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Cetun t1_j1vo4ix wrote

Reply to comment by GrantDN in TIL Winston Churchill opposed the American use of napalm during the Korean war but still allowed Americans to publish claims of British support for American napalm attacks. by jamescookenotthatone

Until you realize that at the beginning of the war Britain was a world power, entered the war to protect Poland, and had the world's most powerful navy. At the end of 1955 the Polish government in exile was still in London while half of Poland was now part of the Soviet Union and the other half was a puppet government of the Soviet Union, it had lost half it's colonies already and about to lose the other half, and it had been eclipsed as a world power by the United States handily, who now has the world's largest navy. On top of that it was saddled with a tremendous amount of debt that it constantly struggled to pay, all thanks to Churchill.

The reason for this is Churchill did what all 'great' leaders did, pull out the checkbook and credit cards and started writing notes to everyone to fix their problems for them. He promised America to decolonize for loans, he promised Stalin half of Europe to take on the majority of fighting. Even then much of the British army was commonwealth personal. The only meaningful thing he did was manage the blitz well, and that's because he couldn't pawn that off onto another country.

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Aq8knyus t1_j1w01sp wrote

Britain is a small archipelago with a modest population. It is less than half the size of France and didn’t have a particularly large population.

It was always going to decline relative to huge continental sized nations once they got their act together. The world wars just accelerated a natural process.

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Bravo-Six-Nero t1_j1w30z5 wrote

Are you smoking pot?

Britain is only 21% less populated than Germany and has the same population as france…

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Aq8knyus t1_j1w4kil wrote

I used the past tense, so it seems you are the one smoking.

In 1800 the UK population was less than half of France. In 1913, it had nearly 20 million fewer people than Germany.

Also ‘only 21%’??? That is over 1/5 you daft sod, that is significantly smaller.

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Bravo-Six-Nero t1_j1w5eoa wrote

But your saying “it was always going to decline” and it has done the opposite

Im also glad your good at turning percentages into fractions but relative to land mass size its little difference

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Aq8knyus t1_j1wexlm wrote

The point is Britain is a tiny country, unremarkable even by European standards. Its rise to global prominence was never sustainable long term. It had already lost its economic dominance before WWI.

The current global hegemon is the US, it is a continent sized country with vast resources and a population of 300 million+. Its dominance makes sense.

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how-puhqueliar t1_j1ynlb8 wrote

...you think britain hasn't declined?

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