I merely pointed out that england had access to most of the worlds resources and all the important ones (for the times) and still managed to blow it.
You miss the point. They had to get to that position in the first place - all from a tiny country with enemies on all sides.
It then had to manage an Empire stretched over the entire globe, over oceans and huge land masses whose inhabitants had little in common with the British - different religions, customs and socieites. All that had to be held together.
Compare that with the US. All of the inhabitants were of European descent and culture, and many were of the same religion. It had an entire continent to expand into, and could do so pretty much without outside interference. Britain, on the other hand, had Spain and France to contend with only 30 miles from direct invasion. That was one reason why there was fair amount of apathy towards the loss of the American colonies - people were far more concerned with the French fleets roaming around the British Isles.
The British didn't 'blow it'. The Empire was killed on the battlefields of WW1. The couple of million that died were the best the Empire had to offer - there was so little man-power left to manage its affairs it couldn't be sustained. It grew in territory after WW1, but it was now too large. Quite rightly, the consituent colonies weren't too keen on being tied to a nation that might require of them such a large sacrifice again.
I maintain that if it were not for WW1, the empire might have lasted another 50 - 100 years, instead of being finally buried with the onset of WW2.
