Download "Solid not Slavish": UK-UK Relations under Cameron and Clegg

It was, however, not always thus. As recently as 1895-96
the two countries almost went to war over Venezuela,
the crisis only being averted by the statesmanship of
Lord Salisbury, whose actions were more the result of
Realpolitik than any romantic conception of the kin of
English-speaking peoples. Yet the first decade of the
twentieth century was an age of transatlantic marriages in
high places, the families of wealthy American industrialists
married into the British aristocracy in a series of high
profile weddings. These marriages hit the pages of the
forerunners of Hello! and OK! magazines, animating the
public consciousness in both countries and generating
the beginnings of wider sense of cultural kinship, whilst
binding elites to each other.
“Solid, not Slavish”
UK-US
Relations
under
Cameron
and Clegg
By Nicholas Kitchen
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W
ithin minutes of the United Kingdom appointing a
new Prime Minister, President Barack Obama was
on the telephone, reaffirming “the extraordinary special
relationship between the United States and Great Britain,
one that outlasts any individual party, any individual
leader… is built up over centuries and is not going to go
away.” Obama’s warm reception for David Cameron was
a deliberate attempt to reboot a relationship which got
off to a poor start, when the 44th president seemingly
misjudged the sensitivity with which the United Kingdom
regards its most significant alliance earlier in his tenure,
a misjudgement marked by tabloid outrage over the
President’s DVD-based ‘gift’ and more significant diplomatic
contretemps over Brown’s difficulty gaining a private
meeting with the President at the UN.
Yet as the United States reminds itself of the need to pay
due attention to British sensibilities, the foreign policy
establishment in the United Kingdom has been undergoing
one of its periodic bouts of soul-searching about the
nature and value of ‘the special relationship’. A report
of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hit
the headlines recently with its conclusion that “the phrase
‘the special relationship’… is potentially misleading” and
its recommendation “that its use should be avoided.”
Following the report, and what he perhaps viewed as
a growing sense of public dissatisfaction regarding the
balance of Anglo-American relations, Britain’s new foreign
secretary William Hague said that he expected Britain’s
relationship with the United States to be “solid, not slavish”
under the new coalition government in Westminster.
But is the relationship between Britain and the United States
likely to shift significantly with a different occupant of
Downing Street? Indeed, should we expect British foreign
policy to alter in any significant way with the advent of a
Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government? One
expects not: British foreign policy has long set a course in
parallel to the United States, and the alliance itself remains
historically unique in its depth and institutionalisation.
Christopher Meyer, a former British Ambassador to the
United States, recently described the ‘special relationship’
as a British “neurosis” and worried that “the rhetoric and
mythology of the ‘special relationship’ has a pernicious
influence on our ability to construct and define the
relationship”. But whilst the phrase may be diplomatically
unhelpful for both countries, it does capture the sense in
which the alliance between Britain and the United States is
unlike any other in international society, both at a political
and bureaucratic level and at a deeper cultural level.
Of course, it was the two World Wars that cemented
the alliance as a political construct, and the Cold War
that allowed the relationships undertaken in wartime to
become embedded in the fabric of the two states’ foreign
policy apparatus. In addition to the personal cooperation
at elite levels and the sense of shared political values
engendered by the opposition to what each saw as the
totalitarian dangers of first Nazi Germany and then the
Soviet Union, a number of areas of formal cooperation at
the less transient levels of government became established.
Scientific exchanges on nuclear diplomacy grew to
encompass epistemic communities of experts across fields
in regular communication, coordination and exchange.
The depth of intelligence sharing actually increased
after the war, to such an extent that some consider the
two countries’ intelligence gathering organisations as
essentially one officialdom, with the CIA and SIS mounting
joint operations and the NSA and GCHQ sharing cyberintelligence as a matter of course. At almost every level
of government and public policy, the two governments
have enshrined regular official cooperation, right up to
collaborative training courses for 3-star generals.
Alliances, like marriages, undergo their ups and downs.
