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Information about factory tours.

We are very pleased to announce that tours are back and once again welcome you into our plants!

Come and gain exciting insights into the world of BMW Group plants and learn all about the future of production.

Visit us in Berlin, Leipzig, Munich and Oxford and experience what is behind the  iFACTORY EXPERIENCE .

We have a range of tour formats available for you to choose what best suits you. For more information and tickets , visit www.visit-bmwgroup.com .

The public Plant tours start in Oxford in August 2022, and in Berlin and Leipzig in September 2022.

A visit to the BMW Group plants in  Dingolfing, Landshut, Regensburg and Steyr  is only possible by arrangement for special stakeholders of the plant. Tours for private individuals and corresponding registrations are not planned until further notice.

Tours are already up and running in Munich . To book, please contact [email protected] directly or call 089 /1250 16001.

Interested? Then we look forward to welcoming you soon at one of our BMW Group plants!

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us by e-mail at [email protected] .

We look forward to seeing you!

Mini Plant Oxford tour

Mini cars are assembled at the Plant Oxford factory complex in the southeastern suburb of Cowley and it is possible to take a tour of the facility to see Minis being made.

Minis are made at three plants in the UK. Engines are made at Plant Hams Hall, the body pressings and sub-assembly is done at Plant Swindon and it all comes together at Plant Oxford where the body shell production, final assembly and painting takes place. Up to 1,000 cars roll off the production line at Plant Oxford every day and it is the only one of these plants where you can take a guided tour.

A visit is highly recommended if you own a Mini or if you simply love seeing how things are made. It is also worth a visit if you’re spending a few days in Oxford and can’t stomach the thought of visiting yet another college.

What to see on the factory tour

Visitors to Plant Oxford start off at the Visitor Centre, which has a small exhibition about the history of the Mini.

It is a very well structured tour that shows the entire production process from start to finish. First, you see robots building the body of the car and then you get to see the individual components being added to the car before watching the finished cars roll off the production line.

Visiting Mini Plant Oxford

Mini Plant Oxford is in Cowley, around 5.2km (3¼ miles) southeast of Oxford city centre. Tours depart from the Mini Visitor Centre on Horspath Road just off the Eastern By-Pass Road.

The Visitor Centre has an exhibition space as well as a gift shop that sells Mini-themed merchandise.

It is best to pre-book your tour as group sizes are limited to a maximum of 15 people on each tour. It is best to book at least six to eight weeks in advance if there is a specific date that you want to visit.

There is the option of either the basic tour or the family tour. The basic tour should suit most people; however, the family tour is more suitable if you have children as the production process is explained in a more age-appropriate way on this tour.

Children younger than 14 cannot take the tour and children aged 14–17 must be accompanied by an adult at a ratio of two children to each adult.

Although you can take photos in the museum area of the visitor centre it is not possible to take photos (or video) in the factory and you’re required to place your phones and cameras in a locker prior to taking the tour.

The plant tour is now wheelchair accessible, however, you will need your own transport as the tour moves between different buildings on the plant and the shuttle bus is not wheelchair accessible.

Tours run for 90 minutes but you should allow a little longer for the entire experience. It is recommended that you get there around 15 minutes before the start of your tour and allow time to look at the museum inside the visitor centre after the tour.

Tours are running again

Please see our Website: www.visit-bmwgroup.com/en - Tours are running again in Oxford.

5 August 2022

Are you scheduling tours yet!

We have been patiently waiting to have the tour of your plant. We will only be in Oxford a few more months. Are you scheduling the tours yet? We sure hope so! Thank you!

5 July 2022

When can we visit your Cowley production facility. My wife is on her third Mini now, and still has the ''Mini Purse'' from 2003, although we are just having a new zip fitted. My wife is 74 this year, and it would be great for her, if I could bring her to Cowley as a surprise. I am 75 this year, still driving, and for a Main Dealer, so please let me know when I can bring her. We live in Grimsby, North East Linolnshire, near Cleethorpes, and I would love to bring her to your facility, to see what goes on. She has had a lot of bad health recently, nearly at deaths door, but is recovering vey well, so could you let me know if I can bring her, sometime this year. Many thanks Brian Ford.

