The most ASB moments to happen in history... that still happened (Post-1900)

Warning
Sir, can you PLEASE not talk about modern politics. I should’ve add anything after 2002 not to be talked about
To be fair that was about 2011, well before Leicester city won the premiership and the guy who posted that never got told off, lol. But I humbly apologize (more than Trump ever did, 😏).
 

Riain

Banned
The decline into death of the British aviation industry and contemporary slide of Britain from a unique world power back into the pack with all of the other big-medium powers. There is nothing structural, these were human decisions that could have gone the other way.
 

mial42

Gone Fishin'
The decline into death of the British aviation industry and contemporary slide of Britain from a unique world power back into the pack with all of the other big-medium powers. There is nothing structural, these were human decisions that could have gone the other way.
How is this even unlikely, let alone ASB? Britain is a small island; it not being a "unique world power" is the default historical norm, one that was only briefly changed due to exceptional circumstances (being the first to industrialize). As everyone else industrialized, relative decline was inevitable.
 
The decline into death of the British aviation industry and contemporary slide of Britain from a unique world power back into the pack with all of the other big-medium powers. There is nothing structural, these were human decisions that could have gone the other way.
Even by the standards of AH.com with its adoration of the British Empire, saying that the fall of the British Empire was ASB is probably a record.

Britain was not a unique world power. It was a great power with large colonial holdings, in a world with many great powers with colonial holdings. Any differences between it and its contemporary great powers were that of degree, not substance. One could argue that it was the closest the 19th century got to a superpower, but Britain never towered over its contemporary great powers anywhere near the degree the US and USSR towered above their contemporaries post-1945.

Britain's high-status was dependent on it having and maintaining said Empire. This empire, by virtue of being an empire, was largely comprised of non-British people. These non-British people, by virtue of being human, tended to resent not ruling themselves and being ruled by foreigners. If the British were to treat the non-British as true equals, the British Empire would promptly cease to exist as the British Empire and would turn into the Indian Empire, because that's where the demographic weight lay. The British naturally didn't care for that so they didn't do it, while the Indians (and Nigerians and Kenyans and Egyptians and so on) didn't like being second-class citizens in their own country.

Given the demographic discrepancy between the imperial (British) people and subaltern (everyone else) peoples and that natural human strain, the fall of the British Empire was inevitable, just like every other empire. It's the exact opposite of ASB. The area of variation is restricted to the details and timing of said fall.
 
Even by the standards of AH.com with its adoration of the British Empire, saying that the fall of the British Empire was ASB is probably a record.

Britain was not a unique world power. It was a great power with large colonial holdings, in a world with many great powers with colonial holdings. Any differences between it and its contemporary great powers were that of degree, not substance. One could argue that it was the closest the 19th century got to a superpower, but Britain never towered over its contemporary great powers anywhere near the degree the US and USSR towered above their contemporaries post-1945.

Britain's high-status was dependent on it having and maintaining said Empire. This empire, by virtue of being an empire, was largely comprised of non-British people. These non-British people, by virtue of being human, tended to resent not ruling themselves and being ruled by foreigners. If the British were to treat the non-British as true equals, the British Empire would promptly cease to exist as the British Empire and would turn into the Indian Empire, because that's where the demographic weight lay. The British naturally didn't care for that so they didn't do it, while the Indians (and Nigerians and Kenyans and Egyptians and so on) didn't like being second-class citizens in their own country.

Given the demographic discrepancy between the imperial (British) people and subaltern (everyone else) peoples and that natural human strain, the fall of the British Empire was inevitable, just like every other empire. It's the exact opposite of ASB. The area of variation is restricted to the details and timing of said fall.
I would go so far to say that the reverse; the survival of the British Empire, is probably more ASB. Short of outright genocide, the British could’ve never held onto their empire. Our 20th century was favorable for the British, taking into consideration Europe’s volatility, Great Britain shrouded in atomic clouds seem more likely than it’s survival as a middling great power.

The British weren’t even the most powerful empire in history. It’d be easier to describe them as first among equals. No where near the power the US held immediately after WW2 or the collapse of the Soviet Union, from about 1991-2001.
 

