Cover

The Naval War College campus on

Coasters Harbor Island—a view from the

south. The buildings are, from left to

right, Pringle Hall, Luce Hall, McCarty

Little Hall, and Founders Hall (the original home of the College, now containing

the Museum and offices of the Maritime

History Department and of the Naval

War College Press). Above Luce Hall, to

the right of the cupola, is a portion of

Conolly Hall. In the foreground is Dewey

Field, site of June graduation exercises

and summer Navy Band concerts.

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The Atlantic Crises

Britain, Europe, and Parting from the United States

NAVAL WAR COLLEGE PRESS

Newport, Rhode Island

William Hopkinson

© 2005 by William Hopkinson

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Naval War College

Newport, Rhode Island

Center for Naval Warfare Studies

Newport Paper Twenty-three

May 2005

President, Naval War College

Rear Admiral Jacob L. Shuford, U.S. Navy

Provost/Dean of Academics

Professor James F. Giblin, Jr.

Dean of Naval Warfare Studies

Dr. Kenneth H. Watman

Naval War College Press

Editor: Dr. Peter Dombrowski

Managing Editor: Pelham G. Boyer

Telephone: 401.841.2236

Fax: 401.841.1071

DSN exchange: 948

E-mail: press@nwc.navy.mil

Web: www.nwc.navy.mil/press

Printed in the United States of America

The Newport Papers are extended research projects that the

editor, the dean of Naval Warfare Studies, and the Presiden

of the Naval War College consider of particular interest to

policy makers, scholars, and analysts.

The views expressed in the Newport Papers are those of the

authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the

Naval War College or the Department of the Navy.

Correspondence concerning the Newport Papers may be

addressed to the editor of the Naval War College Press. To

request additional copies, back copies, or subscriptions to

the series, please either write the President (Code 32S),

Naval War College, 686 Cushing Road, Newport, RI

02841-1207, or contact the Press staff at the telephone, fax,

or e-mail addresses given.

ISSN 1544-6824

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Contents

Foreword, by Peter Dombrowski 

Introduction: Why Another Book? 

CHAPTER ONE The Beginning:

The United States and Britain to 1940 

CHAPTER TWO The Special Relationship Grows

and Ends, 1940–1946 

CHAPTER THREE The American Half Century,

and European Contrasts 

CHAPTER FOUR The United States and Europe

in the Twenty-first Century 

CHAPTER FIVE Whither Britain? 

CHAPTER SIX New Relationships for Old 

Notes 

Abbreviations 

Further Reading 

About the Author 

The Newport Papers 

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Foreword

The transatlantic relationship has come under enormous stress from both sides 

ocean since the end of the Cold War and, especially, the election of President Ge

W. Bush. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union threw American 

European strategic thought into disarray as scholars and policy makers alike scra

to formulate new rationales for Cold War institutions like the North Atlantic Tre

Organization and the much-ballyhooed “special relationship” between the Unite

States and the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, no one with the clear vision of th

George F. Kennan emerged to soften transatlantic squabbles over the Balkans, th

Soviet space, and emerging security challenges in the Middle East, Africa, and As

Bush administration officials and like-minded pundits miffed many Europeans w

their causal unilateralist rhetoric and apparent willingness to abandon long-stan

multilateral initiatives like the Kyoto Treaty. After a brief warming of relations fo

ing the horrific attacks of 11 September, American-European interactions turned 

once again as France and Germany led the effort to prevent the UN Security Cou

from passing a resolution authorizing the Iraq invasion. Of the major European 

only Great Britain offered substantial assistance to the American-led coalition, a

fact of Prime Minister Blair’s personal commitments and perhaps of the special 

tionship. Today, the gradual disengagement of other European coalition membe

Iraq and the reluctance of NATO to play a more active role there further fuels di

tent in Washington policy circles. The 2003 announcement by Javier Solana of th

ropean Union of a European Security Strategy rekindled American fears that the 

would either emerge as a challenger to U.S. primacy or, paradoxically, remain too 

to support American global initiatives.

Aside from the ebbs and flows of politics, the fate of the transatlantic alliance rema

major strategic question for both the United States and its various European partn

serious, long-term breach of the close security cooperation that characterized mos

Cold and post–Cold War periods would force both sides to rethink their defense p

From a naval perspective, the transatlantic relationship remains one of the strate

touchstones for the American navy, even as the geostrategic focus of the United 

has shifted from Europe to the Middle East and Asia. European navies—not only 

of Great Britain but of France and Germany, and others as well—support Ameri

led operations across the globe. In the Indian Ocean, for example, Europe provid

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prior to the campaigns of 2002 and 2003. Across the globe, European allies have partic

ipated in exercises associated with the Proliferation Security Initiative.

With The Atlantic Crises: Britain, Europe, and Parting from the United States, Mr. William

Hopkinson weighs in with a commonsensical and timely overview of the origins and

evolution of the transatlantic relationship since the Second World War. He pays particular attention to the U.S. relationship with Great Britain and its impact upon intraEuropean debates. He reminds us that while the transatlantic relationship has never

been as smooth as some would have us believe, common interests and values have allowed all parties to adjust, and readjust, to changes in the security environment and

particular national goals. However, and perhaps most importantly, Hopkinson recognizes that the current breach may be far more serious than those of the past and thus

that greater efforts may be required to reach accommodations in the future.

Mr. Hopkinson is especially well placed to comment wisely on transatlantic relations. He

served at senior levels in the British Ministry of Defence navigating the shoals between

Great Britain, the United States, and the Continent. Since leaving government he has

thought and written extensively at several of the finest think tanks in Europe, including

Chatham House and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, publishing a

series of well-thought-of analyses of contemporary security issues. We at the Naval War

College Press are pleased to be able to publish this important look at the past, present,

and future of one of the most important strategic issues facing the United States.

PETER DOMBROWSKI

Editor, Naval War College Press

Newport, Rhode Island

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Introduction: Why Another Book?

Europa, meantime, could see no end to this crazy sea crossing. Bu

guessed what would happen to her when they hit land again. . . . 

bull knelt down in front of her, offering her his back. And the mo

she climbed up, he made a dash for the sea.

It would in any case have been desirable to review the transatlantic relationship m

than a decade after the end of the Cold War, taking account of the interlinked pr

of globalization and a changing security agenda. The events of 11 September 200

the publication of the U.S. national security strategy in September 2002 reinforc

need. A review was made imperative by the fissures opened up within Western a

and security structures, as well as globally, by the action of the United States and

United Kingdom against Iraq, and arguably the requirement was further reinforc

the reelection of President George W. Bush in November 2004. Whatever the lon

term outcome of that reelection and of Iraq, transatlantic relations have changed

have intra-European ones. It is time, especially for Britain, to think hard about w

has happened and what the next steps should be.