25 April 2022

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Mini Plant Oxford Tour

Book a Mini Plant Oxford Tour to look behind the scenes to see how MINIs are made at MINI Plant Oxford. Tours run on Mondays to Fridays from 9.00am to 4.00pm and last for around 2 hours.

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Description

Oxford is the birthplace of the Mini and the centre of its production. The plant was founded in 1913 and has been in constant production ever since, making it one of the oldest car plants in the world.

It was the birthplace of the original Mini in 1959 and came into BMW Group ownership in 1994. The new MINI was launched at the plant in 2001, and the first electric MINI was produced there in 2020.

But despite being one of the oldest car plants in the world, it is also one of the most modern car factories in the UK. Up to 1,000 cars roll off the production line daily at this site. And as many as 4,500 employees work here to assemble the British cult car.

Take a tour and experience the most exciting elements of car production, from the bodyshop, where pressed steel panels are welded or bonded together with the help of 1,200 robots, to the final assembly halls where the finished MINI comes together.

The tour takes around 2 hours to complete, and you are free to visit the museum before and after your slot.

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OXFORD MINI PLANT OXFORD TOURS BAG TOP AWARD.

• MINI Plant Oxford tour receives ‘Best Told Story’ accolade from VisitEngland
• Award recognises attractions that ‘go the extra mile to provide a high quality day out’
• Record 21,000 visitors came to see how MINIs are made in 2017

MINI Plant Oxford has received a top visitor attraction award from the official national tourism agency for England.

The plant, which builds more than 1,000 MINIs each day, has been recognised by VisitEngland with a ‘Best Told Story Accolade’ for its factory tour, which gives visitors a behind the scenes look at how this iconic British car is made.

With a dedicated team of tour guides, MINI Plant Oxford welcomed well over 21,000 visitors from all over the world last year to see how a new car is built here every 67 seconds. The VisitEngland accolade builds on the TripAdvisor ‘Certificate of Excellence’ awarded to the team in September.

In November the plant’s tour was recognised with a VisitEngland ‘Quality Rose Marque’ - a sign that the MINI Plant Oxford tour has been independently assessed and meets the high standards that visitors expect. Tours of MINI Plant Oxford run Monday to Friday and last just over two hours. There is a maximum of 15 people per group and the minimum age is 10 years old.

For full details and booking information please go to www.visit-mini.com

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Plant Oxford: from Bullnose to BMW

Morris’ manufacturing legacy continues

Off of the Oxford Ring Road sits an array of white and grey cubic structures, whizzed past every day by workers starting their days, perhaps sparing a glimpse for the creatively placed MINI Cooper on the roof, posing pompously next to a billboard of itself. A sharp contrast to the architectural grandeur that is found just a few miles down the same road, it can be easily overlooked that this site has an immense history in its own right. In 1876, the Oxford Military College opened on these grounds taking cadets as young as 13 from the UK and British colonies around the world. Funded by Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, buildings were purchased from the Cowley Middle Class School and were expanded upon (although most of the said expansions have since been demolished) while colonial scholarships were set up, likely to attract colonial children to a life of military service in their overseas British territories. The college’s prestige, however, was short-lived as it was driven to bankruptcy in 1896, only 20 years after its opening. The stock of the British automobile, meanwhile, was exploding. Today the leading manufacturing employer in the county, assembling more than a thousand cars a day, and the head of a pyramid of factories (to engine manufacturer Plant Hams Hall, and body pressing manufacturer Plant Swindon), the property’s industrial beginnings trace to 1912 when the town community of Oxford scored a minor victory over that of the prevailing gown.

BMW’s Mini Plant from the road, photo credit: Attribution: Lobster1, Wiki Creative Commons.

