Can we all learn from Century of Compounding British Empire's Biggest Mistake? 1

 

As the British Empire waned, the ruling politicians hurriedly made short-term decisions with no understanding of what future consequences might compound globally and locally over the century to date. 2

 

We will assume for reasons of focus that the biggest mistake was randomly allocating Israel a territory in Palestine – decision made on the hoof around 1917. If you want to log up other biggest mistakes please do so here 3

 

Regarding the biggest mistake we invite you to add to the timeline of when it compounded another conflict or not so good consequence from the perspective of peace for all 6 billion beings as well as developing economic harmony worldwide and locally 4

 

2000 on 5

 

1990-2000 6

 

1980-1990 7

 

1970-1980 8

 

1960-1970 9

 

1950-1960 10

 

1940-1950 11

 

1930-1940 12

 

1920-1930 13

 

1910-1920 14

 

This is the vague preceeding history of an Empire whose power exceeded its future wisdom; we welcome your editorial connections to on the roots of how this compound mistake spun, as well as any lessons in case global empires every again become the main reconciliation challenge of 6 billion people simultaneously. In the 1700s India became the jewel of the British Empire because spices were the modern day equivalent of oil. With no refrigeration, spices were seen as the main way to preserve foods, and so any trade in them. Because of the primacy of British interest in the world trade route of the sea channels between India and Britain, odd things all across the far east, middle east, near east and Africa started compounding in the late 1800s because of short-term fixes made by the British. These included:
Buying the panama canal from the French (sensible) except it started all sorts of geopolitical strategies including:
-needing allies with ports in the region, so Greek Cyprus and Britain became allies
-when the Turks entered the first world war with the Germans, Britain now had to side with Greece/Cyprus; and when the Turks/Germans lost their former empire in Palestine was put into play
-around 1917 a wealthy Jewish lobby petitioned Britain with the idea that Jews should have the opportunity to return to biblical lands, and the Balfour Treaty declared that his majesty George The 5th favoured this in principle (oddly this never went through parliament but was one of those declarations that the upper class network did policy by handshakes) 15