That Europe is caught up in a major financial crisis isn’t news to anyone. Standing right at the crossroads, the Eurozone will either muddle through and risk another crisis onset in the near term or having scraped through its worst crisis in decades take strong steps on the necessary medium and long-term reforms.
But what our British friends may not realize is how the vaunted special relationship is also coming to a crossroads. Prime Minister David Cameron’s large-sized gamble on the UK’s future European destiny has sent ripples of worry across the West, not least in Washington. The US’s senior Europe diplomat Philip Gordon made this abundantly clear. The Obama Administration’s view coalesced in 2011 in the run up to Cameron’s shaky performance at the emergency EU summit in Brussels.
The decision taken then by Prime Minister Cameron began to damage interests in triplicate: British interests, European interests, and US interests. His referendum gambit has worsened matters. The US needs a fully capable Britain playing a lead role at the heart of Europe. The less capable it is and the less it is a fully contributing member of the EU, the less useful the UK is to the US.
Our long standing historical ties may be more enduring, but the crux of the special relationship may not. It takes more than personal chemistry between the President and the PM. For this relationship to be strong both partners need to be able to rely on one another to meet our common interests.
The world has changed. The unheralded Arab Awakening revolution continues apace, but the wider North Africa Middle East (MENA) region is in turmoil. Even before this the influence of Europe as a whole had begun to wane, as had America’s. Yet the global rise of China has been as over predicted as the regional rise of Turkey has been under predicted. Turkey will have greater influence on the Arab Awakening’s outcome than any of the BRIC countries, not to mention the US and Europe. And in purely economic terms the region performing best at present is actually Latin America.
When American policymakers size up Britain these days they see a country that is simultaneously shirking its leadership in Europe and cutting its military capabilities at home. The rest of Europe is doing the same, as is the US. However, the US will remain the most capable military power in the world for the foreseeable future even after the cuts. Conversely, the UK is reducing its capabilities to the point of having difficulty being able to act as robustly as France.
British diplomats are well versed in reassuring their American counterparts that the UK is its one true partner that is “always there,” in all regions and all international forums. But in Washington’s eyes a wide presence coupled with wafer thin capabilities does not cut it.
This would be less worrisome from an American perspective were Britain fully throwing its lot in with the EU—where it is capable of playing a lead role in augmenting Europe’s capabilities as a whole. If only it were willing. The costs of not doing so can be counted in how the West is careening toward a joint security trap in which the security of both Europe and the US will be significantly eroded.
If the Arab Awakening were to go awry, and al-Qaeda were to begin training and operating in the MENA region—or Iran and Hezbollah were to succeed in uniting the disparate al-Qaeda affiliates around the region—within a few short years, after the widespread cuts have taken effect, without a European fighting force in place and a reduced American willingness to come to Europe’s aid when its own core interests are less affected, the UK and the rest of Europe will be in a serious lurch. The current crisis in Mali and the Sahel indicates this is already happening.
American policymakers see Britain as becoming both weaker and less effective as a European leader at the same time. Its recent performances in Brussels further raised eyebrows. The UK is now seriously isolated, 26 to 1, and will be less able to influence future EU policies that affect its economic and financial interests.
The bungled diplomacy demonstrates a British unwillingness to look out for the interests of its EU partners, as the British ultimatum is rattling the cages of continental leaders and European bond and securities markets alike. This affects American interests. We may have given you the financial crisis in 2008, but now you’re threatening to give it back. Contagion from a Greek or Italian default would pull the US right back into recession.
Affecting all of this is the UK’s economic performance. The predilection for ill-conceived austerity across the West is alarming, but especially in the UK where Lord Keynes must be turning over in his grave. And the evidence is in: Britain is not growing as Chancellor Osborne predicted and the unemployment numbers remain grave. The latest indicators regrettably point toward a triple-dip British recession.
It does not have to be this way. Britain could further stimulate its own economy while being a stabilizing force for the Eurozone, from which it has benefited greatly even while not having adopted the euro itself. And Britain could spearhead the development of modest but fully expeditional fighting force for Europe as well as cut its own forces less.
The outcome of last year’s Libya operation shows us where things could be, as opposed to where things are going. For the first time in a Western security operation Europe stepped up. Without our European allies, Britain and France in particular, the mission would not have been successful.
What American policymakers want to know is, can Europe do it again? Will Europe be able to handle threats in its own neighborhood? Can the West avoid entering a joint security trap? The Obama Doctrine—robust burden sharing—cannot be effective without capable partners, starting with the UK. France, to its credit, has been mildly reassuring to the US as of late.
That’s the difference. It used to be that the US wanted the UK and other European partners to make a greater contribution the collective Western defense; now it actually needs Europe to do this. And when China does eventually rise, we in the West will all need each other.
The UK should take up this mantle with us, and in so doing restore the special relationship to its proper balance.