The British, and in large measure other (Western) Europeans, have acquiesced in 

form of U.S. hegemony for at least the greater part of half a century. Politicians h

spoken and acted as if the transatlantic relationship of the post-1950 period, wh

it was, would endure for all time. However, Europe itself, collectively and as indiv

nations, has changed out of all recognition since 1950. Meanwhile, since 1990, th

nature of security, and hence of international relations, has also changed radical

the changes have been reinforced by the American reaction to the newly perceive

nerability of the United States. New issues, new perceptions, new actors, and new 

of acting all point to the need to revisit transatlantic relations and the various re

ships embraced by the term, not in any hostile spirit but to see what the best cou

everyone may be.

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transatlantic relations is a particular problem. There is a widely held belief there that

the relationship with the United States is special and enduring. That has been constantly reinforced by various issues in domestic politics and by Prime Minister Tony

Blair’s having made it a fundamental plank of his policy. In an address to British ambassadors in January 2003 he stated that the first principle of British foreign policy is

that the country should remain the closest ally of the United States. That begs several

questions: firstly, whether the United Kingdom is in fact the closest ally of the United

States; secondly, why it should be in Britain’s interest to do what may be necessary to

retain that position; and thirdly, whether there is scope for an enduring principle of

that sort, it not being in the sole gift of Britain to make itself anyone else’s closest ally.

In Europe more generally, there are a variety of opinions about transatlantic relationships. There is less talk of a “special relationship,” but there is often a facile extrapolation of some selected security facts of the Cold War into a very different era (often

while other more enduring matters are neglected). While some countries, such as

France, seek, or purport to seek, a degree of thought and action independent from the

United States, others, particularly but not only smaller states in Eastern Europe, feel

that continued American engagement in their security is vital and would be content in

essence were the United States to retain the sort of leading role that it properly played un

til 1991. However, even for these states, American unwillingness to do what it did before,

in the manner in which it used to do it, means that a review of relationships is necessary.

Inhabiting the same world, and with much political, social, and economic background

in common, Americans and Western Europeans in particular obviously face many of

the same problems internationally and even domestically. However, facing common

problems is not necessarily the same thing as having common interests; even if interests are common, perceptions of interests may differ markedly. Moreover, even if there

be agreement on interests and their perception, there may be significant divergences on

how they may best be pursued, for even with much common background, American

and European values are not identical. Americans and Europeans attach different

weights to the utility and morality of military force; they have different views about th

role of the state and of safety nets for the less fortunate members of society. In the international sphere, they differ markedly over national sovereignty and the degree to

which it may or should be limited by international law and international institutions.1

All that said, anyone who emphasizes the need to engage with the United States must

be in some sense correct. It is a superpower economically, militarily, and politically,

and its size and singularity are matters that are or should be of prime concern to all

other states. No country can ignore the impact of the United States in international

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have global interests of whatever kind. The European Union (EU) already has gl

economic interests and is developing widespread political concerns. Some of its 

bers, particularly the United Kingdom and France, are global actors, albeit on a m

smaller scale than the United States.

The United Kingdom has global interests and a permanent seat on the United Nat

Security Council; it is a significant member of the EU and plays a major role in Eu

security structures, of which the most important to date has been NATO. For Briti

plomacy, irrespective of Mr. Blair’s formulation of policy, relations with the United 

both bilateral and as a member of the EU, will continue to be a major concern in a 

ety of ways and at several levels. Nevertheless, the relationship as it has been under

for the last half century or so will not continue unchanged, and nor should it. The

already been some significant shifts, and more may be expected. That will be true o

the special relationship and, even if that latter should not exist, the more general o

Western Europe as a whole was able to recover after the Second World War and t

velop its political and economic structures only because of the involvement of th

United States in safeguarding the region from the threat of Soviet attack or subv

For Britain, the United States has been a major market for exports, a major area 

overseas investment, and the provider of technology and inward investment. Mo

the transatlantic relationship has been a major factor in British domestic politics 

most of the postwar era. Relations with the United States, as well as being of sign

cance themselves, tend to be a defining factor, being seen by some as the obverse 

lations with the EU and of commitments to Europe. For other European countri

transatlantic relationship has been important in somewhat different ways.

As regards Britain, at the start of the twentieth century, after difficult or distant r

tions with the United States in the nineteenth, there was talk of “Anglo-Saxendo

the future of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. That did not long endure; there was little 

stance to it, except that one world power and a potential world power spoke the 

language. That last was not a trivial fact, but it did not make for a substantial po

bond. It certainly did not take away the normal frictions and clash of interests of 

different nations. Not until the very end of the 1930s at the earliest was there any

that could justify the term “special relationship.” Such a relationship did indeed 

into existence in the course of the Second World War, but even then, on both sid

basis, quite properly, was interest, not charity or benevolence. Initially, there was 

nership of equals; indeed in many areas—military, technical, intelligence—Brita

the leading player. However, roles were mostly reversed within quite a short time

by the end of the war the United States was undoubtedly the more significant pa

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nature but in general was not succeeding.

As regards the rest of Europe, only from about 1950 was there real substance to talk of

a wider transatlantic community, one in which there were major shared interests and

underlying political and economic cement. The foundations were laid in the Marshall

Plan and then consolidated in the Atlantic Alliance. Thereafter, and throughout the

Cold War, U.S. engagement in Europe was, and was generally seen to be, absolutely

necessary to preserve the interests of both sides.2

However, there is now no need to

confront or deter a heavily armed opponent based far forward in Europe. The Soviet

Union has gone; communism is no longer an ideological challenge but almost universally perceived as a gross failure. The urgent task is to integrate Russia and the other

successor states and the liberated nations of the East into Europe and indeed into wide

international society. That effort certainly will greatly benefit from U.S. engagement,

but that will not be engagement of the sort required from 1949 to 1989. Meanwhile, th

new security threats, principally global terrorism, require very different means and dif

ferent collaborators to address them. In some important aspects the Europeans can

contribute proportionately much more to dealing with those threats than they did to

Soviet containment, while for a variety of reasons the United States in practice contrib

utes much less to it than it did to the old agenda.

In part, this Newport Paper is an attempt to provide a basis for thinking about how

transatlantic relations now stand. In part, it is an attempt to think how they could and

should be. Finally it is in part an attempt to peer into the future. Ideally, one would wish

to look forty years ahead, just a working lifetime, to reflect on where some of the current

changes we see about us might lead. However, it is extremely difficult to see so far ahead;

indeed, it is difficult to take a twenty-year span. If the aim of the monograph may be expressed briefly, it is that the Europeans in general, the British in particular (given past his

tory and perceptions), the Americans, and the world community (whatever that may be)

should all reflect on the relationships between the United States and European nations,

individually and collectively, to try to understand better how they may be improved, and

as a preliminary to that, what their objectives are as regards those relationships.

