Sarah Paine

I'm going to break up the British thing into two parts.

One analytical framework is you can look at wars

in terms of underlying causes and proximate causes.

The underlying causes are like the tinder of grievances on both sides.

And there can be cultural components to that or other components.

And so there's this accumulating tinder of where you've got two different sides, at least across purposes.

But then there's the match, the proximate cause, which is

a whole series of matches, and finally the last one's Pearl Harbor, and you are off and running to a place you might not want to go to, right?

So there's that.

And then there's culture.

Let's look at Britain, strategic culture.

And I'm no expert on British strategic culture, but these are some basics.

So they're an island, and they want to be able to trade with the world.

But they don't want any one power dominating the continent.

So this is their strategic thinking from way back.

And so if there is a power that's on the verge of dominating the continent, you want to back the other side to prevent that outcome.

That's very much a part of British thinking, goes back a long time, and you can read things going back a long time of describing that situation.

There's another piece that goes back a long time in the British.

Navies are rarely decisive in warfare.

What I mean by decisive means you actually get the goal that you're after for fighting.