At the level of individual leaders, Thatcher’s relationship
with Ronald Reagan stands out as one of public bonhomie
and private candour, even rancour. Blair’s determination
to re-establish Britain on the world stage lay behind his
act of political conjuring to be at once the soulmate of
Bill Clinton and the best buddy of George W. Bush. Yet
relationships can endure when there seems there is
nothing left to keep them together, through the force of
habit above all else, and it is in this sense that the ‘special’
nature of the Anglo-American alliance has the capacity
to outlast disagreements and divergence of interests. A
recent poll conducted in advance of a conference on the
status of the ‘special relationship’ at the Royal United
Services Institute found what appeared to be a level
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Not that the American government will be too concerned at
a lack of British involvement in the central European issues
of the day. The United States has long been ambivalent
towards the EU as a foreign policy actor, regarding
European integration as a welcome bulwark against the
reemergence of continental conflict but preferring to
deal bilaterally with the more powerful member states
on international issues. Where the United States may
find greater difficulty with the United Kingdom is Britain’s
ability to continue to fund the level of its international
So British foreign policy, in respect to its closeness to the
contributions: the UK’s Strategic Defence Review is widely
United States, is unlikely to change significantly. Core
expected to cut major capital projects, which will only
strategic ideas held in the United Kingdom hardly differ
exacerbate the technology gap which inhibits military
across the political parties, and the Foreign Office has an
cooperation on the ground. If one includes the effects of
enduring sense of the UK’s role in the world that outlasts
sterling’s devaluation,
and outranks party political
“In the UK at least, Britons continue
the Foreign and
differences. On Afghanistan
Commonwealth Office has
and Iran the two countries
to value a marriage in which they
already seen its budget cut
are joined at the hip; even on
feel
unloved
and
under-appreciated.
by around forty percent
issues where there is some
over the last two years,
policy discord, such as IsraelSo British foreign policy, in respect to
and is likely, along with
Palestine or climate change,
its closeness to the United States, is
other departments, to have
there is debate about policy
unlikely
to
change
significantly.
Core
to find another twentyin terms of means rather than
five percent reduction
any explicit disagreement on
strategic ideas held in the United
in costs, a prospect that
the goals to be obtained. In
Kingdom
hardly
differ
across
the
threatens to undermine
the recent election campaign,
political
parties,
and
the
Foreign
Office
the international credibility
the differences between the
of British foreign policy.
parties on international issues has an enduring sense of the UK’s role
Yet the American line in
were almost imperceptible.
in the world that outlasts and outranks both official and informal
party political differences.”
discussions is that the
Where the new British
British will do what
government may differ
they
can
and
they
will
continue
to
appreciate that input,
significantly from its predecessor is on the issue of Europe.
welcome cooperation and value British counsel across
Tony Blair’s government made great play of positioning
the range of foreign policy operations. The British may
itself at the ‘heart of Europe’, despite Blair regarding EURO
entry as politically difficult and Gordon Brown as Chancellor not be in a position to follow slavishly, and there is little
evidence that they ever really have in terms of elevating
sceptical about the economics of monetary union. The
American concerns above British interests. But despite a
coalition is most divided on European issues, with the
likely reduction in British capacity, the relationship benefits
Conservatives dominated by eurosceptics and the Liberal
from deep foundations and regular maintenance and
Democrats the most pro-European of all Britain’s political
will remain more solid than any other bilateral diplomatic
parties. So far that divide has been bridged via a pledge
relationship: the French, Germans, Chinese and Japanese
to give the public a referendum on any major transfers of
will be complaining about British access to the United States
power to the EU; transfers that in the wake of Lisbon are
for some time yet. ■
unlikely to be mooted in the current Parliament anyway.
The Tories in particular may struggle with European
***
diplomacy – their MEPs sit with the far right coalition in
Dr Nicholas Kitchen is Coordinator of the LSE IDEAS
the European Parliament – but with the Eurozone likely to
spend the foreseeable future engaged in measures to secure Transatlantic Relations Programme and Editor of
IDEAS Reports.
the single currency and agree fiscal policy coordination it
seems doubtful that the EU will have sufficient political will
to address issues on which British input is required. The
coalition may therefore be able to avoid having to play its
weakest suit.
of cognitive dissonance among the British public: whilst
85% believe Britain has little or no influence on American
policies and 62% agree that the United States does not
consider Britain’s interests, at the same time 66% expressed
favourable feelings towards the United States and 62%
agreed that the US is Britain’s most important ally. In the
UK at least, Britons continue to value a marriage in which
they feel unloved and under-appreciated.
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