This work does not seek to be an original work of scholarship in the sense of being based

in its historical parts on archival research; to establish the facts and the narrative of the

history of American relations with Europe and with Britain up to and beyond the Second

World War it depends on work done by others. It does not seek to rehearse the whole his

tory of U.S.-British collaboration in the Second World War, nor the entire course of the

Cold War. It touches on sufficient of the former to give an understanding of how what is

called the “special relationship” came about, and how difficult and fraught it was even in

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the North Atlantic alliance was about, the underlying community of interests in re

communism (the main U.S. concern) and Soviet threats (the European one).

Such claim to originality as the monograph has rests on the analysis of what the hist

facts indicate and of what courses might best serve the interests of the United Kingd

of other European nations. Such matters are questions of judgment; different inferen

may legitimately be drawn as to the likely course of future events. At the least, howev

such inferences should be drawn unencumbered by a false understanding of what ha

pened in the past and of what the earlier motivations of the actors may have been.

The approach is very much that of traditional international relations, but from an ap

or practitioner’s, viewpoint, not that of theory. There will be no postmodern discour

What is intended, in effect, is to ask readers to set themselves an examination paper w

number of questions. It would have been good if politicians could have sat such an e

the time of the recent British election so that the government had some of the answe

They did not, and the government shows little sign of being aware of the problems.

The most significant manifestation of the transatlantic relationship for some fift

was the Atlantic Alliance. That is still sometimes referred to in terms like the “be

of European security.” It may perhaps be such, but more probably it is not. The q

tion needs to be asked and, to the extent possible, answered. At the very least, bo

alliance and the transatlantic relationship have altered, and they continue to alte

Some would argue the need to renew or refresh them. Some might argue for scra

them. The issues rather are what the challenges are that face Europeans and Ame

at the start of the twenty-first century, how they can best be met, and what impli

tions that has for how the United States, individual European states, and Europe

collectively should conduct themselves.

From those comes a more detailed list of questions addressing such matters as:

• What is the U.S. interest now in Europe?

• How does that interest compare in nature and importance with its interests in 

places, and its domestic concerns?

• What is the United States likely to wish to do to meet its interests?

• What is the United States willing to do or give to meet its interests?

• What are the regional and global interests of the United Kingdom and Europ

• What should Europeans be doing globally, given their interests and capabiliti

potential capabilities?

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British and European interests?

• How far is the United States willing to meet those interests, and how are conflicts of

interest likely to be resolved?

In short, the fundamental question of transatlantic relations (taking them to include a

the particular, individual, and special relationships) is to what extent the two sides can

be ad idem as to ends and means. Two opposed players may certainly have relations,

usually bad ones. Transatlantic ones, however, are said to be beneficial, special, vital,

etc. It is necessary to ask whether this is true for both sides of the Atlantic, and if so,

why. If it is not, then what does each bring to its relationships, what does each seek, an

what does each get from them? A further dimension of all that is whether the price exacted by or from either party could be incommensurate with the benefits bestowed.

Even if the balance is positive, it is still necessary to consider whether it will remain so,

given the likely flow of costs and benefits.

In attempting answers it is above all necessary to see the world as it really is, not

through spectacles, however venerable their original maker or comfortable their fit.

Great men may indeed give guidance of enduring value, but they cannot be expected to

have foreseen all the changes of the last fifty years, let alone the last two centuries. For

Britons the perspective on the transatlantic relationship is often very much that of the

Churchill of the Second World War. That perspective, however valid at the time, needs

to be set against Churchill’s own earlier judgments and against subsequent history.

Each reader will have to make his or her own attempt at assessing the situation. A preliminary overall judgment, however, would be that the United States and the European

democracies still have a great deal in common in terms of liberal values, a belief in human rights and freedoms, and a generally open view of economic matters. American

relations with Europe are, as a whole, much better than those with other parts of the

world, even allowing for the tensions that arose in the first few months of 2003. There

is obviously much that the United States and Europeans can and should do together.

However, the relationship cannot be the old one as established in the 1950s.

The United States may be indispensable in the sense that its size and economic weight

must be part of the management of world affairs, political and economic, but it is not

uniquely wise; it does not demonstrate perfect understanding of the appropriate solutions to a variety of problems. On the contrary, it shows unilateral tendencies that

make more difficult a joint approach with the Europeans (and others) to many issue

that would benefit from a common engagement. Above all, except on the solely military measure, great as is the weight of the United States, it is not the greater part of

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problems confronting it.

For their part, the Europeans have much to do to pull themselves together politi

and militarily. Until both sides of the Atlantic address their deficiencies, the two 

gether will not be able to make the impact upon world affairs that their econom

strength and collective abilities would justify. A new relationship could do much 

to improve global security; it would also serve better the interests of the Europea

ers and probably, in the long term, those of the United States itself.

Washington feels understandable frustration at the unwillingness of European p

to follow its lead, acknowledge the contribution that America makes to world se

and get their act together politically and militarily. The Americans might also be 

given for thinking the Europeans ungrateful for what has been done for them in 

past and shortsighted about the dangers of the future. There is good deal in all th

particularly the last part. However, there is another side to the story.

American engagement in Europe from the 1940s served U.S. ends. There was a v

tional interest in preserving Western Europe from aggression or subversion. Mor

that engagement brought great influence over European foreign and defense pol

producing a band of loyal allies. So, while there may be complaints about what e

party gave and received in the past, one can safely say that all benefited, and at a 

ally very moderate cost. For the future, the equations are more difficult. The Uni

States will be required to put in much less to European security; the Europeans w

benefit much less from American engagement of the sort that one saw in the sec

half of the twentieth century. Taking a wide view, what can and should each side 

Atlantic now expect from the other? What are the potential benefits and costs of 

laboration; what are the potential losses and costs should they fail to collaborate

For the United Kingdom, with its asserted special relationship, the same question

arise, but in even more pointed and difficult form, not least because the issues b

entangled in domestic politics. Moreover, the United Kingdom needs to consider 

what, if anything, constitutes that special relationship and how much it is prepar

pay for it, not only vis-à-vis the United States but also as regards Europe. It need

to reflect on whether the long-standing assertion that it must never be placed in 

tion of having to choose between Europe and the United States remains or can r

true. Even more importantly, it may need to consider whether, even if it does no

fact have to make such a choice, it needs to rid itself of a false consciousness that 

gests that any choice is an exclusive one between a permanent overall commitme

Washington and pursuing its interests in Europe—a decision that any country m

wish to avoid. Britain has, on occasion, certainly neglected what it ought to have 

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viously, no British government would wish to forego the benefits it gains from the

transatlantic military and intelligence relationship; however, the United States remains

in that relationship because it believes that it too gains thereby. Would it forego the

benefits of that relationship merely because the British government has aligned itself

with European partners on some issue? Would it remain in the relationship, no matter

how often the United Kingdom had foregone a European option, if America did not

benefit from it? (It may be, of course, that Washington’s gain from that relationship is

the general alignment of London with it; if so, that should be faced head-on in considering the benefits and costs to the United Kingdom.)

