The attitude of the British public towards the US is more equivocal than that of most of their politicians. There have always been strands of economic envy and cultural condescension, periodically manifested in outbreaks of anti-Americanism. Such a surge took place at the height of the Ulster troubles, when some Americans and even their government seemed remarkably indulgent towards Irish Republicanism. There was tension before the 1982 Falklands conflict, when secretary of state Alexander Haig appeared alarmingly sympathetic to the Argentine case, and nothing was known by the public about defense secretary Cap Weinburger’s critical assistance to British warmaking.
More recently, substantial damage was done by Iraq. Many British people were angered that Tony Blair allowed Britain to become a party to George W Bush’s invasion, undertaken on what proved a false pretext. Moreover, American gratitude for British support, or even awareness of our participation, was muted. Among scores of American-authored books on the Iraq war published since 2003, scarcely any mentions British involvement in more than a few paragraphs or even sentences.
The US security community has a high opinion of Britain’s intelligence services, especially GCHQ, and enjoys a relationship with them entirely unique between America and other nations, which today forms the strongest single transatlantic link. By contrast, we sometimes flatter ourselves about American regard for our armed forces. These have shrunk very small. General Sir Mike Jackson, then head of the British Army, said to me back in the autumn of 2002, after a visit to Washington in the run-up to the Iraq invasion: ‘mass matters- and we don’t have it’. The US Marine Corps’ air wing is larger than the entire Royal Air Force.
A senior British officer asserted optimistically a couple of years ago: ‘The Americans may not hold the British Army in very high regard just now, but they are hugely grateful for what our special forces are doing in Baghdad’. This was a reference to the SAS’s targeted assaults on Al Qaeda leaders. But the next time I was in Washington, I mentioned the general’s remark to seven or eight Americans in the defence loop. Only one was aware of what the SAS had been doing. Of course Gen.David Petraeus and his close colleagues knew. But here was another example of the way in which the British may, in our own eyes, play a prominent role in an alliance military operation, but awareness of this amid the vastness of the United States, and even in its corridors of power, remains slight. Moreover, we should not fool ourselves that the US Army thinks highly of our performance in Basra or, until recently, our showing in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, because it does not.
The question in all alliances, and especially the Atlantic one, is always the same: what do respective nations bring to the party ? Outgoing US defense secretary Robert Gates made an important and impressive speech in Brussels last month, in which he pulled no punches in expressions of dismay and indeed scorn for the uneven fashion in which the western powers’ defence costs are distributed. ‘The growing difficulty for the US’, he said, ‘is to sustain current support for NATO if the American taxpayer continues to carry most of the burden’. Between 2001 and 2010, US defence expenditure rose from $305 to $693 billion, while that of the UK grew from $35 to just $56 billion. France pays $42 billion for defence, Germany 41 and Italy 20. The 2009 statistics, which have not changed much since, showed the US spending 4.68% of GDP on defence or $2,153 per capita. Britain managed only 2.71%, or $965 per capita- and falling; France spent 2.05% or $870 per capita; Germany 1.2% or $580 per capita.
Mr.Gates drew attention to the feeble showing in Afghanistan of some nations which grudgingly sent troops, but not to fight. He spoke of ‘national caveats that tied the hands of allied commanders in sometimes infuriating ways, the inability of many allies to meet agreed commitments…NATO has struggled, at times desperately, to sustain a deployment of 25-40,000 troops, not just in boots on the ground, but in crucial support assets such as helicopters, transport aircraft, maintenance, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and much more’. In Libya, said the defense secretary, ‘similar shortcomings- in capability and will- have the potential to jeopardize the…campaign….While every alliance member voted for the Libya mission, less than half have participated at all, and fewer than a third have been willing to participate in the strike mission…The mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly-armed regime in a sparsely populated country- yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the US, once more, to make up the difference’.
Some British people will here interject, ‘ah, but Bob Gates was not directing his fire at us. We have been doing our part manfully- it is the Germans and Italians and suchlike who were in his sights’. Do not be so sure. If Britain’s contribution and capabilities are indeed larger than those of other European nations, in Libya as in Iraq and Afghanistan our operations are viable only with US support. Senior Americans I know are appalled by our planned defence cuts. They know that, if the British Army shrinks as scheduled after withdrawal from Afghanistan, we shall thereafter be able to deploy only a single brigade group of 7-8,000 men for sustained operations overseas. This is not an impressive force, to put it politely, for a nation that prides itself on its military skills and warrior prowess.