Editing Ian Fleming (section)

==== Britain's position in the world ====
The Bond books were written in post-war Britain, when the country was still an imperial power.{{sfn|Black|2005|p=3}} As the series progressed, the [[British Empire]] was in decline; journalist William Cook observed that "Bond pandered to Britain's inflated and increasingly insecure self-image, flattering us with the fantasy that Britannia could still punch above her weight."<ref name="Cook (2004)" /> This decline of British power was referred to in several of the novels; in ''From Russia, with Love'', it manifested itself in Bond's conversations with Darko Kerim, when Bond admits that in England, "we don't show teeth any more—only gums."{{sfn|Fleming|Higson|2006|p=227}}{{sfn|Macintyre|2008|p=113}} The theme is strongest in one of the later books of the series, the 1964 novel ''You Only Live Twice'', in conversations between Bond and the head of Japan's secret intelligence service, [[Tiger Tanaka]]. Fleming was acutely aware of the loss of British prestige in the 1950s and early 60s, particularly during the [[Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation]], when he had Tanaka accuse Britain of throwing away the empire "with both hands".{{sfn|Macintyre|2008|p=113}}{{sfn|Chancellor|2005|pp=200–201}}{{sfn|Black|2005|p=62}}

Black points to the defections of [[Cambridge Five|four members of MI6]] to the [[Soviet Union]] as having a major impact on how Britain was viewed in US intelligence circles.{{sfn|Black|2005|p=61}} The last of the defections was that of [[Kim Philby]] in January 1963,<ref>{{cite ODNB |last=Clive |first=Nigel |title=Philby, Harold Adrian Russell (Kim) (1912–1988) |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/40699 |access-date=25 October 2011 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/40699 |year=2004}}</ref> while Fleming was still writing the first draft of ''You Only Live Twice''.{{sfn|Benson|1988|p=24}} The briefing between Bond and M is the first time in the twelve books that Fleming acknowledges the defections.{{sfn|Chancellor|2005|p=200}} Black contends that the conversation between M and Bond allows Fleming to discuss the decline of Britain, with the defections and the [[Profumo affair]] of 1963 as a backdrop.{{sfn|Black|2005|p=62}} Two of the defections had taken place shortly before Fleming wrote ''Casino Royale'',<ref>{{cite ODNB |last=Kerr |first=Sheila |title=Burgess, Guy Francis de Moncy (1911–1963) |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/37244 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37244 |access-date=20 September 2011 |year=2004}}</ref> and the book can be seen as the writer's "attempt to reflect the disturbing moral ambiguity of a post-war world that could produce traitors like [[Guy Burgess|Burgess]] and [[Donald Maclean (spy)|Maclean]]", according to Lycett.{{sfn|Lycett|1996|p=221}}

By the end of the series, in the 1965 novel, ''The Man with the Golden Gun'', Black notes that an independent inquiry was undertaken by the Jamaican judiciary, while the CIA and MI6 were recorded as acting "under the closest liaison and direction of the Jamaican CID": this was the new world of a non-colonial, independent Jamaica, further underlining the decline of the British Empire.{{sfn|Black|2005|p=78}} The decline was also reflected in Bond's use of US equipment and personnel in several novels.{{sfn|Black|2005|pp=53–54}} Uncertain and shifting geopolitics led Fleming to replace the Russian organisation SMERSH with the international terrorist group SPECTRE in ''Thunderball'', permitting "evil unconstrained by ideology".{{sfn|Black|2005|p=50}} Black argues that SPECTRE provides a measure of continuity to the remaining stories in the series.{{sfn|Black|2005|p=49}}