PEARLS OF WISDOM: SOLID US-UK RELATIONSHIP
by John O'Sullivan
Benador Associates
July 29, 2007

Britain's new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, flies into Washington this
week—proceeded by a rash of reports in the British media that the
Anglo-American "special relationship" is finally over. It had its last
hurrah with Bush and Blair. London will now distance itself from
Washington.
Well, I wish I had pound or a euro or even a dollar for every time a
report appears that the "special relationship" is at long last over.
And on this occasion my reaction is quite literally "déjà vu all over
again."
Since I first began writing about such matters, there have been two
previous occasions when London or Washington seriously thought of
downgrading the alliance to or even below the (still important) level
of, say, Washington's relationship with Paris or Berlin.
The first occasion was in the early 1970s when Prime Minister Edward
Heath, having secured Britain's membership of the European Community,
made plain to the Nixon administration that in future Britain would
act more closely with France and Germany than with the U.S.
With OPEC quadrupling its oil prices and Arab countries threatening an
oil boycott over Israel at the time, this looked like a shrewd
combination of European idealism and hard-headed national interest.
In fact it was foolish self-deception. Heath's posturing took place as
a series of geo-political threats to Britain (and Europe) were just
beginning to reveal the value and indeed necessity of the American
link: the installation of Soviet SS-20 missiles in Eastern Europe,
terrorism, crises in southern Africa, the rise of the Soviet Navy,
OPEC-induced stagflation worldwide, the invasion of Afghanistan, etc.,
etc. It was soon plain that Europe could not deal with these crises
without U.S. help and indeed leadership.
All of Heath's more sensible successors—Harold Wilson, James
Callaghan, and Margaret Thatcher—recognized and acted upon that
reality. Their main problem in the late 1970s was the poor quality of
American leadership under Jimmy Carter. But when Ronald Reagan
replaced Carter in the White House and, in particular, when he revived
the special relationship in his great partnership with Mrs. Thatcher,
these various crises were resolved with surprising speed.
Indeed, they were resolved triumphantly. The Soviet Union collapsed,
the Cold War ended, the Third World disintegrated, a new structure of
world power built on global markets and democratic ideas was created
and, for a moment, we seemed to be living in a peaceful and prosperous
world.
So, naturally, reports again began to appear that the special
relationship would now finally be mothballed.
This time, however, the reports originated in Washington. Anxious to
distinguish themselves from the Reagan administration, the new Bush
team let it be known that they intended to place greater reliance on
Germany than on Britain in their alliance planning. This switch was
justified on the grand strategic theory that in the new post-cold-war
world of globalization, geo-economics was more important than
geo-politics. Since Germany then enjoyed a larger and stronger economy
than Britain, it seemed to follow that Germany should be Washington's
premier European partner.
This policy enjoyed one highly important success: the reunification of
Germany. That was the biggest problem facing the Bush administration
in its first two years. Working closely with Chancellor Kohl was
essential to the success of U.S. policy.
And largely because of Soviet weakness, success came quickly. The
foundations of a new and stable Europe were established. At that point
the value of the "tilt" to Germany began to fall since it was clear
that most foreign challenges to the U.S. would come in future from
outside Europe.
Right on cue, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
Germany was very little use to Washington in the first Gulf War
despite its large economy. It had a land-locked army, a constitution
that forbade intervention abroad, and a pacifist national sensibility.
What Washington needed was allies with armies, intelligence services,
strategic mobility, and a tradition of upholding international order.
France met those criteria—and joined in the liberation of Kuwait—but
to a far lesser extent than the United Kingdom.
At times the British were even more willing to intervene than
Washington. It was over Kuwait that Thatcher issued her famous
encouragement: "This is no time to go wobbly, George." Her New Labor
successor, Tony Blair, similarly pressed a reluctant President Clinton
to send U.S. ground troops into action over Kosovo. Success in both
endeavors restored relations. The special relationship was firmly
re-established.
Its present decline in popular favor is due largely to Blair's conduct
of British policy over Iraq which is seen (unfairly) as subservient to
President Bush, (arguably) as deceitful, (reasonably) as unsuccessful,
and (correctly) as having failed to justify the intervention in terms
of specifically British interests and duties.
With Blair's departure, these objections will likely fade. Gordon
Brown will want to cut a world statesmanlike figure both in Washington
and in the eyes of Middle England. He will also be determined to
ensure that neither Germany's Angela Merkel nor France's Nicholas
Sarkozy, both more pro-American than their predecessors, replace him
as America's best friend in Europe. And since European members of NATO
are failing to help in Afghanistan where British troops are fighting
and dying in large numbers, Brown will have a further good reason for
feeling close to the Americans.
So the special relationship will almost certainly recover from its
recent wobbles.
Yet the special relationship has powerful long-term enemies.

