Probably true.
And Britain certainly isn’t/wasn’t the worst thing there ever was in the world.
As it is, I think Britain learned to gain more by giving more - instead of losing completely its resources, it retained some of that while granting a good level of independence. Striking some kind of balance for all concerned.
It is quite possible that same strategy would have kept the US in the Empire.
But they probably had to be whacked really hard over the head to get their attention.