Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2014
Abstract
Teaching Notes for The Road to Good Intentions: British Nation-building in Aden, by Scott Smitson.
Despite well over a century of colonial influence in South Arabia, the British government failed to create a lasting and effective constitutional construct. Challenges included addressing the myriad of issues inherent when trying to introduce democratic institutions in an area that had little to no experience with democratic norms and ideas concurrent with western perceptions of modern states. Culminating in the Aden Emergency of 1964–1967, the British efforts to disengage from its former colonial territory in a preplanned manner transformed into a complex operation that faced considerable obstacles: the Cold War, Pan-Arabism, and midcentury decolonialization. The Aden Emergency was the denouement of a decades-long British endeavor to combine diplomatic efforts, military training, and economic development in an attempt to create a stable country for eventual inclusion in the British Commonwealth. During this time period, the British had to contend with two competing insurgency forces, the Egyptian-supported National Liberation Front, as well as the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen. Despite tactical and operational success in the Aden Emergency, British -military forces were never able completely to defeat the insurgency, compounded by the fact that the British-trained Aden Army eventually mutinied against the British. The British government soon left Aden earlier than the planned withdrawal date of 1968, instead leaving in 1967, failing to establish a sustainable, democratic political regime, or create lasting political institutions, in the colony of Aden and the Aden Protectorate.