The wider global community has much to gain from a positive and balanced transatlantic relationship. However, it is that wider community that has least opportunity to

formulate policies, or even thinking, on that. The General Assembly of the UN is not

the ideal forum for the weighing and discussion of arguments that relate to that sort o

thing. In any case, even though the earlier, foolish, anticolonialism has abated and ther

is no Soviet-U.S. conflict to add oil to the flames, there is sufficient disgruntled reaction

to globalization and to the Western approach to a range of issues, economic and security

related, to make it unlikely that there would be a general public acknowledgment in the

General Assembly of the benefits that can and should flow from rich, liberal states cooperating on the international stage. Nevertheless, human rights, development, and

resolution of disputes could all benefit from transatlantic cooperation.

Moreover, the great questions of Islam and modernity, as well as of the integration of

Russia and China into the wider international system, could all be helped by an effective relationship between the United States and the major European players. That

would certainly need significant changes on both sides of the Atlantic, changes of

which the players may not be capable. Even so, however, the attempt should be made to

understand what is and what might be, even if the latter is not attainable in practice.

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The Beginning

The United States and Britain to 1940

Even after the radical changes in immigration and ethnic composition of the twe

century, the United States is still recognizably the child of Europe. It may have ou

grown its parent, moved away, and be determined to go its own way in life, but it

stitution and values still reflect its ancestry. They are largely British, indeed Engl

also, both through the English heritage and directly, with an admixture of Christ

and Enlightenment Europe. A century ago there were those who saw the United 

as a part of Anglo-Saxendom, and even later it was seen as an essentially Protesta

country. The former could not be said today (and in this era of political correctnes

would not be said—except by those of a French turn of phrase seeking to contrast 

free market tendencies with another more state or society-centric tradition). Howe

its machinery of government, its law, even much of the spirit animating its politics

line of descent is not only obvious but still of practical importance. The Protestan

is more difficult—it is clearly true in that the Christian Right in the United State

formidable force in politics, up to the highest levels. However, there are strong te

cies and other traditions there that make the country very different from what h

traditionally been thought of as the Protestant countries of Europe, such as Swed

the Netherlands, or Scotland; also, the Protestantism of the U.S. Right has little i

mon with the Methodism of England or the Lutheranism of Germany.

English common law—the rights established, or thought to have been establishe

medieval and early modern England, and especially in the settlement after the st

of the seventeenth century (the Glorious Revolution)—was the basis on which m

early American political thinking and much political action was based. Obviousl

political break at the American Revolution led not only to a change in the rule o

former colonies but in some cases by the colonials to efforts to emphasize that th

system and habits were not British. Moreover, the early decades of the new repub

political debates on what were essentially new issues such as states’ rights as agai

federal institutions. Nevertheless, most of the antecedents of U.S. political and le

CHAPTER ONE

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were still of major importance. Talleyrand was able even as soon after the American

Revolution as 1796 to write that the country (where he had lived since 1794) was at

heart English and that it was England more than any other country that stood to benefit from the rapidly increasing prosperity and population of its former colonists. (In

due course Bismarck was to assert that the fact that the United States and the British

Empire spoke the same language was of fundamental importance for the future.)

A common language did not, of course, prevent the United States and Britain going to

war in 1812 or forestall a variety of tensions right up to the end of the nineteenth century. Some of those derived from disputes over the border with Canada. Others involved territorial issues in which the United States had no interest of its own but was

desirous of putting pressure on Britain, as when in 1895 it informed Britain that the

latter should submit to arbitration its dispute with Venezuela over the boundaries of

British Guiana. That application of the Monroe Doctrine was accompanied by the assertion that “today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent”—an almost breathtaking assertion of imperium from a supposedly nonimperial power.1

Yet

other disagreements derived from political tension unrelated to boundaries, such as the

revision in 1901 of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850 (on the isthmian canal) and, before that, problems that arose from British actions during the U.S. Civil War. In short,

during most of the nineteenth century, there was nothing very warm or special in Anglo–

U.S. interstate relations; only at the very end was a new development perceptible.

From the 1890s, there was an appreciation in Britain that the world order, under which

there had been unprecedented economic growth, could no longer be sustained by British seapower alone. Despite the jingoism triggered by the Venezuelan incident, there

was a degree of rapprochement between the United States and the United Kingdom

over the decade up to 1904, and this was perhaps a factor in decisions, taken on wider

grounds, by which strategically Britain was to abandon the Western Hemisphere. Ther

was still an undercurrent of thinking in the U.S. Navy that envisaged the possibility of

war with Britain (and this was to resurface later), but the more general attitude was

that interests were likely to be shared.

More generally, the founding fathers of the U.S. republic envisaged peaceful contact

and commerce with all nations but entangling alliances with none. (The original treaty

with France was in effect dead by 1793, and the Jay Treaty of 1794, while an accommodation with British interests, was not an entangling alliance.) The founders’ vision shaped

much of the country’s foreign policy through the nineteenth century. Trade, inward investment, and emigration ensured a great deal of contact between the United States and Europe. However, there was nothing that could be called a special transatlantic relationship

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dependence on the Royal Navy for the effectiveness of the Monroe Doctrine.

At the end of the nineteenth century the United States went to war with Spain, b

was essentially a Western Hemisphere matter. Early in the new century it at first 

trived to keep out of the Great War (the First World War), coming in only when 

shipping suffered from unrestricted submarine warfare. It did not integrate its m

efforts (as opposed to some extent its naval ones) with its allies, and it bore only 

and small (albeit important) part of the fighting. At the end, the United States p

major role in the peace negotiations and the shaping of postwar Europe but then 

to ratify the treaty establishing the League of Nations, in the formulation of whi

had been the prime mover.

Between the two world wars, the United States did not engage greatly in Europea

fairs—there was no distinguishable transatlantic relationship. U.S.-British relatio

were generally reserved. American military planners still considered war between 

two countries possible up to the 1930s; for their part, in the 1930s the British ma

assumption that there would be no war with the United States in the next ten ye

hardly an assumption that relations were so close and special that war was incon

able.2

There was clear recognition in British circles that a friendly attitude from t

United States was by no means to be relied on. In 1927 Churchill, then Chancello

the Exchequer, commented that while it was undoubtedly right, in the interests o

peace, to go on talking about war with the United States as unthinkable, everyon

that it was not true.3

However disastrous such a war would be, Britain would not 

to put itself into the power of the United States and could not tell what they mig

if they were in a position to give orders about British policy in India, Egypt, or C

The same year, the Foreign Office commented, “We have treated them too much 

blood relations, not sufficiently as a foreign country.” In 1928 the secretary of th

net noted that Britain had conceded to the United States over the League of Nati

the Japanese alliance, naval armaments, debt settlement, and Ireland. Britain, he 

mented, was always making concessions and was always being told that the next 

would change the U.S. attitude. However, the United States only became more ov

bearing and suspicious than ever.

