Ironically, Britain's attempts after the Seven Years' War to consolidate political control over its American empire pushed colonials toward independence. After driving France from North America in 1763, the British attempted to impose stricter regulations designed to raise colonial revenues, a strategy that deeply disillusioned many Americans and caused them to regard independence as their only real alternative. Misunderstanding and suspicion on both sides gave rise to the American Revolution, a complex conflict that was at once a colonial war of liberation, a civil war between loyal and rebel Americans, and a renewal of the struggle for global supremacy between England and France.