<P> John Darwin has explored the way historians have explained the large role of the Royal Navy, and the much smaller role of the army, in the history of the Empire . For the 20th century he explores what he calls a "pseudo-empire," that refers to oil producers in the Middle East . The strategic goal of protecting the Suez Canal was a high (priority from the 1880s to 1956, and by then had expanded to the oil regions, Darwin argues that defence strategy posed issues of how to reconcile the needs of domestic politics with the preservation of a global Empire . Darwin argues that a main function of the British defence system, especially the Royal Navy, was defence of the overseas empire (in addition of course to defence of the homeland). The army, usually in cooperation with local forces, suppressed internal revolts, losing only the American War of Independence (1775--83). Armitage says it became an element of the British creed that: </P> <Dl> <Dd> Protestantism, oceanic commerce and mastery of the seas provided bastions to protect the freedom of inhabitants of the British Empire . That freedom found its institutional expression in Parliament, the law, property, and rights, all of which were exported throughout the British Atlantic world . Such freedom also allowed the British, uniquely, to combine the classically incompatible ideals of liberty and empire . </Dd> </Dl> <Dd> Protestantism, oceanic commerce and mastery of the seas provided bastions to protect the freedom of inhabitants of the British Empire . That freedom found its institutional expression in Parliament, the law, property, and rights, all of which were exported throughout the British Atlantic world . Such freedom also allowed the British, uniquely, to combine the classically incompatible ideals of liberty and empire . </Dd> <P> The first British empire centered on the 13 American colonies, which attracted large numbers of settlers from across Britain . In the 1900s - 1930s period the "Imperial School," including Herbert L. Osgood, George Louis Beer, Charles M. Andrews and Lawrence Gipson took a favourable view of the benefits of empire, emphasizing its successful economic integration . </P>

By 1900 the societies of the frontier west were making their greatest world history mark in