"How America Beat Queen Victoria’s Britain without Fighting" Topic

"America pushed Britain out of the Western Hemisphere, more or less, by the turn of the twentieth century. It did so by making itself the strongest contender in the New World, harnessing its burgeoning industrial might to build a navy able to command the waters Washington cared about most.

Westerners make much of China's obsession with "winning without fighting." As though any sane statesman, Eastern or Western, relishes losing or longs to take up arms with all the dangers, hardships and perverse turnabouts of fortune that come with combat. Winning without fighting is what we call "diplomacy," and it is a mode of interaction that spans all countries, civilizations and times.

Now, Chinese Communist diplomacy does display distinctive characteristics. For one, it's a 24/7/365 enterprise. Beijing wages " three warfares " in peacetime, shaping opinion constantly through legal media, and psychological means. For another, there's a warlike edge to Chinese diplomacy seldom encountered among the pinstriped set. It is about winning, and it aims to deliver gains normally achieved on the battlefield without so many hazards…"
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Amicalement
Armand

An odd article. It seems to imply that the US won some sort of late 19th century cold war when there was no cold war to win. To my knowledge Britain had no designs on the US at that time. The US may have had a navy sufficient to tackle a good chunk of whatever European navy was sent its way, but since no none had serious intentions to sink it that's hardly "pushing Britain out of the Western Hemisphere".

Canada is a fairly large chunk of the western hemisphere…..
My reading of British foreign policy in the late 19th century lends to a focus on India,access to India and the maintaining of existing colonial possessions mostly on the trade route to India.