Gideon Polya — Britain Robbed India Of $45 Trillion & Thence 1.8 Billion Indians Died From Deprivation

Eminent Indian economist Professor Utsa Patnaik (Jawaharlal Nehru University) has estimated that Britain robbed India of $45 trillion between 1765 and 1938, However it is estimated that if India had remained free with 24% of world GDP as in 1700 then its cumulative GDP would have been $232 trillion greater (1700-2003) and $44 trillion greater (1700-1950). Deprivation kills and it is estimated that 1.8 billion Indians died avoidably from egregious deprivation under the British (1757-1947). The deadly impact of British occupation of India lingers today 71 years after Independence, with 4 million people dying avoidably from deprivation each year in capitalist India as compared to zero (0) in China....

To say nothing of many other colonies of the Empire, or the submission of China.

CrossCurrents — Imperialism
Britain Robbed India Of $45 Trillion & Thence 1.8 Billion Indians Died From Deprivation

Gideon Polya

Rigged Game — The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire

At the demise of empire, City of London financial interests created a web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it behind obscure financial structures in a web of offshore islands. Today, up to half of global offshore wealth may be hidden in British offshore jurisdictions and Britain and its offshore jurisdictions are the largest global players in the world of international finance. 

How did this come about, and what impact does it have on the world today? This is what the Spider’s Web sets out to investigate....

Rigged Game
The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire
Don Quijones

Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould — The Grand Illusion of Imperial Power

Few Americans today understand how the United States came to be owned by a London-backed neoconservative/right-wing alliance that grew out of the institutional turmoil of the post-Vietnam era. Even fewer understand how its internal mission to maintain the remnants of the old British Empire gradually overcame American democracy and replaced it with a “national security” bureaucracy of its own design....

Weekend reading, if you like intrigue.

Disclaimer: I can't voucher for the factual claims, but I assume that the Counterpunch editors did due diligence before accepting it.

Counterpunch
The Grand Illusion of Imperial Power
Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould

Tony Norfield — Indian Boots on the Ground

British policy was to depend upon alliances with others, rather than to maintain a large standing army itself. So it was important to be able to draw upon a force of colonial troops when needed, including for the policing of the British Raj.

Important though they were for British power, Indian troops commonly faced racial discrimination, were looked down upon by white officers and were often used as cannon fodder, while also being given worse grade arms and equipment than regular British troops. Attractive as a cheap military resource for the Brits, these men could nevertheless see enlistment in the army as a reasonable option. There was regular pay and regular food, something not always available in the Indian economy dominated by British Empire interests….

Still going on in a modified form. Now they are mostly proxies and mercenaries rather than subjects.

Of course, the same goes for the "cannon fodder" recruited from domestic resources on the same basis, given the alternatives at the low end of the socio-economic scale.

Economics of Imperialism

Indian Boots on the Ground

Tony Norfield

The Opium Wars: The Bloody Conflicts That Destroyed Imperial China – And drives its anger over the South China Sea today.

Backgrounder.

In 1839, England went to war with China because it was upset that Chinese officials had shut down its drug trafficking racket and confiscated its dope.

Stating the historical record so plainly is shocking — but it’s true, and the consequences of that act are still being felt today.

The National Interest
The Opium Wars: The Bloody Conflicts That Destroyed Imperial China – And drives its anger over the South China Sea today

Sebastien Roblin

Tim Reuter — American Hawks Should Stop Flattering Themselves: They're Not Playing A Great Game With Putin

Summary history of the confrontation of the Russian and British empires.

Forbes
American Hawks Should Stop Flattering Themselves: They're Not Playing A Great Game With Putin
Tim Reuter

George Friedman — Limits of the American Empire

"Empire" is a dirty word. Considering the behavior of many empires, that is not unreasonable. But empire is also simply a description of a condition, many times unplanned and rarely intended. It is a condition that arises from a massive imbalance of power. Indeed, the empires created on purpose, such as Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany, have rarely lasted. Most empires do not plan to become one. They become one and then realize what they are. Sometimes they do not realize what they are for a long time, and that failure to see reality can have massive consequences.…

The reluctant empire, or being in denial.

EconMatters
Limits of the American Empire

George Friedman, Stratfor Global Intelligence