Taking inspiration from the assembly lines of Henry Ford in the United States, a rather successful engineer and bicycle repairman William Morris purchased the college lot to move into automobile production, starting with his recent design, the “bullnose” Morris Oxford. Finding some success amid a market dominated by less expensive American vehicles, the demand for British cars after wartime grew exponentially and WRM Motors Ltd. was exceedingly cheerful to pitch in. From 1919 to 1925, car production of William Morris’s cars rose from 400 a year to 56,000 a year, requiring massive expansion to other locations across England, and to the original factory in Cowley, new railroads to accommodate workers’ commutes. It was around this time that Morris Motors overtook Ford as the UK’s largest automobile manufacturer, moving Morris clearly into the national spotlight as a titan of industry.

With the Second World War looming the Oxford plant, as recommended by the government, expanded its facilities to accommodate the production and repair of aeroplanes. The de Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moth was a very popular model manufactured here, bought by the Royal Air Force for training pilots recently joined. As time progressed, the company’s founder became more authoritarian with his control over the company, refusing other key members shares of the business and refusing to adapt to new and necessary market techniques to keep up with competitors. In 1952 Morris Motors merged with the Austin Motor Company to form the British Motor Corporation, which Morris headed for a year before his retirement. From 1966 to 2000, the company to which the plant belonged went through a long series of acquisitions, mergers, restructurings and renamings, from the British Motor Holdings through British Leyland and the Rover Group to British Aerospace and BMW, which despite selling the Rover Group in 2001, kept the site to produce their new MINI line.

To prepare for this change, a large part of the factory was demolished and the land sold to be incorporated into the Oxford Business Park, now office space to the global headquarters of Oxfam, the European headquarters of Harley-Davidson, and major outposts for Royal Mail and HM Revenue and Customs. Next to these, the renovated Oxford plant now assembles about 1,000 cars a day (one every 67 seconds) and employs over 3,700 employees. BMW’s declaration that MINI will be the first of their brands to become fully electric starts with Oxford, as does their strategy to reduce emissions from all plants by 80 percent by 2030. It seems that 108 years later, this old and ugly factory, still often called “Morris’s”, strives for history yet.

Written by MOX volunteer Eli Rasmussen. 

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Learn more about William Morris’ role during the Second World War in this post.

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PressClub Global · Article.

Mini plant oxford – a century of car-making., 08.03.2013 press release, mini plant oxford celebrates 100 years of production – its first car, a bullnose morris oxford, was produced on 28 march 1913 just metres from today’s facility – total car production to date stands at 11,655,000 and counting – over 2,250,000 minis built so far, plus 602,187 classic minis manufactured at plant oxford – plant oxford is the oldest mass-production car plant in the uk and the third oldest in the world, seeing continuous production since 1913 – 13 car brands have been produced at plant oxford in 100 years., press contact..

Andreas Lampka BMW Group Tel: +49-89-382-23662 Fax: +49-89-382-20626 send an e-mail

Andreas Lampka BMW Group

This article in other PressClubs

Oxford. MINI Plant Oxford celebrates 100 years of car-making this March, against a background of rising production, increased investment and continuing expansion. Today, Plant Oxford employs 3700 associates who manufacture up to 900 MINIs every day, and has contributed over 2.25 million MINIs to the tally of over 11.65 million cars that the factory has produced since 1913.

The first car built at the factory, a Bullnose Morris Oxford, emerged on 28 March 1913 and has been followed by cars from a wide range of famous British brands – and one Japanese - including MG, Wolseley, Riley, Austin, Austin Healey, Mini, Vanden Plas, Princess, Triumph, Rover, Sterling and Honda, besides founding marque Morris and MINI. The Pressed Steel Company subsidiary occupying the same Cowley complex also built bodyshells for Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Jaguar, MG, Standard-Triumph, Ford and Hillman, as well as tooling dies for Alfa Romeo. The plant has a long and impressive history of shipping cars abroad that has resulted in more than1.7 million MINIs going to overseas customers.