It may be sufficient to round out this catalogue of official assessment with the vi

the head of the Foreign Office in 1932: “We have been too tender, not to say subs

ent, with the United States for a long time past. . . . It is still necessary, and I desi

much as ever, that we should get on well with this untrustworthy race. But we sh

never get very far: they will always let us down.” Whether or not Neville Chambe

would have expressed matters in quite that form, the case is that his own dealing

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the basis of a far from friendly view of that country.

Economic relations and tariffs were one source of friction; however, probably the major source of tension was naval rivalry. After the First World War the Royal Navy was

still the larger, but the United States was determined to achieve parity, and also to end

the alliance between Britain and Japan. At the 1921 Washington Conference on naval

armaments, the United States proposed the ratio of 5:5:3 in major capital ships between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Extraordinarily, it also listed

the names of twenty-three ships that it said the Royal Navy must give up.

Britain could not afford a naval race with the United States and acquiesced in both lim

itations on capital ships and the ending of its Japanese alliance. Nevertheless, new tension over naval armaments followed in 1927 at a further conference called by the

United States to consider smaller ships. With a worldwide empire to protect and exten

sive trade routes upon which the country was absolutely dependent, Britain was in a

position in no sense symmetrical with that of the United States. Britain sought the

right to seventy cruisers but in 1930 agreed that the 5:5:3 ratio should apply to cruisers

as well, with a limit of fifty of these ships for the Royal Navy.

Despite quarrels with Britain in the nineteenth century, there had been little U.S.

clamor against the British Empire. Not until the twentieth century, when the United

States itself was or was becoming a global power, did this particular source of friction

become important. The watershed was around the time of the First World War, after

the fading of the feelings about Anglo-Saxendom. There became manifest in the interwar period, and indeed in some ways up to the last quarter of the twentieth century, a

U.S. antagonism to the Empire as such. In part the hostility stemmed from a category

mistake, confusing twentieth-century colonies with the pre-Revolutionary arrangements in America that had been so forcefully rejected at independence (and around

and about which many myths had been fostered as part of U.S. nation building). In part,

it was a reflection of the naval rivalry. In part it was an economic struggle—there was a

strong desire to open up the Empire to U.S. trade and to remove a commercial rival.4

Thi

last showed itself most uncompromisingly in the post–Second World War negotiations

on financial institutions, where all J. M. Keynes’s eloquence could not win greater accom

modation for the battered condition of the British economy and the burdens upon it.

The anticolonial posture was just about hidden at the time of the Atlantic Charter

(1941) but showed itself in pressure on Churchill to advance Indian self-rule during

the war. It became glaringly manifest at the time of Suez (1956); the United States then

sought to distance itself from the old colonial powers in order to appear more attractive in the Third World as the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union spread to

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in Rhodesia, when the chief American concern was to appear more attractive tha

Soviet Union to rising African nationalists.

Some of the anticolonialism was understandable in the sense of the changing wo

some of it was the normal reaction of one power seeking to diminish the potenti

possible rival. The latter, however, does not fit with any picture of a uniquely gen

relationship with Britain—the United States, like any other power pursued its ow

terests. It was not wholly successful in its judgments as to what would best serve 

for example, it underestimated the instability, and consequent potential advanta

the Soviet Union, generated by the early and rapid dissolution of the old empire

well as by the weakness of Britain—for instance, in the loss of its power to suppo

Greece and Turkey.

Great-power rivalry aside, in the 1930s U.S. international economic policy (in pa

lar its protectionism) was largely destructive and American international securit

icy largely ineffectual (for example, Washington would not apply effective sancti

Italy after the invasion of Abyssinia). Indeed, none of the major powers comes o

the period very well: Britain declined to support either the U.S. appeal in 1931 to 

demn Japanese aggression or Franklin D. Roosevelt’s suggestion of a peace confe

in 1938 following Hitler’s threatening behavior, and France was not an effective 

Nevertheless, by the end of the decade Roosevelt was clear about the menace fro

many and was starting to talk informally about providing practical help to Britai

the event of war.6

On Churchill’s return to office at the outbreak of war, Rooseve

vited Churchill to keep in touch personally. However, there was little response to 

chill’s messages, and neutrality still enjoyed very strong support in the United St

Meanwhile, the stopping and searching of American vessels by the Royal Navy p

voked much friction, as it had done in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars a

the early years of the First World War.

In May 1940 the British War Cabinet concluded that if France fell prospects of fi

victory would be largely dependent on American cooperation. It was by no mean

when, or indeed if, that would be forthcoming. Even if it were, there was nothing 

fore 1940 to suggest that there would be an enduring relationship marked by any 

ticular friendliness between the United Kingdom and the United States. From 19

there was the start of something that might be called a special relationship, but n

more than a start. Only with the agreement of the destroyers-for-bases deal in A

1940 was there a concrete aspect to that, a development that led on quite rapidly 

Lend-Lease and a remarkable degree of intelligence cooperation. Those actions m

a real entanglement of the United States in transatlantic affairs, but the country 

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clear that there would in the future be anything special about U.S. relations with Europe as a whole, as opposed to other parts of the world. Only the Soviet threat and the

consequent U.S. security commitment to Europe gave rise to what is recognizable as a

general transatlantic relationship in the sense in which that term has been commonly

used in the last fifty years or so. In the light of earlier experience, it was not clear that

there would even be any enduring special relationship with Britain.

Churchill saw his country as having an assured seat at the top table, and he believed

that a relationship between the United States and the British Empire would be a highly

desirable feature of the postwar world. There is no indication that either Roosevelt or

Harry Truman thought in such terms, despite Churchill’s emphasis on the closeness

and specialness of the relationship, both in public and in his private correspondence.

Common language and culture and economic ties counted for something, but memories, accurate or inaccurate, about the circumstances that had led to independence, and

clashes of interest, economic or other, counted for at least as much at the other side of

the scale. Misty visions of Anglo-Saxendom had been short-lived and did not extend

beyond the First World War—at any rate, until revived in rather different form by

Churchill. It was he who made, out of dire necessity, what he and subsequent British

politicians saw as a special relationship, and out of what might have been foreseen as a

temporary relationship what promised to him to be an enduring one.

As regards Europe more generally, while some argued that American engagement from

1917 had been to save Europe from itself (an argument heard more, and more credibly

after the Second World War), there was no serious suggestion before the 1940s that

continuing U.S. engagement was essential for European security. In the 1930s it was

seen, especially by France, as desirable, but its absence did not preclude the forming of

alliances and security arrangements that it was assumed would work without America

involvement. Certainly, the French would have welcomed such engagement in the interwar years, but the idea that the European powers could not conduct their own security

policies, and were not in fact the main world actors, dates only from after 1943. The necessity for U.S. involvement arose at a particular time for particular reasons; it is not a law

of nature, essential though it was, or indeed may be in some future circumstance.

