The brits dominated the seas up until the US navy took over after ww2.Who or what book can dispute that?As of nowadays even the PlaN in a pure naval engagement wouldnt win..........as far as a slavic navy the brits would win in any battle.Any one care to play 5 card stud on the subject?

You Brits have such a chip on your shoulders. Do you understand the legacy of Britain is that your colonization has ruined much of the world? How many former colonies are now third-world nations? Excellent job in Palestine by the way, good thing there have been no ill ramifications of failed policy there. Europeans hate American Hegemony. If history is any indication, I shutter to think what European Hegemony would be like in the 21st century. It?s interesting, read into Christian Literature; they believe the anti-christ is going ascend from the Revival of the Roman Empire (European Union). Wow they must be out of their minds. If Europe could produce Hitler how in the world could they produce an anti-christ?

He reads (and presumably believes)Christian Literature! That settles it. He's a loon.

It has become almost a commonplace that globalisation today has much in common with the integration of the world economy in the decades before 1914. But what exactly does this over-used word mean? Is it, as Cobden implied, an economically determined phenomenon, in which the free exchange of commodities and manufactures tends 'to unite mankind in the bonds of peace'? Or might free trade require a political framework within which to work? Promote and impose The Leftist opponents of globalisation naturally regard it as no more than the latest manifestation of a damnably resilient international capitalism. By contrast, the modern consensus among liberal economists is that increasing economic openness raises living standards, even if there will always be some net losers as hitherto privileged or protected social groups are exposed to international competition. But economists and economic historians alike prefer to focus their attention on flows of commodities, capital and labour. They say less about flows of knowledge, culture and institutions. They also tend to pay more attention to the ways government can facilitate globalisation by various kinds of deregulation than to the ways it can actively promote and, indeed, impose it. The result of coercion Economists have come to appreciate the importance of legal, financial and administrative institutions such as the rule of law, credible monetary regimes, transparent fiscal systems and incorrupt bureaucracies in encouraging cross- border capital flows. But how did the West European versions of such institutions spread as far and wide as they did? In a few rare cases ? the most obvious being that of Japan ? there was a process of conscious, voluntary imitation. But more often than not, European institutions were imposed by main force, often literally at gunpoint. In theory, globalisation may be possible in an international system of multilateral cooperation, spontaneously arising as Cobden envisaged. But it may equally well be possible as a result of coercion if the dominant power in the world favours economic liberalism. Empire ? and specifically the British empire ? is the instance that springs to mind. A Good Thing Today, the principal barriers to an optimal allocation of labour, capital and goods in the world are, on the one hand, civil wars and lawless, corrupt governments ? which together have condemned so many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia to decades of impoverishment ? and, on the other, the reluctance of the United States and her allies to practise as well as preach free trade, or to devote more than a trifling share of their vast resources to programmes of economic aid. By contrast, for much (though certainly not all) of its history, the British empire acted as an agency for imposing free markets, the rule of law, investor protection and relatively incorrupt government on a roughly a quarter of the world. The empire also did a good deal to encourage those things in countries which were outside its formal imperial domain but under its economic influence through the 'imperialism of free trade'. Prima facie, there therefore seems a plausible case that empire enhanced global welfare ? was, in other words, a Good Thing. Zealous Many charges can, of course, be levelled against the British empire. I do not claim, as John Stuart Mill did, that British rule in India was 'not only the purest in intention but one of the most beneficent in act ever known to mankind'; nor, as Lord Curzon did, that 'the British Empire is under Providence the greatest instrument for good that the world has seen'; nor, as General Smuts claimed, that it was 'the widest system of organised human freedom which has ever existed in human history'. The empire was never so altruistic. In the 18th century, the British were indeed as zealous in the acquisition and exploitation of slaves as they were subsequently zealous in trying to stamp slavery out; and for much longer they practised forms of racial discrimination and segregation that we today consider abhorrent. When imperial authority was challenged ? in India in 1857, in Jamaica in 1831 and 1865, in South Africa in 1899 ? the British response was brutal. When famine struck ? in Ireland in the 1840s, in India in the 1870s ? their response was negligent, in some measure positively culpable. Even when they took a scholarly interest in oriental cultures, perhaps they did subtly denigrate them in the process. Signal virtues Yet the fact remains that no organisation in history has done more to promote the free movement of goods, capital and labour than the British empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. And no organisation has done more to impose Western norms of law, order and governance around the world. To characterise all this as 'gentlemanly capitalism' risks underselling the scale - and modernity ? of the achievement in the sphere of economics, just as criticism of t

Herot, I read everything, including your posts ;). Please note, I am just bringing different points of view to the table....

