Fixing US-UK Relations
In a New Atlanticist essay “How Special is the Special Relationship?” I take a look at claims that the US-UK relations are in bad shape and argue that, while the US may need an attitude adjustment, our friends across the pond need to step up their contribution to the partnership.
While a Rumsfeldian dismissiveness and talk of “work-arounds” is decidedly unhelpful in building soft power, the underlying frustration is at least understandable. It requires an enormous amount of effort to build multi-national consensus on something as big as going to and prosecuting a war. For a variety of reasons, that’s a good thing. If, however, the end result of the process is a substantial hamstringing of options with very little to show for it in the way of additional resources, it’s not entirely unreasonable to wonder if it was all worthwhile.
Comments welcome, especially at the full post.
I mentioned this over at the New Atlanticist, but what should Britain’s strategic goals be? Does it need to do interventionism, like the US or in joint with it? Should it focus on maintaining the traditional means of security for Britain, namely air, sea, and presumably now nuclear power? Or should it go for something else, like Pan-European military integration?
That’s the issue – what are the Brits looking for in terms of strategic goals?