• Other European states resent the special clout and particular
advantages they believe it gives Britain in world politics. France,
for instance, regularly seeks to bring Echelon, the worldwide
electronic eavesdropping system operated by the U.S., Britain, and
other Anglosphere countries, under international supervision. Paris,
Berlin and other capitals see Echelon as ultimately incompatible with
a common European defense, intelligence and foreign policy system.
• Those British politicians in all major parties who want the UK to
commit itself to a European federal state believe the special
relationship gives London delusions of grandeur that obstruct the
necessary surrender of sovereignty.
• The U.S. State Department also dislikes it as an obstacle to
Britain's full absorption in the European Union. Foggy Bottom thinks
an unqualified British commitment to Euro-political integration would
make Europe more pro-American—the "Trojan Horse for America" theory.
In reality it is far more likely to make Britain more anti-American as
it absorbs the ethos of European politics.
• Left-wingers dislike the closeness to capitalist America it carries.
• Some Tories blame it for Britain's postwar retreat from world power
(and its replacement as world superpower by the U.S) starting at Suez.
• And foreign policy "realists" deplore it as a relationship built on
sentimentality—something which, according to the best international
relations theory, should not exist.

Almost all these groups want London to replace the U.S. with the EU as
Britain's closest ally. The occasional exaggerated reports of its
death reflect in part their hopes and influence.
How then does the special relationship manage repeatedly to survive as
an important factor in foreign affairs? It is rooted in three enduring
features:
First, Britain and the U.S. (and such countries as Australia, Canada,
New Zealand and India) share a common language, culture, and legal and
political traditions. As a result they tend to see the world in much
the same way. The so-called "Anglosphere" countries believe in a
liberal international order—free trade, free capital movements, global
consultative institutions, and international law—and identify the same
threats to it.
Second, both countries have been historically more prepared than other
powers use military force to uphold a liberal international order (and
their own interests) against fundamental attacks.
Third, since 1941 Britain and the U.S. (and, again, countries such as
Australia, Canada, etc.) have developed habits and practices of mutual
cooperation in fields as various as intelligence, military affairs,
cultural transmission, peacekeeping, and international
institution-building to a very high degree.
So dense and overlapping are the established links of cooperation
between these countries, as James C. Bennett argues in The Anglosphere
Challenge, that they form a "network civilization" of nations that
increasingly think, act and even develop alike. They link not only
governments, but also private sector bodies and ordinary citizens.
Trade, investment and migration patterns, for instance, are far closer
between the countries of the Anglosphere than between them and third
parties. And since the Second World War the core of this network
civilization has been the special relationship.
It is a practical relationship that benefits both sides. Echelon has
already been mentioned. More generally, Sir John Scarlett, the head of
MI6, recently told a British parliamentary committee: "The UK
agencies' long-developed relationships with U.S. intelligence agencies
give them vital access to U.S. intelligence and resources. It is
neither practical, desirable, nor is it in the national interest, for
UK agencies to carry out [counter-terrorism] work independently of the
U.S. effort."
Intelligence sharing is a very significant indicator of alliance
closeness because of its secret nature. But it is merely one element
in a much broader defense relationship. Both the British armed forces
and the British defense industry benefit greatly from their privileged
relationship with more technically advanced partners in the U.S. It
helps explain why Britain is the single most important military power
in Europe despite moderate and falling levels of defense expenditure.
From London's perspective, then, the special relationship has
practical advantages that no other alliance or set of alliances could
replicate. It would be strategic self-mutilation to abandon it. From
an American perspective Washington gets a dependable ally with high
diplomatic and military skills and worldwide influence.
When Peter Rodman, a distinguished Kissingerian realist who has served
in high foreign policy positions in every Republican administration
since 1968, was asked about the latest reports of a broken special
relationship, he wondered jokingly if they had been planted by the
Wilhelmstrasse or the Quai D'Orsay since "every other European nation
is jealous of how Britain can work both sides of the Atlantic to
increase its world influence."

