The return of the british empire?

Will it ever return in the near future?
Is there anyway it will?
And was the british empire a bad thing or a good thing?
The british empire was dismantled not because it had opressed people for centuries but because it took up arms against the tyrannical empires of Hirohito's greater east Asia co-prosperity sphere, hitler's thousand year reich and Mussolini's new Rome. Nor could the growing threat of the soviet union be ignored for much longer. So the British empire gave itself to stop these evil empires growing.
That is why I think british people should be proud of there once great empire, and that the natives of these far off lands should be thanking the british for stopping them from being ruled by much worse empires.

I want the bristish empire to return.

" Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a new role"
Dean Acheson

Imperialist
Old fashioned
BNP
whatever you want to call me
I don't care

Thanks in advance to all who reply

not bad for a first post.

Unless there is some sort of monumental power shift in the world and the desire in the UK to do so, no, it won't return.

Your partly right in that the BE gave itself to stop the fascists taking power, but it could have survived even WW2 if the US hadn't forced us to give it up.

That's right folks, our good buddies in the US did not like the Empire one bit as it stopped them gaining hegemony over the world, so as part of deals made during the war and also part of the founding of the UN, the USA made all the European Empires finally give up the colonies to independence. All so the US companies could move in and expand American influence across the globe.

It's no coincidence that George Bush's grandfather and chums all financed the Nazi's into power, in order to create a new European War to smash the grip of the old Great Powers, so American corporate capitalism could have access to all the resources, labour and markets of the former colonies. WW1 ended up strengthening the Empire, instead of breaking it, so another War was needed to finish off Britannia for good.

Want the Empire back? Get shot of the Yanks first...

reply to post by BBTBE


Will it return anytime soon?

No, I can't foresee the circumstances in which that could happen. If the US falls (which would have to happen for the Empire to be revived, I think), China and India will probably take its place. All powerful nations eventually fall, and it's rare that they ever return to the height of their power. Compare the Greece, Egypt, Italy (Rome) or Iran of centuries ago to these nations today. They are a shadow of their former selves. I think Britain's fall as an empire was perhaps one of the gentlest in history - a gradual break up rather than a sudden shattering, but I don't really see any way for the empire to come back. We can't afford it for one thing!

Is there any way it could return?

It's certainly not impossible - who's to say what the world will be like ten years from now, let alone a hundred years? Could anyone have predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 ten years earlier? No one did, really. Could anyone have predicted the 'War on Terror' and the events of 9/11? No one did. I'd say it's unlikely, and if it did return I doubt it'd be as big as before, but I suppose it's possible. In some ways it's still with us today (through the Commonwealth and the Overseas territories that the UK holds).

Was it a good or a bad thing?

Both. I suppose the real answer depends where you come from and what political outlook you hold, but I don't think you can accurately describe it as angelic or evil. It lies somewhere in between the two - there were, for instance, numerous massacres in the British Empire but it has helped to create the largest democracy on the planet (India), enabled Britain to win two world wars and, for instance, kept Malaysia free of communist rule. You could have a pretty extensive debate as to the good and bad points of the British Empire and, indeed, historians are. No consensus has yet been reached, but you'd probably expect that.

To the topic starter, Churchill was a fierce admirer of Mussolini and fascism, so was Hitler. They particularly liked the anti communism ideology.

Originally posted by stumason
Unless there is some sort of monumental power shift in the world and
That's right folks, our good buddies in the US did not like the Empire one bit as it stopped them gaining hegemony over the world, so as part of deals made during the war and also part of the founding of the UN, the USA made all the European Empires finally give up the colonies to independence.

You are right. Before the BE there was the Dutch Empire. The Dutch East Indies Company (which was the first multinational ever) totally controlled the trade of expensive spices from the East Indies. After the trade declined and became less worthwhile, the British started to take control of Dutch colonies, eventually the empire would collapse and succeeded by the BE.

