Why The UK Decline?
A recent piece at the Atlantic, How Britain Became as Poor as Mississippi , asks, "Who broke Britain?" but it asserts that this somehow took place over just the past 18 years, specifically since the 2008 financial crisis: In 2007, before the global financial crisis, Britain was at its postimperial zenith. Median household income had just surpassed that of Germany. A pound was worth more than $2, and London was arguably displacing New York as the center of international banking. This is a remarkably short-sighted view. In 1982, the UK was, at enormous trouble and expense, and only with covert US help, able to reconquer the Falkland Islands with a naval task force. But even in 2008, this would have been unlikely; the three aircraft carriers that had played a key role in 1982 were in the process of being decommissioned, with no replacements planned. But the UK's decline had been in progress well before then. The inspiring utterances of two Royal Navy admirals...