“Britain is not growing as Chancellor Darling predicted …”
Point of fact: Alistair Darling was the last Labour Chancellor. The present Conservative Chancellor is George Osborne. (I assume you were referring to the latter.)
But, besides such nitpicking, a very interesting post. It has long been noted that the UK’s national interest foreign policy-wise is halfway between the US and the EU. Yet what Brits fail to realise is that our value to the US very much depends on being part of the EU. Actually, I think a lot of the political elites do understand this but the nationalist (or perhaps a better word would be ‘sovereigntist’) lobby is still very powerful and a lot of parliamentary political fates depend on it, especially for the Tories.
The one major thing that’s missing from your analysis it is the UK’s financial sector, which has the British political system in its pocket, even now. The Conservative government seem to see Britain’s future in its economic and financial empire, connected through its former colonies in the British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, etc. (Britain’s “Second Empire”, as Ronen Palan calls it.) The overriding national interest, as the right-wing elites see it (though not so much the right-wing electorate — that’s the schism), is to maintain Britain’s position within the world’s financial networks and to dig in deeper if possible. Hence the austerity agenda isn’t just neoliberal ideological madness (though it is that) — they also intend to strip away as much regulation as possible while choking off the last remnants of social democracy so as to give Britain an edge in the ‘race to the bottom’ of the barrel of global finance. David Cameron’s recent rhetoric on tax avoidance, etc. would suggest the contrary to this but his words are hollow and in no way represent his government’s actions or intentions. Because this path is a road to economic — and consequently political — ruin for most of the country the real question is whether they can achieve all their goals before the next election, which they look rather likely to lose at this rate.
I don’t know as much as I should about Britain’s military capabilities but it is remarkable that our government continues to insist (as did the Labour govt. before it) that we still need a so-called independent nuclear deterrent but we can do without the kind of resources that would actually be of use in the 21st century neo-colonial, interventionist style of warfare that seems to be the new norm. Maybe Britain needs to get it’s priorities straight. I won’t hold my breath.
Anyway, when push comes to shove on the EU I expect Britain’s relationship to remain largely unaltered. If renegotiation happens it’ll involve getting out of whatever taxes or regulations the EU wants to put on the City of London. Leaving the EU would be generally popular with the public but business has no desire for it and that, as I have mentioned, is where Britain’s national interest is seen to reside.
Kudos to the author of this post, and also to all those US officials who publicly express their belief that the vaunted special relationship thrives with the UK firmly in the EU. It is one thing for London to insist on the ‘purely economic’ rationale for the European integration project, while constantly dissing its political content, and quite another thing to treat the EU as ‘cafeteria service’ as Peter Mandelson recently put it (No wonder the current govt has been described as ‘toxic’ by many continentals).
As for Cameron, I understand the need to pander to all those euroskeptics, but the promise to ‘repatriate’ authority from Brussels ‘if elected in 2015’ strikes me as bad bargaining. London doesn’t really want leave the EU, but what it does want – or, rather, should want, from the bargaining/negotiation perspective – is to keep the threat of leaving alive. The talk of, or hints to, a possible referendum may in fact be much more potent than the actual referendum.
Also, I wonder about the putative alternative for the UK. I too believe in the significance of the ‘second empire’ business that Philip mentioned in his comment, but for shouldn’t there be an articulation of a grander ‘after EU’ vision as well? And given that it takes two to tango, where exactly is the demand for this new UK abroad? On this issue, India and the rest of the Commonwealth space (if you will) are probably with Washington: you’re more valuable to us in the EU, not out. The lack of a plausible alternative will hobble the referendum.
“Iran and Hezbollah were to succeed in uniting the disparate al-Qaeda affiliates around the region”… What!? In what universe is this even a possibility?
If the US needs a new special relationship it’s with China. The rhetoric of “the west” is awful. Framing the “west” against the world is just a terrible conceptual framework and just exacerbates the logic of demonizing “China” or any country that is developing its economy.
Thank you Philip…the beauty of a printed piece is you get an editor, but the beauty of a blog post is you get to correct factual errors…indeed, I’d quite like to sit down with Mr. Osborne and have a word or two…his failures have exacerbated the “in or out of Europe” dynamic, and what does he do? he blames Europe’s–i.e. the Continent’s–economic woes for Britain’s…which is not only innacurate, but also causes his party and leader Mr. Cameron to up the ante of his big gamble…I take your point on the UK financial sector’s sway with the Tories of late…a big battle is brewing between the financial sector and the business sector, which is hopping mad about the Tory brinkmanship with the EU
I tend to agree with TT about the framing here, and also I agree w TT on the Iran remark — Iran and al-Qaeda have never been on esp. friendly terms, have they? Different branches of Islam, different goals etc. That said, I think the post does make some interesting points.
There is a real terror gripping Europe at the moment with respects to the al-Qaeda/ Iran/Hezbollah nexus of mayhem