Britannia, you are a pompous arse. It has been the invisible hands of America's competitive open markets & the age of the Internet that has led to & continues to drive today's globalization. "The question is whether there could have been a less bloody path to modernity". Let me ask you this, would you rather be standing in America's wake or Britain's? Think now. Look at what America has down to countries it has invaded: Japan, Germany, and South Korea. America rebuilt Europe & the Asia Pacific Rim after World War II. You bring up British rule in India. India is beneficing immensely with its relationship with the US & from US policy (Especially with outsourcing). So yes there is a better way, look at India, look at Europe, and look at Asian Pacific countries including China. America won the Cold War & brought down the Iron Curtain peacefully. The sad truth is that the English today build their pride and national / cultural identity on lies, propaganda, and grotesque rhetoric. This is why the majority of former occupied countries had to forcefully remove the English troops from their soil (including America). Were as America, on the other hand is removing her troops against the will of host nations: Europe, South Korea, etc?. I am sorry people of England, but you may have been a great nation militarily, but not morally. You arrogance decimated what are now today?s 2nd & 3rd world nations. American capitalism & hegemony is now undoing the ills of failed British/European Colonization & Occupation. P.S stop with the long, boring cut & pastes from whatever websites you are using.

You really are a fool Human 7, there would be no America if it had not been for the British Empire for a start, Foreign Investment in developing nations was at historically record levels during the 1900's as a result of British Liberalist policies, dominion status was granted to the vast majority of developed nations of the Empire which stands today. India was a wasteland before the East India Company arrived and the British Empire in effect built India, Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi and Madras were all built by the British. The Empire offered a guaranteed market for Indian products. As was said before, when the British governed a country ? even when they only influenced its government by flexing their military and financial muscles ? there were certain distinctive features of their own society that they tended to disseminate. A list of the more important of these would run as follows: The English language English forms of land tenure Scottish and English banking The common law Protestantism Team sports The limited or 'night watchman' state Representative assemblies The idea of liberty. The last of these is perhaps the most important because it remains the most distinctive feature of the empire ? the thing that sets it apart from its continental European rivals. These traits are the foundations of Modern Capitalism and are British. Anyway my previous post negates anything your argument tries to make out other than your petty hatred or perhaps jealousy of the success of the British which is something that is commonplace among Continentals.

"This is why the majority of former occupied countries had to forcefully remove the English troops from their soil (including America)." No nation has ever been able to do this, the British military presence in the 13 British Colonies in the South were forced to pull out due to the fact the French defeated a Royal Navy fleet in the Atlantic, leaving them short on supplies and the fact that the French then Blockaded positions in the South. Economic problems in the immediate wake of WWII compelled the British to give up possessions "East of Suez". To my knowledge the Industrial Revolution began in Britain and as a result the World?s first Multinational, the East India Company triggered the birth of Capitalism.

The World also has never been as relatively peaceful as in the period of the British Empire from 1880 to 1914. Prosperity was abundant throughout every colony, poverty in Africa only really became a problem in the late sixties when Soviet sponsored leaders like Mugabe began to fill the power gap left by the British. Perhaps the reason South Africa stayed relatively prosperous compared to it?s neighbours following independence was the fact that the Soviet union did not put Black Socialists in power.

"the age of the Internet that has led to & continues to drive today's globalisation." The inventor of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee is British so you could say this is another British contribution to modern Globalisation. The British Empire for all it's relatively modest faults did abolish slavery and bring about global Industrialisation. It was by far the least bloody path to modernity unless you would have preferred Hitler, Mussolini, Napoleon, Hirohito or Lenin.