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The Special Relationship Grows and Ends,

1940–1946

Following the Battle of Britain, there was growing support in the United States 

Britain, and Roosevelt continued to do all that he could, short of war, to help w

the provision of materiel and in other ways.1

After his election victory in 1940, 

destroyers-for-bases deal was followed at the beginning of 1941 by Lend-Lease, b

exceptional degree of collaboration on intelligence, and by preliminary staff talk

such military and intelligence cooperation lay the genesis, and lies the essence, o

became known, in Britain at any rate, as the “special relationship.” The fact that 

had its origins in war gave it certain characteristics that still mark what is distinc

about U.S.-British relations. These embrace military ties, intelligence, and, some

a certain synergy at the highest policy levels.

Lend-Lease was devised by Roosevelt in response to an approach from Churchill 

cember 1940. Essentially the United States undertook to lend the supplies urgent

quired against postwar payment. Churchill was to describe this as the most unso

act in the history of any nation. Nevertheless, it came with terms that he himself 

were humiliating—not only the sale of assets in the United States but the handin

of the gold reserves in Cape Town as interim measures until the bill passed into 

March 1941. However, at that stage, Averell Harriman, appointed to coordinate a

tance in London, was instructed to “recommend everything we can do, short of 

keep the British Isles afloat.”

Even before that the intelligence relationship had started to grow. From Churchi

coming prime minister he had taken steps to coordinate British intelligence oper

in the United States. His agent for that, William Stephenson, was also to establish 

entirely new degree of intelligence cooperation with the United States. Roosevelt 

to his collaborating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under J. Edgar Hoo

With Hoover’s consent, Stephenson recruited a large network of agents, and the 

acted on the information provided by them on Axis activities. However, the very 

CHAPTER TWO

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Stephenson was rapidly developing a full-size secret police and intelligence service. That

did not lead to a diminution in the British activities, and in fact in 1941 Stephenson’s rol

as British security coordinator was formally recognized. Indeed he went farther, attempting to maneuver to have a (named) coordinator of all U.S. intelligence appointed; his efforts bore fruit in June 1941, when following the appointment of

William Donovan to coordinate U.S. overseas intelligence Stephenson was able to report: “You can imagine how relieved I am . . . that our man is in a position of such

importance for our efforts.”3

This coup, not surprisingly, had an adverse effect upon Stephenson’s relations with the

FBI. Hoover resented his playing politics in the bureau’s own backyard, and playing

them effectively. Nevertheless, security cooperation continued, and there was some

pooling of military intelligence.4

Liaison on Britain’s materiel requirements before the United States was formally at war

included exchanges of scientific information with, inter alia, the transfer of knowledge

and activity westward across the Atlantic. The first serious exchanges of militarily useful scientific information took place in the autumn of 1940. A British delegation was

instructed to tell the Americans everything that Britain was doing in the scientific field

This included work on radar, jet engines, nuclear fission, and antisubmarine warfare.

The U.S. Office of Scientific Research later called this the most valuable cargo ever

brought to American shores.

The military potential of atomic energy had been realized at about the beginning of th

war. Albert Einstein had written to Roosevelt on it in 1939. By mid-1941 the British

were convinced that it would be possible to make a uranium bomb of enormous powe

However, they also realized that they could not devote sufficient resources to explore a

the potential avenues; accordingly the Ministry of Defence proposed that laboratory

and design work should continue in Britain but that development of a full-scale plant

should be considered in Canada or the United States. Frederick Lindemann, Churchill’

scientific adviser, urged that the plant be built in Britain or Canada, since “whosoever

possesses such a plant should be able to dictate terms to the rest of the world. However

much I may trust my neighbour, and depend on him, I am very much averse to putting

myself completely at his mercy and would therefore not press the Americans to undertake this work.”

Perhaps because of a common perception of the significance of this work, collaboration on it soon became an area of considerable difficulty; formal agreements unraveled

and not until 1958 were matters finally put onto a mutually acceptable basis.5

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tific Research and Development) reported the British findings. A committee cha

him concluded in November 1941 that a fission bomb was indeed feasible. In De

ber Churchill agreed to a full exchange of information. Actually, Bush had origin

suggested that atomic weapons should be regarded as a joint project and Roosev

endorsed the idea, but that approach had been deflected. Nevertheless, within m

the U.S. input of resources far exceeded the British, and in June 1942, in order to 

serve the British position, Churchill urged the pooling of all information, the tw

tions to work together and share the results equally between them. By then the U

position had changed, and the British were excluded from U.S. work. In August 

Churchill persuaded Roosevelt to lift the barriers; under the Quebec agreement 

rangements were made designed to ensure full and effective collaboration betwe

two countries and establish a mutual veto on the use of atomic weapons. The ag

ment imposed some restraints on postwar commercial and industrial exploitation 

atomic energy by Britain; there were also de facto restraints at the time, in British e

sion from work on plutonium (as opposed to uranium) technology and weaponiz

In consequence, Churchill was moved to return to the issue of collaboration in S

ber 1944, by which time, as British scientists moved to the United States, work in 

ain on atomic weapons had almost closed down. He and Roosevelt then initialed 

agreement providing the basis for indefinite full collaboration after the war betw

the United States and Britain in developing atomic energy for military and comm

purposes. This mutual effort was to continue unless and until terminated by join

agreement. Nevertheless, in February 1946, the United States refused a British re

for the exchange of information, and the McMahon Bill threatened to terminate 

all communication about atomic energy. A series of exchanges did not advance ma

and in August the McMahon Bill was signed into law.6

In his memoirs Truman ass

that he could not respond to a request by Clement Attlee because of the McMahon 

Atomic energy was not to be the only issue over which Attlee felt let down by Tru

as the earlier relationship waned. In terms of immediate practical effect, the abru

mination of Lend-Lease without consultation, announced on 21 August 1945, se

days after the end of the war with Japan, had a greater impact. Britain had been l

at war than the United States, had suffered far greater physical and material dam

and incurred a heavier burden of casualties. (British military casualties in the Se

World War were 244,000 dead, to which may be added another 100,000 for the D

ions and Empire;8

U.S. casualties were 292,000.) Attlee sent a team under Keynes 

gotiate a loan to mitigate the effects of the ending of the wartime arrangements, 

Keynes’s eloquence could not gain the easy terms he sought to offset the weaken

Britain’s position by the years of war. After three months of hard negotiations th

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sistence that pounds sterling should be made convertible within a year and that imperial preference end following the ratification of the Bretton Woods agreement.9

All this

hardly demonstrated a very positive special relationship.