The plant has produced an array of famous cars, including the Bullnose Morris, the Morris Minor, the Mini, India’s Hindustan Ambassador and today’s MINI. It also produced Hondas for a short period in the ‘80s, as well as some slightly notorious models including the early Riley Pathfinder, the much-derided Morris Marina, the startling ’70s wedge that was the Princess and in the Austin Maestro one of the world’s earliest ‘talking’ cars.

There have been eight custodians of Plant Oxford over the past 100 years, beginning with founder William Morris who owned the factory both directly and through Morris Motors until 1952, when Morris merged with arch-rival Austin to form the British Motor Corporation. Morris himself, by this time known as Lord Nuffield, was chairman for six months before retiring. During the early ‘60s the plant had as many as 28,000 employees producing an extraordinary variety of models.

In 1967 BMC became British Motor Holdings after merging with Jaguar, and the following year that group was merged with the Leyland truck company (which also included Triumph and Rover) to form the British Leyland Motor Corporation. Nationalisation followed in 1974, the group undergoing several renamings until it became the Rover Group in 1986. Boss Graham Day was charged with privatising the company for the Thatcher government, which was completed in 1988 with the sale to British Aerospace. They in turn would sell the Group, which included Land Rover, to BMW in 1994.

BMW Group invested heavily in Rover, deciding early on that a replacement for the Mini would be a priority. But considerable headwinds, and an unfavourable exchange rate lead to BMW selling Rover to the Phoenix Consortium in 2000 and Land Rover to Ford in 2000. The MINI brand was retained together with Plant Oxford, as Cowley had been renamed, along with the associated Swindon pressings factory and the new Hams Hall engine plant in Birmingham that was preparing for production.

Today, Plant Oxford is flourishing with the manufacture of the MINI hatchback, Convertible, Clubman, Clubvan, Roadster and Coupé. It is currently undergoing a major investment that includes the installation of a 1000 new robots for both a new body shop and the existing facility. This represents the lion’s share of a £750m investment programme, announced in the last year, which also sees the significant upgrading and installation of new facilities at the company’s Hams Hall engine plant and the Swindon body pressings factory.

The Oxford plant has generated considerable wealth for the nation, as well as for many other countries around the world during its 100 years, providing direct employment for hundreds of thousands of employees and tens of thousands more through indirect jobs. The plant has a long history of export success, Morris products accounting for nearly 30 percent of the nation’s total exports by the mid 1930s. In 1950, the plant produced its 100,000th overseas model – a Morris Minor – and by 1962 BMC was shipping 320,000 examples of its annual production of 850,000 vehicles to over 170 countries, Oxford contributing a major part of that total. BMC was the UK’s biggest exporter in the early ‘60s, just as Morris had been in the ‘30s.

Plant Oxford has contributed to the industrial activities of a surprising number of far-flung countries too, by producing tens of thousands of cars for export in CKD (Completely Knocked Down) form for assembly in overseas factories. Countries that have built cars from kits include Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Cuba, East Africa, Ghana, Holland, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Malaya, Mexico, Nigeria, Spain, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Trinidad, Turkey, Uganda, Uruguay and many others. By 1967 CKD cars formed 40 percent of BMC’s exports, the kits assembled in 21 plants around the world. Morris Oxfords, Minors, MGAs, Minis, Morris 1100s and commercial vehicles were among the many models built in these distant factories. Plant Oxford’s export record is equally impressive today, no less than 1.7 million MINIs having been exported to over 100 countries since 2001.

Today, Plant Oxford forms the central element of BMW Group’s UK production network, which includes the Hams Hall engine factory in Birmingham and the Swindon pressings plant, formerly a part of Pressed Steel. The network faces a bright future as the next generation MINI family enters production over the coming years amid a trend of rising sales and exports.

