Americans watching the spectacle currently unfolding in the British government should not be fearful that the entire British political system is cracking up. It isn’t. The United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) has been contemplating its national strategic direction since World War II. Britain has been a Great Power since the emergence of the nation-state in the 16th century, along with the French, Spanish, and Turks. The general strategic division of Europe from the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 on was that France had the greatest army in Europe and Britain the greatest navy, and as it was an island, had little need for an army. It mainly engaged mercenaries to be its entry in topping up one side or another in the balance of power of continental nations and in some overseas activities. This is why there were Hessians in America fighting George Washington. Britain took what it wanted in the world, especially North America and India, where they evicted France; South Africa, where they evicted the Dutch; and Australasia. And Britain took a series of maritime transit points of great strategic value in maintaining its empire: Gibraltar, Malta, Suez, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Cape Town, in particular.
This system continued through the First World War, although Germany, unified at last by Bismarck in 1871, succeeded France as the greatest land power in Europe, and Britain and France had to fight side by side to contain Germany in the First World War, with American assistance needed to defeat it, and Britain, America, and the Russians were all required to subdue Germany in the Second World War. So great were the British exertions in these wars, and so energetic had national sentiment in their former colonial empire become, that Britain ceased to be one of the world’s greatest powers. Russia replaced Germany as the greatest power in Europe and the U.K. became the principal American ally in denying hegemony in Europe to the Russians. Britain managed the descent to the second rank of the world’s states with more dignity than any other country that has ever had to meet this challenge, because of the magnificent Churchillian contribution to victory over Nazism and despite a few unfortunate slips such as the disorderly end of the British Indian Empire and the Palestine Mandate in 1947 and 1948, and the Suez fiasco in 1956, which tainted Anglo–American relations for several years.
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See Also:
(2) Hey, lefties! Are you ready for, say, U.K. Lord High Chancellor Nigel Farage?
(3) Did Boris Johnson Just Rope-a-Dope His Way into a Hard Brexit?
(4) Boris brands Labour ‘yellow belly’ cowards as he refuses to ask EU for Brexit delay
(5) Boris Johnson’s snap general election vote slapped down by MPs by 293 votes to 46