Riain

Banned
How is this even unlikely, let alone ASB? Britain is a small island; it not being a "unique world power" is the default historical norm, one that was only briefly changed due to exceptional circumstances (being the first to industrialize). As everyone else industrialized, relative decline was inevitable.
Even by the standards of AH.com with its adoration of the British Empire, saying that the fall of the British Empire was ASB is probably a record.

Britain was not a unique world power. It was a great power with large colonial holdings, in a world with many great powers with colonial holdings. Any differences between it and its contemporary great powers were that of degree, not substance. One could argue that it was the closest the 19th century got to a superpower, but Britain never towered over its contemporary great powers anywhere near the degree the US and USSR towered above their contemporaries post-1945.

Britain's high-status was dependent on it having and maintaining said Empire. This empire, by virtue of being an empire, was largely comprised of non-British people. These non-British people, by virtue of being human, tended to resent not ruling themselves and being ruled by foreigners. If the British were to treat the non-British as true equals, the British Empire would promptly cease to exist as the British Empire and would turn into the Indian Empire, because that's where the demographic weight lay. The British naturally didn't care for that so they didn't do it, while the Indians (and Nigerians and Kenyans and Egyptians and so on) didn't like being second-class citizens in their own country.

Given the demographic discrepancy between the imperial (British) people and subaltern (everyone else) peoples and that natural human strain, the fall of the British Empire was inevitable, just like every other empire. It's the exact opposite of ASB. The area of variation is restricted to the details and timing of said fall.

I was not talking about the survival of the British Empire, not even remotely. I was talking about manned combat aircraft being declared obsolescent and 2 airliners being cut down on the say so of short sighted airlines.

In 1958 Britain tested 3mt thermonuclear weapons of innovative design, had hundreds of world class medium bombers in production, 4 fleet carriers on the roster and the worlds fastest climbing interceptor about to enter service. 12 years later all of this was gone, only 1 carrier was on the roster, the bombers hadn't been replaced and all the RAFs aircraft come from overseas. NO country fell this far this fast in modern history, to the extent that they're the poster child of how to get things wrong.

One country making so many mistakes with such a massive impact is highly unlikely.
 

Riain

Banned
I would go so far to say that the reverse; the survival of the British Empire, is probably more ASB. Short of outright genocide, the British could’ve never held onto their empire. Our 20th century was favorable for the British, taking into consideration Europe’s volatility, Great Britain shrouded in atomic clouds seem more likely than it’s survival as a middling great power.

The British weren’t even the most powerful empire in history. It’d be easier to describe them as first among equals. No where near the power the US held immediately after WW2 or the collapse of the Soviet Union, from about 1991-2001.

Disregarding the Empire talk, which is not what I was talking about, in the 60s in terms of power projection and the aviation industry the British were head and shoulders above everyone but the superpowers, they were in a class of their own. The number of airliners Europe sold in the 60s and early 70s is laughable compared to Britains lacklustre performance. 62 Mirage IV pales in comparison to hundreds of v bombers and almost 200 tsr2 that should have been built and the 126 Buccaneer S2 that were built. This is what I'm talking about, not withdrawal from the Empire.
 
I was not talking about the survival of the British Empire, not even remotely. I was talking about manned combat aircraft being declared obsolescent and 2 airliners being cut down on the say so of short sighted airlines.

In 1958 Britain tested 3mt thermonuclear weapons of innovative design, had hundreds of world class medium bombers in production, 4 fleet carriers on the roster and the worlds fastest climbing interceptor about to enter service. 12 years later all of this was gone, only 1 carrier was on the roster, the bombers hadn't been replaced and all the RAFs aircraft come from overseas. NO country fell this far this fast in modern history, to the extent that they're the poster child of how to get things wrong.