At the time of the U.S. entry into the war all this had lain in the future. Immediately

after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Churchill determined to meet Roosevelt, and he did

so that month, December 1941. They then laid down the strategic outline and organizational framework for the joint conduct of the war. They agreed on a strategy of

“Germany first.” However, while content to give priority to the European theater, the

Americans were hesitant about the British peripheral approach, which, General Georg

C. Marshall suspected, was designed to protect their interests in the Mediterranean and

in the Empire. Marshall saw North Africa as a diversion; large-scale operations there

would preclude a landing in France in 1943. By the time Churchill and Roosevelt next

met, in mid-1942, the U.S. military staffs were very resistant to Mediterranean operations. There were other tensions too; Marshall himself felt that there was too much

anti-British feeling on the American side.

Nevertheless, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed on the concentration of land, sea, and air

forces under a supreme commander in each theater. There was to be integration everywhere except in the Pacific. Moreover, overall command was centralized in the Combined Chiefs of Staff, who had oversight of general military strategy, supplies, and re

inforcements. Materiel and raw materials were coordinated too. Churchill also

informed Roosevelt of the extent of British penetration of German ciphers through

ULTRA; in due course U.S. officers were trained in handling that closely protected intel

ligence, and special liaison units were established with U.S. headquarters.

A further outcome of the first post–Pearl Harbor meeting was the appointment of Field

Marshal Sir John Dill to liaise with Marshall and the U.S. Chiefs of Staff. This turned out

to be an outstandingly successful appointment, not least because of the friendship between Dill and Marshall that ensued. It provided the basis for close collaboration between the chiefs of staff in the conduct of the war. However, British-American military

relations were not easy. Dill’s successor as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Alan

Brooke, did not make a favorable impression on Marshall, nor did Marshall impress

Brooke, at any rate as a strategist. In particular, Brooke thought that Marshall failed to

understand the military difficulties of a landing in occupied France, which Roosevelt was

anxious to see happen in 1943 in order to take pressure off the Soviet Union.10 Nor was

Brooke impressed by Dwight D. Eisenhower. Meanwhile, Admiral Ernest J. King for the

U.S. Navy felt throughout that the Japanese were his prime objective and that the conduc

of the war against them in the Pacific was essentially an American affair.

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British influence and the decay of the relationship that was so special to him and 

he so cherished. He floated various ideas to try to counteract the tendency; for e

ple, in May 1943 he suggested a common form of citizenship for the United Stat

the British Commonwealth. Such palliatives could not heal the fundamental pro

In June 1944, in a message to Roosevelt, drafted but not sent, Churchill threaten

resign over ANVIL, the plan for an Allied landing in the south of France. The disa

ments that arose in connection with this operation were, indeed, the start of a ne

tern of U.S.-British disputes. Before the operation the British and American chie

staff had rarely failed to come to eventual agreement on a major issue; after it th

rarely on the same side. Reflecting the growing discrepancy of power, the British 

almost always on the losing side of these disagreements, notwithstanding Church

tendency to bombard Roosevelt at this time, and again in the spring of 1945, wit

many long messages.

The differences had started even before ANVIL. In early 1942 Roosevelt wrote to 

chill urging progress on self-government for India. That was not well received, n

subsequent advice and comment in the same vein. More fundamental to the con

the war and the winning of the peace were the divisions that opened up on the h

dling of the Soviet Union. British-U.S. coordination there was never properly co

dated before Roosevelt’s death. In March 1942 Roosevelt wrote to Churchill (usin

himself the words “brutally frank”) that he thought he personally could handle J

Stalin better than either the Foreign Office or the State Department. This foresha

later divisions that persisted as long as Roosevelt lived. They were most manifest 

Yalta conference of February 1945. Churchill had been anxious to have two or th

nights with Roosevelt in advance. The president declined, and their joint prepara

was confined to a working dinner. The result was seriously impaired coordinatio

dealing with Stalin’s objectives for Eastern Europe.

In part the problem was Roosevelt’s declining health, and in part a difference of 

gic view—Roosevelt wished to explore the terms on which the USSR might ente

war against Japan, terms that he discussed and settled with Stalin without even c

ing Churchill. While his successor, Truman, opened with a hard line on Soviet ba

in and over Poland, he declined Churchill’s suggestion in May 1945, immediately 

the end of the war in Europe, that they should meet Stalin. He insisted that noth

done that might give the impression that they were “ganging up” on him. Truma

suggested that he himself should meet Stalin alone before any tripartite meeting

At the end of the war, Britain still had considerable military power and political 

and so a significant role, in Europe and elsewhere, but London was scarcely influ

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however, were having a great impact on the United Kingdom. Only in intelligence, where

there was still at least something of a British lead, was the relationship “special.”

More generally, Britain and France still saw themselves as world actors. Both had majo

interests in Asia and the Middle East; neither saw eye to eye with the United States on

those areas. The major divisions (after Truman’s policies on immigration to Palestine)

were over communist China, Korea, the Middle East, and Indochina, and over the

strong current of U.S. anticolonialism already manifest in Roosevelt’s dealings with

Churchill. (The United States deviated from that line where it judged that the need to

confront communism called for a different approach. For instance, it was prepared to

give France a measure of support in its Indochina wars, and had the British been

keener it would have given more.)

The American frustration of the Suez intervention struck a very heavy blow indeed

against Britain and France. Even before the intervention was launched, the United

States had been undermining the British position in Egypt. The Americans apparently

had concluded that President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt was their best hope for the

future, even at a time when he was turning to the Soviet Union for arms supplies (and

even in the light of his apparent regret at the Axis defeat). Over Suez, the U.S. action

went far beyond not supporting allies in a particular action; it actively undermined their

general position and standing. The outcome was to have a direct impact in Europe as we

as in the longer term, making the general Western position in the Middle East more diffi

cult.11 In the light of Suez, Britain and France drew opposing conclusions that still have a

major impact on transatlantic relations and on European security policies.

The French concluded from this episode that they could not rely on the Americans and

should therefore seek to be as independent as possible in their capabilities, not least in

developing a nuclear arsenal. The British concluded, in contrast, that significant military action without the support of the United States was impossible and that they and

the Europeans should therefore put all effort into locking Europe and the United State

together, not into independent security policies.

The divisions between the United States and the Europeans in Asia were not only over

general political issues; they extended to the nature of military operations and how the

military should relate to the political. Eisenhower clung to the view that nuclear weapons were more effective than, but not different in kind from, conventional ones; this at

titude in some senses persisted to the end of the Cold War in U.S. war-fighting doctrine,

and it has returned post–11 September 2001 in some American thinking on the need

for nuclear weapons to preempt other weapons of mass destruction. Likewise, in and

over Korea, many of the American military—not only, though preeminently, General

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ish (and others) remained opposed to that, and there were significant tensions b

Washington and London over the sort of war to be waged. Despite British milita

tributions—and their high quality, albeit relatively small scale—to the Korean W

U.S. military did not regard the British approach as helpful.

