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?