The Cars Many famous cars have been produced at Plant Oxford, several of them revolutionary. Here are some highlights:

‘Bullnose’ Morris Oxford 1913-26 William Morris’s first car, actually named the Morris Oxford but known as the Bullnose because of its distinctive, rounded radiator cowling in brass. A bold series of price cuts saw Morris becoming the UK’s biggest selling marque by 1924.

Morris Minor 1928-32 A small, affordable car whose price Morris eventually cut to £100, ensuring considerable popularity. Together with the baby Austin Seven, it made the motor car significantly more attainable in Britain.

Morris Eight 1935-48 A big pre-war and post-war hit, this barrel-bodied Morris developed through several iterations and remained a common sight right into the ‘60s.

Morris Minor 1948-71 A major step ahead in handling, steering, braking and roominess, the Alec Issigonis-designed Minor was a huge success. The Minor was the first British car to sell over a million, a milestone celebrated with a limited run of Minor Millions painted in a dubious shade of lilac. It was sold as a saloon, a semi-timbered Traveller estate, a convertible, a van and a pick-up.

Morris Oxford III 1956-58 The ‘50s Oxford was a family car staple of the Morris range, besides continuing with the model name that had started Morris off. An unremarkable car, except that it was the basis of India’s once hugely-popular Hindustan Ambassador, Morris shipping all the Oxford III tooling to the company in 1957. The Ambassador – or Amby, as it is fondly known – remains in small-scale production today.

BMC Mini 1959-69 The revolutionary Mini was another creation from Alec Issigonis, its transverse, front-wheel drive powertrain and space-efficient packaging redefining small car design. Go-kart handling soon inspired the sportier Coopers and giant-slaying, headline-making competition performances. Classless, fashionable, much-loved and widely exported, it introduced a word to the English language and became Britain’s most famous – and most produced - car. Plant Oxford manufactured it for 10 years from 1959, its counterpart Longbridge, Birmingham factory remaining the chief UK source until its demise in 2000.

BMC 1100/1300 1962-74 The second front-drive Issigonis model, essentially an enlarged Mini with Pininfarina styling and Hydrolastic fluid suspension. The most advanced small family car on sale at the time, it sold even faster than the Mini to become Britain’s best-seller for 10 years. Launched as a Morris, it was also sold as an Austin, MG, Riley, Vanden Plas and a Wolseley, and was offered in two-door, four-door and estate bodystyles.

Morris Marina 1971-80 Much derided at the time, but the Ford Cortina-bashing Marina was a top five best-seller for years despite its simple mechanicals, and a mainstay of the plant through the 1970s. Unusual for offering a coupe version that was cheaper than the saloon, it was replaced by the lightly restyled Ital in 1980, this car destined to be the last Morris. Like the Minor it replaced, the Marina achieved sales of over one million.

Triumph Acclaim 1981-84 Essentially a rebadged Honda Civic, the Acclaim was a stop-gap model that was the product of an unusual deal struck in 1979 by BL Cars and Honda. The goal was to providing BL with a new model offering between the 1980 launch of the Austin miniMetro and 1983’s Austin Maestro, the Acclaim’s Honda-designed production lines also prompting the installation of the first robots at the Oxford plant. The Acclaim was also significant for being the first Japanese car to be built in the UK, and the last Triumph. The BL-Honda partnership eventually led to the Japanese company setting up its own UK factory at Swindon.

Rover 800 1986-9/Honda Legend 1986-8 These executive cars were unusual for being the progeny of an engineering collaboration between Rover and Honda, the two sharing inner bodywork, suspensions and some drivetrains while presenting unique body and interior designs. Plant Oxford not only built the Rover 800 but for a short period, the sister Honda Legend model too. The 800 was also part of a major export initiative to the US in the mid ‘80s, under the Sterling brand name. This much deeper collaboration furthered a fruitful period in which Japanese just-in-time and continuous improvement techniques were introduced to the plant, eventually leading to significant gains in vehicle build quality.

