For Britain, secure access through the canal made Far Eastern and worldwide commitments cheaper and easier to sustain. A stable, reliably accessible canal raises the question of whether the later East of Suez decision might have been avoided. Losing that access increased the logistical difficulty and expense of maintaining global forces. In this interpretation, American pressure at Suez helped encourage later British and French retrenchment. That withdrawal left the United States with a larger share of the international security burden and its costs.
Chapter · 47:57-49:52
The canal, imperial logistics, and American primacy
Reliable canal access affected the cost of Britain's worldwide commitments, while later British and French retrenchment left more of the security burden with the United States.