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Britain lost its empire containing millions of brown people but decades later started importing those same brown people back so I don't see why anyone would be complaining.

>>18496029
ostensibly, they declared war over Poland.

What happened to Poland at the end of WW2? Total ass-rape by Stalin. They lost half their territory, amongst every other Soviet brutality, and Stalin distracts you from that because he sliced off a third of Germany and stitched it on the other side. Most of that land was NEVER Polish. Even today if you look at an electoral map of poland, the seats one by each party draws the pre-ww1 Polish-German border.

So, at least ostensibly, Britain lost. The USSR won, gaining half of Europe.

>>18496029
Whenever people say that, they inevitably talk about the complete disintegration of Britain's manufacturing. Meanwhile, you look at Germany and Japan (and to a lesser extent Italy) who were on the receiving end of city-levelling bombing campaigns- and they seem to be doing fine. They were fucked up to a level far worse than what Britain got during the Blitz.

It seems to me that, rather than blame the War, post-war British politicians made choices. And those choices turned out poorly.

>>18496029
The UK was 94% white at the 1991 census. Everything to do with modern demographics stems from the Blair, Cameron and especially Johnson governments.

>>18496029
It is complete nonsense. It comes from the idea of
>things didn't go so good for the UK after WW2
>so...they lost!
They won WW2, they faced difficulties afterwards. Both of these can be true.

>>18496029
>increasingly see offhand references
Where? I've literally never heard "England lost WW2" and I live in Dublin

>>18496061
>It seems to me that, rather than blame the War, post-war British politicians made choices. And those choices turned out poorly
Exactly. Even though WWII was the most infuential event in modern history, it’s tiresome to see people treating it as the last final juncture point that somehow decided everything that came afterwards.

>>18496059
>they declared war over Poland
False premise. They declared war to stop German aggression to soverign nations.

>>18496090
Try living somewhere where people can do more than squawk about israel.

>>18496029
Bankrupting yourself and becoming a US client state is a loss
>n . . no it isn't!!
Yes it is.

>>18496097
Somewhat correct, but I'd put more emphasis on Britain simply protecting its hegemony status against an aggressive expanding rival.

The whole moral argument of Britain 'standing up for the free' becomes a bit hyporcitical when they themselves had enslaved 1/4 of the world.
What made the nazies unique wasnt that they racially categorized other humans, it was the fact that they racially categorized other Europeans.
British public was also in an extreme pacifist mood after ww1 so the Germans appeared as extra barbaric when they began waging war.

>>18496029
The UK soon becoming a minority white country is enitirely the result of brexit.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/23/world/europe/uk-brexit-migration-sunak.html?unlocked_article_code=1.lVA.4Vel.6QY6nGofh8VX&smid=url-share

>>18496029
For the UK to defeat the Axis powers, they had to drag America into the war and that meant making major concessions to FDR. Specifically the Atlantic Charter which was a humiliation ritual where they denounced their own empire, and took out loans that put themselves in 61 years of debt bondage to America.

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>>18496029
They lost to AmeriGODs

>>18496029
They fought the war under the false premise that Washington DC would let them remain a sovereign power afterward, when evidently they were completely and utterly mistaken

>>18496212
>enslaved
Who were specifically enslaved? You're not one of those people who conflate being ruled by a foreigner makes you a slave does it? Cause that is wrong.

>>18496246
Can you show me how Britian became a puppet under America immediately after WWII ended?

Why do you third worlders only see the world in master/slave relationships? Is it because mutual cooperation is just so far out of the realm your tiny mind can comprehend?

>>18496254
>immediately after WWII ended?
What do you think happened immediately after WW2 moron? The Americans (and the Russians) pushed for the independence of India and the Levant from British hands. By 1950 the UK had lost both regions and the rest of their empire was soon to follow.

>>18496254
How is America working with the Soviets to systematically dismantle the British Empire 'mutual collaboration'?
The only nations which America has ever shown any interest in 'mutual collaboration' with are Russia and Israel, not England.

>>18496258
They did this immediately when WWII ended in 1945? Since you know this is what the thread is about? Britian losing WWII.

>>18496254
It's not possible for America and the UK to have an 'equal' relationship because the global currency has to either be the pound or the dollar, it cannot be both.