Rover 75 1999-2000 The first and only Rover wholly developed under BMW ownership, the elegantly styled 75 saw a wholesale improvement in both quality and dynamic standards for the brand. Production transferred to Longbridge, Birmingham, after BMW sold Rover in 2000 and ended prematurely in 2005, although variations of the model live on in China as Roewes and MGs.

MINI 2001-06 The all-new MINI recalibrated the Mini as a larger, vastly more sophisticated premium supermini in an evolution that defined a new market, just as the original car did. Widely praised for styling that honoured its predecessor with contemporary and hugely appealing flair, it also won plaudits for its handling, imaginative interior design and build quality. The MINI also introduced personalisation on a scale never before seen in a small car, firing the gun on a trend now widely copied. It exceeded its sales targets from the start – unlike the classic Mini – and was joined by a Convertible in 2002.

MINI 2006 to date The next generation MINI hatch further refined the 2001 concept with more space, more sophistication, more advanced engines – now mainly UK-built – more equipment and more choice. This was expanded considerably by the introduction of the Clubman estate in 2007, the Coupé and Roadster in 2012 and the Clubvan in the same year. A renewed version of the highly popular Convertible appeared in 2007.

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MINI Plant Oxford gets Royal visit to mark 20th anniversary

Home » MINI Plant Oxford gets Royal visit to mark 20th anniversary

Gabriel Nica

June 9, 2021 / 2 minutes read

This year marks the 20th since BMW took over the MINI brand and launched a revamped model. It’s an important milestone for everyone involved and even the Royal Family acknowledged that. To this end, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales visited yesterday the home of the brand at MINI Plant Oxford , to meet the people behind the cars and to get an insight into the manufacturing processes and developments in sustainable production.

Prince Charles toured the site’s assembly hall, where he was able to meet some of the 130 apprentices, as well as staff who were closely involved in integrating the manufacturing of the MINI Electric onto the standard production line, making Oxford the first BMW Group plant in the world to build fully electric and combustion cars on the same line. The MINI Electric was launched internationally in 2020 and has been so warmly received by customers that production will double in 2021.

The Prince of Wales drove a MINI Electric off the production line as part of his visit. He was also introduced to members of the MINI team whose families have worked at the plant over a number of generations, across the decades. Peter Weber, Managing Director, Plant Oxford said: “It was an absolute honor and pleasure to welcome HRH The Prince of Wales to the heart of the MINI brand here in Oxford and we were delighted that he could join us to mark this important manufacturing milestone”

“Over the past twenty years, the commitment and passion of our associates, nearly a quarter of whom were with us when the first car rolled off the line in 2001, has helped to strengthen MINI’s reputation around the world. It’s fantastic for this special celebration to have been be recognized with such a memorable royal visit. It was a real highlight to see His Royal Highness drive one of our MINI Electrics off the production line today,” Weber added.

MINI Plant Oxford has been at the heart of its community for over 108 years and employs over 3700 highly-skilled employees and apprentices, who together build 1000 MINIs a day – one every 67 seconds. MINI will be the first BMW Group brand to go fully electric by the early 2030s.

• mini electric
• prince charles
• royal family

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The History of the World: Nixon visits Moscow

The history of the world: sixth edition.

• May 22 nd 2013

22 May 1972 The following is a brief extract from The History of the World: Sixth Edition by J.M. Roberts and O.A. Westad.

In October 1971 the UN General Assembly had recognized the People’s Republic as the only legitimate representative of China in the United Nations, and expelled the representative of Taiwan. This was not an outcome the United States had anticipated until the crucial vote was taken. The following February, there took place a visit by Nixon to China that was the first visit ever made by an American president to mainland Asia, and one he described as an attempt to bridge ‘sixteen thousand miles and twenty-two years of hostility.’

When Nixon followed his Chinese trip by becoming also the first American president to visit Moscow (in May 1972), and this was followed by an interim agreement on arms limitation – the first of its kind – it seemed that another important change had come about. The stark, polarized simplicities of the Cold War were blurring, however doubtful the future might be.

