Britain's expanding global success also carried a strategic downside. Once it had a practiced method for cutting distant colonies off from their home countries and absorbing them, those possessions posed fewer direct military dangers. The states capable of seriously hurting Britain were increasingly concentrated in the Atlantic and Mediterranean theatres. British forces consequently focused on those major threats while the empire continued to grow elsewhere. Repeated success encouraged Britain to treat isolation and conquest as the obvious answer to overseas opposition.
Notable Point · 41:33-42:48
Imperial success concentrates Britain's major threats
As Britain mastered the seizure of isolated overseas possessions, the opponents capable of seriously hurting it became concentrated nearer the Atlantic and Mediterranean.