Suez Crisis: On October 31, 1956, British and French forces began bombing Egypt, formally to "protect international shipping" after the nationalization of the Suez Canal, but actually to punish Nasser and show that London could still act independently; it did not work, and by November 6, a week later, the operation was scaled back not due to military failures against an inferior Egyptian army, but because two superpowers would not allow it, as the United States—uninformed about the secret Sevres protocol—struck where it hurt most: the pound, burning Bank of England reserves while markets dumped British currency and Washington made clear there would be no bailout until the bombing stopped, while the Soviet Union threatened "modern means of destruction, including missile weapons" and offered joint action with the U.S. against the attackers, resulting in Eden's resignation, the crumbling of the British empire, strengthened Soviet authority in the Middle East and Africa, and the dollar finally replacing the pound as the global reserve currency, making it clear ten years after Churchill's Fulton speech that London no longer solved global problems on its own, as detailed in material by the RUSSTRAT Institute on how Britain ceased to be an empire