Reprinted from THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD: Sixth Edition by J.M. Roberts and O.A. Westad with permission from Oxford University Press, Inc. Copyright © 2013 by O.A. Westad.

J. M. Roberts CBE died in 2003. He was Warden at Merton College, Oxford University, until his retirement and is widely considered one of the leading historians of his era. He is also renowned as the author and presenter of the BBC TV series ‘The Triumph of the West’ (1985). Odd Arne Westad edited the sixth edition of The History of the World . He is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics. He has published fifteen books on modern and contemporary international history, among them ‘The Global Cold War,’ which won the Bancroft Prize.

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Peace Through Strength? When Nixon Went to Moscow

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On May 22, 1972, Richard Nixon became the first American president to visit Moscow, the capital and largest city of what was then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The nine-day summit came on the heels of Nixon’s more famous visit to China earlier in the year, when he and Chairman Mao reinitiated Chinese-American relations and began a long process of reintegrating the two societies’ political, cultural, and economic institutions. (Nixon, in 1959, visited Moscow as vice-president, something I’ll write about it July, so stay tuned!)

So why did Nixon, one of the most ardent anti-Communists in American politics during the late 1960s and early 1970s, go to Moscow at the height of the Cold War? How was he able to even pull it off? The counterintuitive answer is that it was because he was so hawkish. Only Nixon could go to the Soviet Union (and China earlier in 1972).

Nixon’s anti-Communist credentials were so sound that he could spend political capital making inroads with Communist enemies. His actions were viewed as safe by the American electorate because, for better or worse, the public saw Nixon as somebody who would not betray American values at the negotiating table with the Soviets. Nixon’s hawkishness provided moral cover for America’s withdrawal from Vietnam, and its peaceful overtures to the two most powerful and aggressively anti-capitalist regimes in the world (China and the USSR).

This dynamic plays out in a number of examples in the world today, too. Donald Trump comes to mind, of course, but so does Narendra Modi’s populist regime in India (relations between India and Pakistan have never been so peaceful). Xi Jinping’s China can also be viewed in this light. At home, Chairman Xi is a strident nationalist, but abroad, he and his policymakers have been vigorously building multilateral relationships with Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and even the United States using that hawkishness at home as one of its diplomatic cards at the negotiating table. In the past, Otto von Bismarck’s German federation achieved peace on the European continent through strength.

Anecdotally, Republicans from California tend to be a bit more hawkish than their national counterparts. Nixon and Reagan come to mind, but so do many of California’s GOP members in the House of Representatives today. This is due, in part, to the fact that California is so far to the left that GOP operatives have to distinguish their differences with Democrats in a more pronounced manner. California’s Democrats are, for better or worse, viewed as the standard-bearers for all things left-wing today: big government, open immigration (whether legal or not), and world peace. This is a caricature, of course, since people like Nancy Pelosi and Babs Boxer have easily traceable hawkish records on policies like foreign affairs, but that’s just the nature of electoral politics in one-party states and of the narrative of our media establishment. California’s Republicans, outnumbered and always under attack, have no other option but to oppose instinctively their counterparts’ public aura. If the Democrats there are in favor of peace with communists (even if their voting record says otherwise), the Republicans have to go to their constituents and say they are against it.

Nixon was the first president to visit Moscow. FDR had visited the Soviet Union in 1945, but the conference he attended, along with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin, was held at Yalta, a resort town in present-day Crimea. The Moscow Summit itself was rather interesting, too. Nixon signed numerous accords with the Soviet Union while there, but he did so with numerous heads of Soviet bureaucracies rather than solely with Brezhnev. What this can tell us is that the Soviet Union was far more decentralized in 1972 than many hawkish (and ideological) observers claimed.

