Glen
Moderator
Europe and the world have not yet passed through the phase of acquiring all of Africa and then regarding their states there as vanity colonies - colonies are still largely based around the idea of profit margins,
A good point, and the profits probably aren't there....
and I'm not sure whether the concept of White Man's Burden has come into vogue in order for it to go out of vogue too.
There is a version of this out there.
There doesn't seem to be any real impetus - or rather, any reason for any impetus - to the idea of abolishing monarchies at the end of this war, which I regard as a fairly important step behind making the countries wanting to jettison their colonies - connected to democracy, that is to say.
So that is making you say it was in fact likely to hold onto colonies ITTL?
On the same lines, I regard the rise of the British welfare state as an important step, seeing as it does that it promotes the idea that the colonial natives might have a need for care too - among Europeans, and among the colonials themselves.
Not a factor ITTL at this point in history for sure.
Again connected, all this hasn't (or at least, I don't remember seeing it) contributed to any calls for a European nation to allow a colony to be self-determining, in the way that India OTL was starting to call for self-determination. Hostility, or at least a conscious and unified effort by colonials to refuse to cooperate with the colonial governments is a fairly important step in making decolonialism attractive.
Okay, a point.
Then there's also the stuff I already talked about, re: colonies becoming a major financial burden on their owners.
I could list a few more, but those are the major ones, off the top of my head.
Noted - thanks for the feedback.