One of the few colonies that the Netherlands still had till the 20th century was Indonesia (Dutch Indies), however, the US stimulated the independence war in the second halve of the 1940, Soekarno played a major role in as the ''old world'' should not have colonies according to American principles.

Originally posted by stumason
All so the US companies could move in and expand American influence across the globe.

Which was the actualy reason for European countries to not have colonies.

Originally posted by stumason
It's no coincidence that George Bush's grandfather and chums all financed the Nazi's into power, in order to create a new European War to smash the grip of the old Great Powers, so American corporate capitalism could have access to all the resources, labour and markets of the former colonies. WW1 ended up strengthening the Empire, instead of breaking it, so another War was needed to finish off Britannia for good.

Want the Empire back? Get shot of the Yanks first...

As a matter of fact, I did an internship at Opel in Germany, which is part of the GM group. GM had so many talks with the Nazi Party about their role in the motorization of the Germany Wehrmacht.

Three years after Swiss banks became the target of a worldwide furor over their business dealings with Nazi Germany, major American car companies find themselves embroiled in a similar debate.

Like the Swiss banks, the American car companies have vigorously denied that they assisted the Nazi war machine or that they significantly profited from the use of forced labor at their German subsidiaries during World War II. But historians and lawyers researching class-action suits on behalf of former prisoners of war are busy amassing evidence of collaboration by the automakers with the Nazi regime.

Source

The ironic thing is that for the most part (except for the Philiphines and the Panama Canal Zone) our empire is still pretty much intact with American Samoa, Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands but yet on the other hand we are the big crusader against imperialism

I always assumed though that Britain sacrificed the Empire in order to help win WW2, is this the case or am I wrong?

[edit on 26-1-2008 by ChrisF231]

Originally posted by ChrisF231
I always assumed though that Britain sacrificed the Empire in order to help win WW2, is this the case or am I wrong?

To a great extent, yes. If WWII hadn't happened then it's likely that the British Empire would still be around in some form. Some bits of the Empire were promised independence in return for their cooperation (e.g. India, the 'jewel in the crown' of the empire).

Most decolonisation happened after the war, though; through the 1950s and 1960s, when the UK simply couldn't afford to keep the colonies (the British economy was wrecked after six years of war with regular bombings of British cities and heavily reliant on American aid) and the US put a great deal of pressure on Britain to give up its colonies, through aid programmes and political pressure.

I suppose one key event after the war was the Suez Crisis in 1956, in which Britain and France conspired with Israel to retake the Suez Canal from Egyptian leader Colonel Nasser, who had nationalised it despite previous agreements with Britain and France. The plan was for Israel to invade Egypt through the Sinai peninsula and then, as they approached the Suez Canal, a joint British-French task force would invade Egypt - publicly it was said this was to stop the war and keep the Israeli and Egyptian armies separate. In reality it was so that Britain and France could retake the canal. A huge amount of pressure from the USA and USSR was brought to bear, with the USA threatening to sell its reserves of the pound sterling and thus cause the weak British economy to collapse. Britain had no choice and withdrew - this significantly sped up the process of breaking up the empire, leading to some pretty hasty and (in the long run) bad decisions.

Yeah, it seems to me that alot of the current problems in Africa, Asia, etc are due to premature independence where the colonial powers were basically forced out before they had the chance to develop proper infrastructure, introduce the locals into the government for a smooth transition, etc.

reply to post by ChrisF231


Pretty much. Past generations didn't think it through properly, and now we are dealing with their mistakes (though it's not all the West's fault at all).

I do not think that the British Empire will return because there is no room for it in todays world. With the US, China and other big super powers knocking around.

I think that the British Empire was a good thing for the bulk, we introduced alot of good views upoin nthe world. Im generaly happy with it, but it wont return.

Fox

In order for Britain to get it's empire back they would have to retake Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Singapore and a large part of China. Somehow I don't think these people are going to let that happen.

The problem is that all of these countries have been westernised and will put up some serious opposition. The British no longer have a massive technological advantage over these countries. This is due to globalisation, where western countries flog advanced technology to the rest of the world for a quick buck.