Which Nation was More Powerful at its Peak : The United States or The British

[OSR stands with Israel]

I’d say the US given that our economic output surpassed the entire British Empire in 1916 which was still a while before we peaked and the British were still considered the number 1 power .

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/the-great-war-economic-superpower/

Also military wise, the British never had anywhere the capability to dominate on the ground as we do and our naval power is probably equal .

Even in terms of influence there is a open debate whether we have more influence than the British ever did as well

[OSR stands with Israel]

Absolutely? The US easily. Relative to the rest of the world at the time? Still probably the US, but I'd imagine it's closer.

Even Relatively I would argue the US given the US at the peak of our relative economic power given at the end of WW2 the US accounted for 50% of the Global GDP:

The United States accounted for 50 percent of global GDP, held 80 percent of the world’s hard currency reserves, and was a net exporter of petroleum products.

https://medium.com/the-worlds-economy-and-the-economys-world/a-short-history-of-americas-economy-since-world-war-ii-37293cdb640#:~:text=At%20the%20end%20of%20World,net%20exporter%20of%20petroleum%20products.


Even relative military power wise I dont think the British's military was anywhere near as relatively powerful as our military since 1990 has been other than at sea .


I think a case could be made the British had more influence due to their empire but I think even thats up for question as while we dont have as much direct influence as we do, we have far more indirect influence through our cultural institutions and megacorps than the British did across the world.

[OSR stands with Israel]

The United States itself is a spin-off of the British Empire. I'd say that counts for something.

Well I disagree on multiple fronts and here is why:

1. The US is a continental size nation while the British were a island nation and that gave us for example access to far more resources than the British had which is why the US is no where near reliant on colonies as the British were as well. To get a perspective how big the US is, the distance from Lisbon to Moscow is still over 250 miles shorter than the distance from San Francisco to Boston.

2. The US has far more hard military and economic power than the British ever did. The Royal Navy while comparable to ours, their ability to fight a war on land was no where near as extensive as ours. It is why they tended to always try to maintain the existing balance of power which is very different than the Foreign Policy of ours since 1945 with the possible exception of detente.

3. The US morally has not done anywhere near the bad stuff the British did

[OSR stands with Israel]

The nature of power in that sort of strategic sense in the 19th century was sufficiently different from that in the late 20th century that a meaningful comparison is not possible. Might as well throw the Mongols, the Abbasid Caliphate and the Roman Empire into the mix as well.

Isn’t a lot of that difference have to do with the fact that the world superpowers since 1945 were continental sized nations rather than being smaller Western European nations that were limited in hard power due to that .