Nonetheless, it's déjà vu all over again. Talk of a rupture between
Washington and London has burst forth for the third time. It is all
very dramatic—and all seemingly prompted by two events.
The first was a speech by Douglas Alexander, a ministerial confidante
of the Gordon Brown, now in the Cabinet overseeing "international
development." The second was the appointment of Mark Malloch Brown,
formerly Kofi Annan's deputy at the United Nations, to the number two
spot at the Foreign Office where he will be responsible for Asia,
Africa, and the Third World—but not for relations with the U.S..
Neither event was exactly earth-shaking. Most of the Alexander speech
was a conventional argument for more and better-designed foreign aid.
But it contained one or two phrases—notably a preference for
"multilateralism over "unilateralism"—that were interpreted as
signaling that London was distancing itself from Blair's previous
closeness to Bush. And the Malloch Brown appointment was said to annoy
Washington because in his old UN job he was a strong critic of U.S
policy.
Malloch Brown sought to dampen down Washington's suspicions by giving
an interview to the Daily Telegraph in which he praised Secretary
Condi Rice and the new "soft power" direction of American policy.
Being no diplomat, however, he made matters worse by
saying—incautiously but in context justifiably—that as Iraq receded
into the background, London and Washington would no longer be "joined
at the hip" on policy. Brown then had to make public statements
re-affirming that his government would continue to work closely with
Washington as Blair had done.
Something interesting—and arguably important—is happening here.
It is not, however, the collapse of the special relationship. Brown
wants to maintain this as a practical reality while reducing the
rhetorical volume of support for it. Given that his predecessor had
inadvertently encouraged anti-Americanism in the UK by seeming to
subject British policy to U.S. interests, Brown will stress the
national interest. This new approach is sensible and may even help to
reverse the growth of anti-Americanism in Britain. Alarm bells should
ring in the White House only if Brown takes practical steps, for
instance, to commit Britain still further to a European defense policy
outside NATO.
Nor is the Brown government retreating from foreign interventionism. A
passage in the Alexander speech was the pure milk of the Bush doctrine
and/or of Blair's 1998 speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign
Relations:
"It can be right, when certain conditions are met, to intervene in the
affairs of countries to prevent genocide, crimes against humanity,
humanitarian suffering or threats to democracy. We believe that our
collective responsibility to protect individuals transcends the right
of nations to absolute sovereignty."
Nor, finally, is Brown's endorsement (via Alexander) of
"multilateralism" a break with the Bush-Blair era. Bush and Blair both
preached multilateralism repeatedly in recent years. Both sought and
obtained allies. Both justified their interventions in Kosovo and Iraq
by reference to UN resolutions. And what little difference there was
between the governments has diminished further since the 2004
elections. Malloch Brown was surely right when he said in his
Telegraph interview that the current U.S. administration is moving
away from the harder neo-conservative versions of the Bush doctrine
and towards ideas of soft power and multilateralism under Secretary
Condi Rice. With the possible exception of Iran, it is currently hard
to imagine a situation in which the U.S. would break with London and
other European allies in order to mount a unilateral military
intervention.

Here, finally, comes the potential division—a division within
governments as much as between London and Washington. If there were a
breach between Anglo-American allies on Iran or anything else, the
sticking-point would almost certainly be whether an intervention had
the formal support of the UN Security Council.
What divides Blair and Bush from Malloch Brown and Douglas Alexander
(and perhaps Brown) is that the first two believed that if the
international community had discovered and condemned genocide,
humanitarian suffering etc., then it really ought to do something
about it. If the UN failed to act, perhaps because it was hobbled by a
Russian veto, they believed nation states were justified in enforcing
the international laws that were being broken or ignored. And if those
nation-states felt that their basic interests were being threatened by
breaches of international law, then they were doubly justified in
intervening. That kind of muscular multilateralism reflected the
traditional willingness of the Anglosphere countries to uphold liberal
international order (and their interests) against fundamental attack.

Malloch Brown and Alexander are much more respectful of international
bodies which they believe enjoy a superior legitimacy to nation-states
in the post-Cold War world order. So are many U.S. diplomats and
officials. Alexander in his speech declared that the UN enjoyed
"unparalleled legitimacy" in world affairs. Malloch Brown as a former
UN official supported Kofi Annan's claim that the Kosovo war was
illegitimate because it lacked a UN endorsement. Both men are members
of the new class of international lawyers, agency officials and NGO
officers—known as "Tranzis" or transnational progressives—who staff
transnational agencies and largely dictate the international political
agenda. Their general outlook is to regard nation-states as
subordinate to international bodies (which in theory represent the
conscience of the world.) They tend to believe that nation-states are
entitled to use military force either for humanitarian or for
strategic reasons only if they have the explicit endorsement of the
UN.

If you want to know the likely results of such a principle, ask the
people of Darfur and Rwanda. Of course, you'll need a spiritualist
medium if you expect a reply. The United Nations can be a very useful
instrument of diplomacy, moral suasion, and—when the Permanent Five on
the Security Council are agreed—humanitarian intervention and
peacekeeping. But it cannot be a legal and moral arbiter in world
affairs. Nation-states, guided by the precedent of international law,
remain the main players. The nations of the Anglosphere, in particular
Britain and America, have a long track record of using their power and
influence wisely to uphold a decent world order. They generally act in
common. And at some point in the next few years they will likely be
faced with a crisis in which they judge intervention to be necessary
but know that it would be vetoed in the UN Security Council.

We can make a good guess which course Bush would choose. Ditto Malloch
Brown and Alexander. Gordon Brown, though, remains an enigma. And so,
for obvious reasons, does the next U.S. president. But the likelihood,
if history is a guide, is that both governments will end up on the
same side.

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