In which respects was US Hegemony in the twentieth century different from the British?

The question of whether the British hegemony of the early nineteenth century to mid-20th century, colloquially known as Pax Britannica was any different, from the later and continued global hegemony of the United States, also known as Pax Americana, is complex and ongoing as both states took very different strategies to achieve their respective hegemony’s. Despite this the two states are not that indifferent; they share a common language and similar legal structures as well as common ideals. So how did they differ? What then differs between these two hegemons of historical global domination and control, I will argue that it is their completely different use of foreign policy strategies and financial institutions as well as the historical context that their hegemony arose in.

During the time period in which Britain was building an empire that would transition it to a global hegemon there were countless other historical competitors it knew it would have to face in order to succeed. The Americans would not face the same imposition due to their geographical nature and technological superiority that they inherited from the British empire. The British empire relied on and arose from “sustained competition” (Escosura, 2004) with its European competitors, a direct threat to the British Isles and early empire was the build-up of a European neighbour to be more technologically advanced and more militarily powerful and sophisticated.

Therefore, the origins of Britain’s empire was not merely a method to produce a liberal order in which it could assert itself and provide for a policy of world peace as the eventual American hegemony would provide, but for the British to ensure that they would be the victor in combat in the event of “the inevitable clash of national interests and prestige” (Elrod, 1976) in Europe and its wider empire it produced security and raw power through its position as the most “feared” “naval power” (Baugh, 2009) and reputation as an expansionist nation in the ongoing “Concert of Europe” (Elrod, 1976) .

However, the British empire was not a mindless historical machine ploughing its way around the globe in competition with neighbours, this was also seen by the British as a civilising force. In a very Liberal format, it went to other nations to complete transactions as well as to “force Britain’s will on to foreign governments” (Empire: A Taste for Power, 2012) and nations which they represented to get them to participate in the system of the British Empire. In this light then the system seems to emulate the American systemic push for that of a “liberal international project” (Ikenberry, 2009). However, Britain’s system was more of a ‘Liberal International exploitation’ or venture, for the provision or for the impoverishment of other nations.

In this light then British hegemony could only be sustained with a complete overhaul of the way it supplied, produced and protected trade, trade that paradoxically was coming from the direct occupation of overseas territories that provided the raw materials for such endeavours. These endeavours were created to maintain the industrial revolution that quite literally fired Britain to the forefront of all other nations, and in turn meant that it could keep expanding its empire and keep its trade and territories in check with more useful technology.

Simply then the British empire was based on the “imposition of territorial rule” (Hyam, 2010) designed to optimise the financial, ideological and territorial expansion of its empire under the assumption, that is neither right or wrong, of enlightening a “benighted land” (Fischer-Tiné, 2005) or peoples. The British empire then was purposefully built to sustain and produce economic and ideological unity within its own empire for its own gain. How does this differ from the United States and its Pax Americana?

The USA in contrast, arose directly from the ashes of the war of independence in 1774 with the British Empire. The new founded nation was forced to adapt to a world in which industrialisation and empires were the order of the day. To this the then thirteen colonies embarked on a process of “Manifest Destiny” (Pratt, 1927). A policy in which the thirteen colonies expanded westward over what is today, the continental United States. However, since its inception, the United States, for much of its early history, had an isolationistic approach to global events, partly driven by its size and resource abundance.

However, within the last one hundred years the USA has founded its liberal ‘imperial’ ambitions on that of collaboration and international systems which it can cajole to its own desire, and which gives the US legitimacy that “circumscribed the expansion that it licensed” (Wertheim, 2020). With this legitimising force behind it the USA aimed its foreign policy at an “open door” for U.S. capital” (Bastiaan Van Apeldoorn, 2015) and the expansion of American goods and services through an envisioned international system rather than an empire. This differs from the British empire who envisioned, as stated earlier, an overwhelming force for which it could civilise and protect its empire with and with that protect its trade. The key difference between these two nations and their hegemony is their foreign policies and the United States has always had a protectionist view of its environment compared to Britain. The USA did not seek to conquer for the sake of industrial needs or protection of their state abroad but rather for the need to “keep out the rapacious Europeans” (Wertheim, 2020) who stalked the continent of America at this time, threatening their existence.

There is however another distinction between US hegemony and the late British hegemony, and that is of historical context and political purveying of the economy to further national interests. The US’s hegemony expanded rapidly after the second world war and the fall of the newly incumbent European powers. It rushed to fill the gap left by these empires and provide the provisioning of global policing and financial security centred around “visions of liberal order” (Ikenberry, 2009) and a global power structure of military force projection that gave the US a label that equated “closer to a status of identity” (Wertheim, 2020) of unquestionable power.

With the idea of Global US control after the second world war then there are other important factors that distinguish the USA from that of the British empires hegemony, the Bretton woods agreement, which “established two major international financial institutions” the IMF and World Bank, both of which are creations and indirectly controlled by the USA as it is the “, gave the USA preeminent power in the new world order and most importantly the concept of indirect power on the global stage.

Historically the British empire could only have dreamt of such an expansive network of institutions of which it could control, the British economic empire however was a very potent force with a very real physical presence for the colonised. The British empire's operation of its economic power differed from the American model of an “institutionalized” liberal world order” (Bastiaan Van Apeldoorn, 2015) but it created its own web of economic and material recuperation from its colonies. This can be seen most clearly in the form of resource extraction from a colony like India.

In conclusion, the USA and Britain both harboured global hegemonies respectively at the peaks of power, what differed was the British and American perspective on the management of their hegemony which can be translated as the British desire for a global resource empire and the USA endeavoured to create a financial and politically integrated hegemony. The British set the president of global hegemony as that of one based on Naval supremacy and direct control over other nations and “did not conduct synchronised uniform enumerations.” (Christopher, 2008) Of their colonies. The United States on the other hand efficiently runs its hegemony to this day as a power over which it dominates the global political system.

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This essay is a comparative historical analysis of British and American global hegemony. It examines differences in strategy, institutions, and context, and does not make moral judgments about nations or peoples. References to imperial policies such as the “civilising mission” or “liberal order” are discussed as historical concepts, not endorsements or criticisms of any culture or ethnicity. The aim is to provide balanced insight into how two powers exercised influence in different eras.