>>18496270
Actually the US began pushing for Indian indepence during the war, ironically siding with the Axis powers which were doing the same

>>18496254
Mutual collaboration is when you bankrupt England for 61 years, force it to humiliate itself and denounce imperialism, aggressively push for independence of all its colonial territories, and replace its global currency with your own.
These Americans have funny ideas of mutual collaboration!

>>18496254
>It's all just mutual collaboration bro
It's amazing how arrogant Amerisharts are. Has any other empire in history been this deluded?

>>18496059
Poland still exists though.

>>18496097
>They declared war to stop German aggression to soverign nations.
not really.
They declared war because of the way the British parliament and PM can be dragged along by monied interests and lobbying, like what we see today.
There was no practical reason for war.
>GERMANY!
this is not a practical reason.
Germany was 1/10th the size of the Commonwealth, 1/20th its manpower, had no serious way of destroying Britain without leaving themselves strategically exposed, and acted as a counterbalance to the SSRs.

War with Germany was a massive liability for zero gain and would make Britian even WORSE off at managing the powers of Europe and THEY KNEW THIS AT THE TIME.
Hilton, Glubb, and the anti-war crowd all knew this, even many overseas knew, literally Hitler knew this and expected Britain to allow Germany an even fight in the east.

>>18496288
As a Federal Komissariat of Germany, like Hitler always intended btw.

>>18496252
It's not necessarily what I personally believe, but that is the general consensus on colonialism, that it was subjugation and enslavement. Most subjects in the British and French empire wanted freedom and independence, and many were treated with extreme brutality, and the entire system was exploitative.

Again, I am just writing the general consensus on the topic of colonialism.
And it does become problematic when a colonial empire wants to frame itself as 'standing up for freedom of a sovreign people' as a cause of war. It makes excellent propaganda for a pacifist people, but in reality the British government opposed Germany for geopolitical interests, and that's what ww2 was; a hegemony wanting to protect its position against an aggressive rival, and that's likely how ww3 will start as well.

>>18496295
>The British prime minister is emperor and whatever he wants is what happens

>>18496279
How did America forced England to bankrupt itself again?

>>18496281
How is America an empire again? Because it is big and took land by force centuries ago? President isn't the same as an Emperor btw.

>>18496409
Unironically even Americans themselves refered to their country as an empire at the time, mostly as a form of criticism towards governing the Philippines.

It seems obvious. The UK prior to WWII was an independent empire. The UK after WWII was an increasingly-pathetic satrap of the American system.

>B...but, AKSHULLY, the Americans let England keep a crumb of the financial pussy!

Pathetic. That's pure cope, and you know it.

Thread is a fascinating example of how plebs who will never be in the ranks of statesmen still, for some reason, care about abstract shit like "imperial prestige" and "sovereignity!" more than an improved quality of life and having physically better conditions. Imperial Britain literally had Favelas in its cities, no matter how much /pol/ seethes about it London today is still objectively a cleaner and nicer city than it ever was during the "Glory days" of the Empire when the East End looked like a Chinese LiveLeak industrial accident site. Apparently Britain is supposedly the a "pathetic vassal buckbroken" state now when it's a first world country as opposed to when it had to reject half of army volunteers (WWI) because they grew up malnourished in childhood.

>>18497349
That doesn't really work as a metric, since Germany and Japan also saw material/economic improvements in the mid-20th century, but they clearly lost the war.

>>18497358
It's as this guy said though>>18496061
Winning the war and making bad policy decisions after it isn't incompatible. British industry simply fucked up on its management and decision making while the Japs and Germans were (forced to or not) innovating and revolutionizing their own companies because they had a blank slate opportunity there.
British Leyland making inferior products to Toyota and Volkswagen isn't a product of Britain winning or losing WW2, that's just on them for making bad decisions on how to run a company and designing automobiles.
France, a country similar to Britain in many ways, obviously has a more mixed take on whether they won or lost but thanks to strong leadership and good planning they managed to crawl back up into the ring and build a strong economy, atomic bombs, modern infrastructure, etc.
British post-war economic decline in power and prestige probably owes itself more to unions half assing their work more than anything, anyone who remembers Leyland automobiles will tell you they flat out sucked and the Japs/Germans simply sold better stuff.