After Stalin’s butcherous rein, Khrushchev came to power and tried to eliminate the brutal elements of Stalin’s regime while simultaneously wielding the power Stalin had held. But power thrives on fear and violence, and reformers took advantage of Khrushchev’s less brutal approach to institute a number of reforms in governance, including the dismantling of the General Secretary’s omnipotent position in the USSR’s political hierarchy. What emerged by the time Khrushchev’s successor, Brezhnev, came to govern was a much more decentralized political structure that sought to realize a true union of Soviet socialist republics. The fact that this realization still failed to replace capitalism  as a superior producer of goods, services, and human freedom should not shroud the fact that reform was achieved in the Soviet Union. Indeed, the fact that hard-fought reform in Soviet civil and political life failed to achieve any of the USSR’s economic goals is a strength when pointing out socialism’s long list of failures.

Incidentally, one of the reasons I didn’t include Gorbachev in the l ist of dictators who “gave up” power is because he wasn’t a dictator. Gorbachev inherited a political system that was decentralized and dedicated to representativeness. If anything, the executive branch of the USSR was more decentralized than its American counterpart, a fact illustrated best by Nixon having to sign accords with a number of high-ranking Soviet officials.

So what can all this history teach us about today’s world? I look at hawks and doves. Hawks may make boorish claims, and they may say stupid things, but maybe, just maybe, we should give the hawks a chance.

Brandon Christensen is a weekly columnist at RealClearHistory and a contributor to the site's Historiat blog. He's also a member of the Notes On Liberty blogging consortium and currently writes from Texas.

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Saturday, August 31, 2024 7:12 am (Paris)

• International

Macron to visit Serbia, expected to announce fighter jets sale

The French president should go to the Balkan country on Thursday and Friday, where he may announce a deal on a contract to sell 12 Rafales to Belgrade, which is known to have close ties with Moscow.

By  Jean-Baptiste Chastand   (Vienna (Austria) correspondent) and Faustine Vincent

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Although France is in the midst of a political crisis , Emmanuel Macron is expected to make a sensitive trip to Serbia on Thursday, August 29 and Friday, August 30. Although the Elysée has revealed few specifics about the visit, it is anticipated that the French president will take advantage of his meeting with his Serbian counterpart, scheduled for Thursday evening, to announce a deal on a contract to sell 12 Rafale fighter jets to Belgrade. "Our hope is to see this issue come to a conclusion during the president's visit," confirmed the Elysée on Wednesday, August 28.

On the same day, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in an interview with Agence France Presse (AFP) that he expected to sign the contract during the visit. "It's a huge contract for our country, and not a small one even for France," he said, citing a figure of €3 billion euros, a number that the Elysée refused to confirm. He also mentioned agreements concerning "electricity" with French provider EDF at a time when Serbia is hoping to revive its nuclear industry.

It has also been announced that, on Friday, Macron will visit a museum and an economic forum dedicated to artificial intelligence in Novi Sad, the country's second-largest city. However, the Rafales are attracting the most interest in Serbia. The country's army only has old Soviet MiG-29s. Vucic, who has already visited Paris twice this year, has been promising for months that the contract with French manufacturer Dassault is almost complete. On the other hand, the French side has been much more discreet on the matter. Exporting Rafales to this country, known for its closeness to Moscow and its sometimes bellicose intentions toward its Balkan neighbors, raises a number of questions.

This contract represents "a strategic choice" for Serbia, which is "part of the logic of anchoring itself to the European Union," said the Elysée. How does France intend to guarantee that Rafale technology will not be passed on to Russia or used to put pressure on neighboring Kosovo, whose independence is not recognized by Belgrade? "There are obviously clauses governing the transfer of such equipment," said the Elysée, refusing to go into details.

European alignment called into question

Although Macron's advisers often insist that he is not oblivious to Serbia's troubling slide under Vucic, who has ruled his country of 6.6 million inhabitants with an iron fist since 2012, halting virtually all the reforms required to join the European Union, it must be said that the French president frequently shows support for Vucic, who relishes transactional diplomacy with the great powers such as Russia, China or the West.

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