One country making so many mistakes with such a massive impact is highly unlikely.
Alright then, but you worded your original post very poorly for your intention. You said:
The decline into death of the British aviation industry and (emphasis added) contemporary slide of Britain from a unique world power back into the pack with all of the other big-medium powers. There is nothing structural, these were human decisions that could have gone the other way.
Phrased that way, you're talking about two separate things, (1) the decline of the British aviation industry, and (2) the decline of Britain as a world power. If you just wanted to talk about the British aviation industry, you should've stopped with that and not mentioned (2) at all.
 

marathag

Banned
had hundreds of world class medium bombers in production, 4 fleet carriers on the roster and the worlds fastest climbing interceptor about to enter service. 12 years later all of this was gone, only 1 carrier was on the roster, the bombers hadn't been replaced and all the RAFs aircraft come from overseas. NO country fell this far this fast in modern history,
Compare Imperial Japan in 1940 to 1952, with no domestic carrier and no bombers, except what the US had on the Islands. Only Japanese warship left was a predread from 1899, permanently drydocked since the '20s
 

Riain

Banned
Alright then, but you worded your original post very poorly for your intention. You said:

Phrased that way, you're talking about two separate things, (1) the decline of the British aviation industry, and (2) the decline of Britain as a world power. If you just wanted to talk about the British aviation industry, you should've stopped with that and not mentioned (2) at all.

The decline of Britain as a power able to project power globally has almost nothing to do with Imperial Possessions after 1960 and everything to do with military hardware. The 1963 study of how to maintain power East of Suez the naval solution only required a base on Gan and staging bases on Ascension and Aldrabra using the fleet currently in service: 4 carriers and 4 major amphibious units, which hardly requires the oppression of millions. Even the the Air solution only required bases at Aldabra, Masirah, Cocos, Butterworth, Manila and Darwin and the aircraft to fly troops there.
 

Riain

Banned
Compare Imperial Japan in 1940 to 1952, with no domestic carrier and no bombers, except what the US had on the Islands. Only Japanese warship left was a predread from 1899, permanently drydocked since the '20s

It's a long bow to draw to compare the procurement decisions made by British governments in peacetime in a booming global economy to the destruction wrought by the US on Japan in WW2.
 

marathag

Banned
It's a long bow to draw to compare the procurement decisions made by British governments in peacetime in a booming global economy to the destruction wrought by the US on Japan in WW2.
An honest, not insane Japan would have done exactly what the UK did:
"we just can't afford all these expensive toys anymore to keep up the pretensions that a small island can control a good portion of the Globe's surface by force' and adjust the Military goals and basings accordingly

Unlike postwar Japan, many of the problems stemmed from clueless business organization and managment, and toxic relations with the working class.
 

Riain

Banned
An honest, not insane Japan would have done exactly what the UK did:
"we just can't afford all these expensive toys anymore to keep up the pretensions that a small island can control a good portion of the Globe's surface by force' and adjust the Military goals and basings accordingly

Unlike postwar Japan, many of the problems stemmed from clueless business organization and managment, and toxic relations with the working class.

It's a misnomer that Britain couldn't afford the toys, they wasted ~300 million pounds to not buy the Skybolt, P1154, HS681, TSR2, F111K, AFVG. And still bought Polaris, Harrier, C130, Phantom, Jaguar, RAF Buccaneer.

The money is there, the brains to spend it properly was not.
 
The rise of Japan is pretty nuts, too. The idea that the only country in Asia with basically no natural resources became an industrialized powerhouse and went from third to first world while dominating the likes of China is pretty ridiculous.
From Wiki:
[quote
The country lacks significant domestic reserves of fossil fuel, except coal.
[/quote]
Besides all the coal, they had copper and iron sources, as well as gold and silver.
A lot of good stuff to become industrialized.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
The attack on the Pentagon on September 11th. I'd always assumed, without really thinking about it, that the Pentagon would be protected by batteries of surface to air missiles and that sort of thing.
 
An honest, not insane Japan would have done exactly what the UK did:
"we just can't afford all these expensive toys anymore to keep up the pretensions that a small island can control a good portion of the Globe's surface by force' and adjust the Military goals and basings accordingly

Unlike postwar Japan, many of the problems stemmed from clueless business organization and managment, and toxic relations with the working class.
Exactly. After the loss of the empire and its global holdings, there's no reason for Britain to maintain an ability to project power independently across the globe except for jingoistic ego and nostalgia for the 'good old days' of empire. And unlike the US, Britain post-1945 doesn't have the resources to keep that up long-term. GB in this case will run into a guns-and-butter issue, hard. 'Sorry kids, we spent all our money on aircraft carriers so we can't afford universal health care'.
 
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