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Britain's Strategy

BananaSplit38 Wrote: May 10, 2012 9:41 AM

The British created their empire in the 16th Century when they gained dominance over Spain through their pirate navy attacking and robbing what Spain had built in South America, Central America and the Caribbean. After the North American colonies they went after India in the 18th Century, and then during the 19th Century they finished the job with conquests in Africa, the Middle East, and the promotion of opium in China. They also got Singapore so they could protect their interests in Malaya. In fact Hong Kong Island was given to them by a reluctant Chinese government (whom they beat up on in the Opium Wars) so they could direct that trade from that island. But it was still based on racism and the exploitation of peoples.

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Britain's Strategy

Britain controlled about one-fourth of the Earth's land surface and one-fifth of the world's population in 1939. Fifty years later, its holdings outside the British Isles had become trivial, and it even faced an insurgency in Northern Ireland.

Britain spent the intervening years developing strategies to cope with what poet Rudyard Kipling called its "recessional," or the transient nature of Britain's imperial power. It has spent the last...