>>18497369
>British Leyland making inferior products to Toyota and Volkswagen isn't a product of Britain winning or losing WW2, that's just on them for making bad decisions on how to run a company and designing automobiles.
>British post-war economic decline ... owes itself more to unions half assing their work... Japs/Germans simply sold better stuff.
This is a bit simplistic. GM or Ford (for example) could have made much better products (particularly in the 70s) if they weren't so complacent, but this doesn't necessarily mean that all carmakers who made bad cars were complacent. Britain struggled hugely with outdated plant and tooling. When Ford bought Jaguar in 1989, they were still being made with tooling that they bought (second hand!) from Standard in the 1940s. Most Leyland factories were still using hand tools well into the 1970s, and it's virtually impossible to torque a screw consistently without machines. Detail engineering and testing were done on shoestring budgets, because there was just no money to work with! I don't mean to patronise but I find it is very difficulty to get across to Americans the degree of capital and materials starvation that existed in virtually every non-American part of the world after World War 2. The only exceptions were areas where America was giving generous Marshall Aid money (the defeated nations got it more generously, and they had blank slates to work with), or Russia, who got it from looting peripheral Warsaw Pact republics until the house of cards collapsed.

I would also like to point out, for the thread in general that it's an accepted but bizarre dichotomy that Britain is a basket case *that Western Europe has surpassed*. True in the late seventies, but a very odd take now. Britain recovered its (relative) postwar losses against France and Italy in the 1980s, and though Germany is still profiting from the wirtschaftwunder it has arguably stagnated after reunification and the loss of Russian energy.

>>18496304
I fucking *wish* Germany was the leader of the EU like you think they are.

>>18496295
>Hostile regime keeps expanding and militarizing
>Why would you ever need to try and stop this?
In september 1939 Germany looked far more of a threat to Britain and France than the USSR.

>>18496029
The losers of thw war didnt attend Yalta

>>18496029
if we simplify Englands interest as 'protecting the empire' and 'preventing a european hegemon' they clearly didn't achieve none of the above with their effort in WW2. The war weakened them so much that it was impossible to hold the empire together and while they were successful in destroying Germany, the USSR took its place immediately. If they stayed out they would have had to accept Germany as european hegemon but at least they had a good chance to keep the empire if they used the same effort to supress independence movements as they used against Germany in the war

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>>18497878
>but at least they had a good chance to keep the empire
No they wouldnt.
I'm so sick of the "the empire would have lasted a thousand years if they just kiss Hitlers ring" narrative.
You couldnt explain this argument even if your life dependend on it. There was no way to prevent decolonization once it began to set in motion, and that began in earnest after ww1 with the loss of Ireland and the concession to make dominions of Canada and Australia semi-independent, and the establishment of the Indian National Congress.

>if they used the same effort to supress independence movements as they used against Germany in the war
Which they would never have used because it would have required Britain to go full fascist mode. The massacre at Amritsar sparked outrage in Britain (and in India), and that was one incident of British officers getting trigger happy. The British public increasingly resented the subjugation methods to maintain the empire.

And even if we play with the idea that Britain violently cracks down on independence movements, it's only going to fuel armed resistence, and you will end up with the French situation in Algeria, Vietnam and Madagascar; an unwinable guerilla war of attrition regardless of firepower

>>18496468
Yes and? Me also calling Trump a retard doesn't actually make him mentally handicapped. It is called hyperbole

Britain entered the 1930s:

1. With the largest empire in the world by territory and population;
2. As one of the world's superpowers;
3. With the world's third-highest GDP per capita and thriving industry;
4. With a balanced budget;
5. With access to domestic products and imports from all over the world.

As a result of the events before and during World War II, Britain entered the 1950s:

1. With no empire to speak of;
2. As a regional power in Europe and nothing more (as Suez would prove);
3. Drastically impoverished, soon to be overtaken industrially by a war-ravaged Germany;
4. With a government up to the neck in war debt, particularly to America, which needed constant payments;
5. Still undergoing rationing for domestic, typically food products, and struggling to balance exports to afford foreign imports.

The country that clearly won World War II was America, followed at a long distance perhaps by Australia and Canada. For all European members of the Allies, victory in World War II was a 'mutilated victory'. Apart from Greece, every Allied country east/southeast of central Germany just changed German occupation for Russian occupation (and Greece became an American-backed military dictatorship that was hardly any better). France, like Britain, lost its colonial empire, and in addition suffered decades of violent unrest. The Low Countries tried to go on as they had in the 1930s, but quickly became American military outposts and Franco-German economic zones through the ECSC/EEC.

