The diplomatic foreign relations of the United Kingdom are implemented by the United Kingdom's Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The UK was the world's foremost power during the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. Throughout history it has wielded significant influence upon other nations via the British Empire, and until the 1950s was considered a superpower. However, the cost of two World Wars and the process of decolonisation diminished this influence. Nevertheless, the United Kingdom remains a major power and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a Member state of the European Union, and a founding member of the G7, G8, G20, NATO, OECD, WTO, Council of Europe, OSCE, and the Commonwealth of Nations, which is a legacy of the British Empire.
Read more about Foreign Relations Of The United Kingdom: History, Major International Disputes Since 1945, Sovereignty Disputes, Commonwealth of Nations & Ireland, United States, Europe, Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, Asia, International Organisations
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“Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.”
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“I know all those people. I have friendly, social, and criminal relations with the whole lot of them.”
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“The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control—”indoctrination” we might say—exercised through the mass media.”
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“The kingdom of man over nature, which cometh not with observation,—a dominion such as now is beyond his dream of God,—he shall enter without more wonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect sight.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)