The rule was you didn't march around killing people - you did deals with the local big men, and/or introduced drugs and taxes and slavery, and then you marched around killing people, but only if you really had to.

Only the Dutch had a similarly indirect approach to international diplomacy. France, Spain, and the Habsburgs had a more direct and continental Big Arrmy tradition, which made for plenty of set-piece battles, but not so much long term 'growth and stability.'

If you don't understand how sneaky the British Establishment is, consider that England went through the Enclosures, the Industrial Revolution, wars with the Continent and the Colonies, a century of Dickensian squalor and oppression. and two world wars, but hasn't had a significant Euro-style revolution since the Civil War - and even that was largely a fight between merchants/pirates/barons and the monarchy.

And monarchy was restored almost immediately anyway.

While the UK likes to pretend it's the modern cradle of democracy, the reality is it's the modern cradle of neo-Machiavellianism, and the spiritual home of neoliberals everywhere.