenhower's presidency. He comes very well out of this.

The Suez embargo is generally credited with the "mini car" boom (such "legends" as the BMW Isetta) and down the line was the imputes for designing the Mini. The "Bubble Cars" of that era didn't last long and most people now would ever have seen them in museums.

Wooo! America!

1:15:00 Tom taking lessons from Michael Palin in The Life of Brian.

Title should have been: “How the USA betrayed its NATO allies and supported a Soviet client”. Definite echoes of their betrayal of the Nationalist Chinese and support of the Communists at the end of WW2.

In the end Egypt went over to the Russians anyway. No one gave them credit for throwing its allies under the bus.
The only lever the Americans had and still do , is their ability to restrain Israel

Is Dominic making the touchdown sign (with his arms) when he says,"boosts the Tory majority," an allusion to his politics?

Great show guys but you might want to research Robert Menzies's voice and demeanour more accurately. Stereotype Australians as you may wish, but here it comes across as amateurish.