4 November, Panmure House
Seventy years after the Suez Crisis, the strategic questions raised in 1956 have returned with renewed urgency. Today, conflict in the Middle East, renewed great-power rivalry, disruptions to global supply chains, and growing competition over trade routes have once again placed maritime chokepoints at the centre of international politics.
The Suez Crisis is often remembered as the end of Britain’s imperial ambitions. Yet it was equally a crisis of economic statecraft. Britain discovered that military power could not be separated from financial power, and that strategic influence ultimately depended upon monetary credibility and international support. Suez was not simply an imperial turning point; it marked the emergence of a new geoeconomic order.
Hosted at Panmure House on the seventieth anniversary of the crisis, this conference asks what Suez can teach us about today’s world. Recent disruptions to shipping through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, together with continuing tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, have demonstrated that maritime chokepoints remain critical to the functioning of the global economy. As the 2021 blockage of the Canal and more recent security crises have shown, local events can rapidly become global economic shocks.
The conference will explore four interconnected themes:
- Geoeconomic competition: the growing use of trade, finance, energy, sanctions, and supply chains as instruments of state power.
- Cold War I and Cold War II: comparing the strategic logic of the original Cold War with today’s era of renewed great-power rivalry.
- Relative decline: how states respond when economic weight, geopolitical ambition, and military capability become increasingly misaligned.
- Reserve currencies and monetary power: from sterling’s crisis in 1956 to contemporary debates over the future of the dollar and the international monetary order.
Bringing together historians, economists, political scientists, and policymakers, the conference will examine Suez not simply as a historical episode, but as a lens through which to understand the changing relationship between power, finance, and global order in the twenty-first century.
We invite expressions of interest from scholars working in economic history, history, political science, international relations, security studies, economics, geography, law, and related disciplines.
Contributions may address one or more of the themes outlined above or examine related questions concerning maritime strategy, global trade, international political economy, energy security, strategic competition, or the contemporary relevance of the Suez Crisis.
Please submit an expression of interest (250–300 words), together with a short biography (100 words), by 24 July 2026.
The workshop will take place at Panmure House, Edinburgh, on Wednesday 4 November 2026.
Participants will be notified by 14 August, and accepted papers will be circulated in advance to facilitate discussion. We anticipate exploring publication opportunities following the workshop.
Expressions of interest should be sent to: e.mclaughlin[at]hw.uk