In some of the naval history i have been reading recently one of the arguments i am encountering seems really interesting but a bit too simple. The argument is basically that the Hapsburg empire was unable to create ventures similar to Dutch and English East India Companies and West India Company due to their own structural or dogmatic reasons. And this in part explains how their enemies (the Dutch in particular) are able to out maneuver them stratgeically and globally towards the end of the 80 years war and the rest of the 17th century. Now that is interesting but is often written in a way that i doubt the authors knowledge of Hapsburg politics and economics. Its too neat.
Is this something that is likely a) they failed to create a stakeholder imperial venture. B) that it was a disadvantage not to.?
Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.
If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!