>>18498069
You could make this argument with most wars. They are a double-edged sword that will hurt both the victor and the defeated. WW3 will likely be the same. Yet with this knowledge no party will back down from a fight. USA wont just back down from their geopolitical interests of getting missiles off Cuba or a scenario where they must defend Taiwan, even if a conflict will likely result in their own destruction.
The problem with wars is that they mostly start on the premise that both sides thinks they have the perfect plan, and that the war is going to quick and relativelt mild. Such was the case with ww1, and such was the case with ww2. The Germas thought the Polish campaign was going to be a quick and isolated affair. The Italians believed France and Britain wouldnt fight any longer. The Germans believed the Soviet Union was a house of cards. The British and the French believed Germany was relatively weak and that the Maginot Line would brace any attack while Germany is starved and the Ruhr industry bombed. Wehrmacht was still weak in 1939 compared to allied arsenals (the backbone of panzers were puny Panzer 1 and 2s while allies had heavy tanks of Matilda 2s and Chars). Even the German generals had serious doubts that the French campaign stood any chance, hence why Hitler veto Manstein/Guderians plan for a one-in-a-million gamble manouver that almost should have failed, but they did it because it was the only way to achieve victory.

>>18498069
>and Greece became an American-backed military dictatorship that was hardly any better
Greece under military dictatorship had the second strongest coin in the world, robust yearly gdp growth,zero external debt and was rapidly idustrializing and building infrastructure. The americans were the ones that deposed him(for multiple reasons) and replaced him with their CIA puppet Karamanlis who sold Cyprus to USA and the British.

>>18496029
The only countries that won WWII were USA and USSR. Everyone else lost. USA got the whole world to export their products to with no competition. USSR got a dominance over half of Europe and new territory.

>>18498095
>You could make this argument with most wars.
Perhaps; but not nearly as much as World War I and World War II. Typically, with rare exceptions like the Thirty Years' War and the Deluge, each war in Europe had a clear winner who on the net gained treasure, land and productive inhabitants. Mutually destructive wars were rare, with World War I and World War II being the main exceptions.

It's also worth bearing in mind that the US did gain from World War II. Its losses in men, money and industrial capacity were small on the whole, and its global military and economic dominance in the postwar years was more than enough to offset those losses. This is part of why the US succeeded while the USSR failed; the USSR, in 1945, was a 'winner', but it was also a wreck which could not afford to effectively develop its satellite states and struggled to militarily support its proxies in other countries, leading to Mao's China taking over that role in much of the world.

>>18498165
>Perhaps; but not nearly as much as World War I and World War II. Typically, with rare exceptions like the Thirty Years' War and the Deluge,
Lol no there are far more examples. Stop being dishonest.
We can go all the way back to ancient Greece. Who do you think won the peloponnesian war between Sparta and Athens? The correct answer is Macedonia, because the war weakened Sparta and Athens beyond recovery and allowed Macedonia to sweep in and 60 years later all of Greece were subjects of Macedon.
There are infinite number of wars where a third party came out stronger than the initial warring states, both in Europe and in China.

So yes my point still stands, just because you lack historical perspective and only know 20th century with an obvious overfocus on ww2 doesnt mean it's correct so stop pretending.

And like I said before, despite the obvious knowledge that war hurts both sides, it still doesnt deter them from going to war if they feel that the circumstances demands it. And that's likely how WW3 will turn out as well.

>>18496254
Suez Crisis, funding and promoting liberation movements in British colonies

>>18497958
Shut the fuck up, you want decolonization to be fate because you’re a leftist.
Imperialism has worked and it’s worked for centuries.
Here’s the explanation, England doesn’t sell off the empire in corrupt shitty business deals.
Hilton goes into the finer details of what actually happened. The empire wasn’t untenable. Decolonization whatever the fuck that even means wasn’t destiny.
The British empire was sold off to enrich specific people and interests and certain stocks and ventures were deliberately sunk so they could be bought up and resold like an imperial version of a corporate raider.
Please shut the fuck up about the empire
So tired of low info Marxists waxing poetic about material conditions and yet unable to actually grasp things like caused and effect.

>>18498750
And how does this mean "Britian lost WWII" when all of these happened after WWII ended?

>>18497614
Britain and France actually received the bulk of Marshall aid, most of it was just wasted on the military.

No one “won” the world wars. Western civilization has been in a state of crisis since 1914