Why Did British Military Successes in North America During 1776 Fail to Produce a Decisive Victory Over the Americans?

This paper maintains that the British military successes in the North American theater in 1776 failed to produce a quick victory because British military planners fundamentally misunderstood operational factors at play in the theater, made critical miscalculations concerning the presence and durability of organic loyalist support, and were profoundly restrained by a confluence of operational factors at play in the theater. The biggest driving factors to the British failure were the failure to appreciate that the American insurgency was a widespread affair, rather than a localized or sectored threat to rule of law, the employment of policies and tactics that created political consequences that eroded support amongst the American populace, and domestic cultural factors that restrained the British military response.