The transition from the Napoleonic Wars to the mid-nineteenth century is often characterized as the dawn of undisputed Western hegemony, specifically the rise of Pax Britannica and the territorial ascent of the United States. However, this panel challenges the narrative of "unencumbered expansion" by examining the friction between military victory and political reality. By focusing on the themes of war termination, diplomatic resilience, and bureaucratic overstretch, these four papers re-evaluate the perceived omnipotence of nineteenth-century powers.

The session begins by re-evaluating the foundational figure of this era, Napoleon Bonaparte. Moving beyond the historiographical consensus of Napoleon as a seeker of existential "total war," the first paper uses Clausewitzian and Corbettian frameworks to argue that Napoleon’s statecraft often sought "limited" objectives and negotiated settlements. It suggests that the reactionary escalation of his rivals, rather than a lack of French restraint, precluded a stable modus vivendi.

The focus then shifts to the British experience of global conflict. One paper examines how Napoleon’s 1814 abdication paradoxically hindered British operations in North America. By analyzing the Battle of New Orleans, it demonstrates how European prioritization and bureaucratic prevarication in London stifled naval ambitions in the Gulf of Mexico, illustrating the "global" constraints of the War of 1812. A second British-focused paper deconstructs the early Pax Britannica, arguing that the Royal Navy after 1815 was defined not by confidence, but by fragility and retrenchment. It posits that the "global enforcer" status of the Navy was a later Victorian recovery from a decade of postwar exhaustion and decay.

Finally, the panel examines the limits of American power during the Mexican-American War. Despite the military success of the Polk administration, this paper argues that Mexican resilient diplomacy effectively frustrated U.S. objectives. It frames the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo not as an inevitable triumph, but as a case study in the "perturbations of restraint."

Together, these papers offer a cross-continental perspective on the gap between battlefield success and geopolitical control. They invite a nuanced discussion on how statecraft is often shaped more by internal limitations and external resistance than by the singular will of an "ascending" power.