The British Empire: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

A little while ago on this blog, I was admitting nostalgia for the British Empire.

You know, I might have been premature. The British Empire has been counted out before—when those troublesome American colonists insisted on going it alone. Is it possible we could have a third empire?

Here's why we might: because it is in India's best interests. Given demographics and economic trends, in a few decades, ot looks as though there will be two great powers in the world: India and China. But India's great advantage over China might be this: while China has tended to go it alone, India has an international network of friends. China is scrambling now to make friends in order to secure markets, on the one hand, and raw materials, on the other. But India already has all that, in the Commonwealth. India may want to play up this advantage.

The difference between the present Commonwealth and a new Empire, I posit, would be two things at a minimum: a free trade agreement, and a mutual defence pact.

For many of the former bits of the British Empire, it still makes sense to work together on this basis. India gets it markets and raw materials, just as British manufacturing did a century ago. Canada gets an advantage over its partners in NAFTA: it becomes the portal for Empire businesses seeking access to North America, and for North American businesses seeking access to the Empire. Britain gains the same advantage vis a vis Europe. Myanmar, Malaysia, and Singapore, if they joined, would gain the same advantage within ASEAN. India would automatically gain a free trade area covering all of South Asia: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar. Australia gets a counterbalance to the inevitable pull of China, and a security guarantee.

The Gulf States—Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman—can supply the union with valuable oil and valuable investment capital. It return, they get the right to invest freely, and, crucially, defense guarantees. Being rich, tiny, and in a rough neighbourhood, they can use the same protections that brought them into the British Empire to begin with.

A reconstituted Empire would also, not incidentally, control many of the major sea trade routes—this was most of the point of the Empire for the British in the first place. This would be valuable to India and to the oil nations in securing the flow of trade. And it is a real consideration—we again see piracy in the Malacca Straits and at the mouth of the Red Sea, since the British left.

African nations would probably want in, for the sake of foreign aid—as it is, Mozambique has chosen to join the Commonwealth despite a lack or historic ties to Britain. The small English-speaking nations of the Caribbean would certainly want in. The only question is whether the rest of the federation would be interested.

They might. A generation or two ago, the rich nations feared the integration of the Empire because of a possible mass influx of poor from the less-developed nations. Now, with the developed world facing demographic crisis, this might actually be an advantage. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Britain, and the Gulf nations could probably soon use the immigration flow.

What's in it not to love? It makes more sense than the European Union, or NAFTA--the members complement each other better.

Of course, the British would not be able to dominate this empire as they did the last two. This time, it would be the Indians—though those troublesome American colonists, if we let them back in, might act as something of a counterbalance.