The special relationship as Churchill conceived it was short-lived. It sprang from 

exigencies of war, and as victory came into view and American resources, skills, a

manpower were mobilized, the relationship was transformed. With Attlee and Tr

it did not survive at all in the sense of a policy relationship at the highest levels, a

when he returned to office in 1951 Churchill was unable to revive the link. In lat

he proclaimed in public the priority that he gave to the Anglo-American partner

but in private, and semiprivate, he was exasperated by U.S. complacence toward 

drogen bomb and stubborn resistance to summitry.

Following the Churchill-Roosevelt era, there was a gap of more than ten years be

there was again significant personal chemistry at the highest levels, and not unti

Ronald Reagan–Margaret Thatcher years was there something of the old nationa

macy (it is dubious whether there was much personal intimacy on Roosevelt’s si

tween him and Churchill, as opposed to that between Reagan and Thatcher). By 

in any case, the totally subordinate role of Britain was manifest.

Well before Suez (1956) there were significant divergences in the Middle East, no

over the events leading up to the creation of Israel. After Suez, the unexpected de

ment was the surprisingly warm relationship that grew up between Harold Macm

and John F. Kennedy.12 There was then nothing very positive to note until Thatch

Reagan, and thereafter another gap until Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.

Thatcher and Reagan, and Blair and Clinton, were linked by shared political visio

instincts, but even so the degree of influence was not constant. Reagan invaded G

nada without consultation and tried to impose extraterritorial sanctions on trad

the Soviet Union; Clinton was less than helpful on Northern Ireland on a numbe

occasions. With the present President Bush, there seems no basis for a general po

alignment, but the British prime minister has sought to identify himself very clo

with the United States, not least on and by the deployment and use of military fo

On the eve of the first Blair-Bush meeting, the president’s national security advis

that it was part of the special relationship. However, increasing unilateralism in W

ington in the wake of the 11 September attacks may imply a very restricted view 

what such a relationship means from the U.S. end, notwithstanding the ability o

two leaders to get along together. Despite Mr. Blair’s efforts, it is not clear that Br

has gained any leverage on American policy formation (that is, over what to do, 

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respective national views over Middle Eastern issues in particular may make it impossi

ble for him to follow Mr. Bush quite so closely in the future, though there are few signs

that the prime minister will seek to distance himself.

In short, despite some real substance, there has not been a continuous or consistent

happy relationship between British and U.S. leaders since the Second World War.

There was little special about the relationship in the immediate postwar years, excep

for the intelligence dimension, and it may be significant that the United Kingdom re

mained in some ways the senior partner up into the 1950s—in other words, the relationship remained special in an area where Britain had something that the United

States needed. Beyond this specific area, there have been very tight bounds to the extent of British influence upon the United States and, in particular, to its impact on

high-level policy formation.

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The American Half Century,

and European Contrasts

The United States ended the Second World War as a global power. It largely fram

postwar economic system, played a very major role in the creation of the United 

tions, and almost single-handedly set about remaking Japan. Within a few years 

started the reconstruction of Europe through Marshall aid, and from 1949 was b

into the military security of that area through the Atlantic Alliance, based on the 

ington Treaty. Europe was perceived as the most important area of American int

at least from 1949, although the Middle East and Asia were also major areas of U

volvement from about the same time. As British power declined in the former, th

United States came to have an increasingly important role there, while the Korea

and Indochina brought it into involvement on the mainland of Asia.

Roosevelt had visions about managing the world in collaboration with the USSR

man came to a different view about that and quite speedily saw the need to confr

Soviet ambitions. His views, so far as Europe was concerned, bore fruit from 194

date of the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine. (Marshall’s great speech, lau

ing what was to become known as the plan, was specifically designed to win over 

critics of the doctrine.) That year also saw the breakdown of discussions with th

viet Union on the future of Germany. In the light of that, Ernest Bevin, Foreign S

tary, told Marshall that there would have to be an understanding (though not a f

alliance) between the principal Western countries to convince the USSR that it c

advance no farther. By 1949 that thought, aided by the fall of Czechoslovakia and 

Soviet attempt to cut off Berlin, had grown into the Washington Treaty, though e

then both the drafting of its Article 5 and the explanations given to the U.S. Sena

avoided, or rather sought to avoid, any automatic or long-term engagement of A

can forces in Europe.

For some forty years after 1949, the initiative, diplomatic as well as military, in E

pean and other security regions, largely rested with the United States, which was 

CHAPTER THREE

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was generally able to get its way on all significant issues. In particular, the structure and

development of NATO reflected its wishes. It enjoyed, moreover, some political and

diplomatic successes, notably over Berlin and German unification—in which last it ha

the decisive voice, playing a more honorable role than the European powers generally.

Nevertheless, in the same period the United States fought an unsuccessful war in

Indochina and saw significant policy reverses in the Middle East. Moreover, until the

end of the Cold War, the United States was to a degree balanced militarily by the Sovie

Union and was accordingly limited in the scope of its military and to some extent political and diplomatic interventions.

That changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the beginning of the twentyfirst century the United States had more political power than any other nation or

group of nations, not least because of its military power—in which after 1991 no state

could possibly rival it. The United States was supreme by almost any measure, in terms

of defense budget and general high-performance military systems, force-projection capabilities, naval tonnage, numbers of advanced combat aircraft, nuclear submarines,

and advanced surveillance and reconnaissance systems, including space assets. It retained, moreover, the leading global economic role, though other international actors

also had significant economic influence and from time to time U.S. supremacy was felt

to be under challenge from Japan or Europe.

Military, economic, and political power are intimately linked. Without economic

power, military power will not last; without military power, economic power can be

rapidly eroded. Political power usually reflects economic or military power or both.

Most often, it principally reflects the latter and may in fact enhance it by providing allies, support, or acquiescence. Despite its apparent and real supremacy, from the begin

ning of the twenty-first century U.S. political power was, however, under challenge

from outside actors, state and nonstate. Psychologically, the challenge culminated in

the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, which demonstrated (inter alia) the defect

of relying mainly on military instruments to make the United States secure but led nev

ertheless in due course to the national security strategy of September 2002. That document makes manifest that the United States intends to maintain military supremacy

over all potential contenders and that it is more and more likely to try to operate outside the international system that others follow, however imperfectly.

U.S. Unilateralism

From the very beginning, even before independence, a strand of exceptionalism ran

through a number of the communities that became the United States, a theme derived

in part from English Protestantism. Today, American exceptionalism takes many forms

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does in terms of imposing its own conditions and laws; in a belief that the United 

has the right to do what it wishes in almost all circumstances; and in a sense that A

can soil is sacred. The latter was a major factor in the drive for missile defense and 

rejection of intrusive verification arrangements in connection with chemical and b

cal weapons. (Logically, the exposure of the real vulnerability of the United States 

have been expected to lessen the emphasis on these aspects of exceptionalism, but 

seems rather to have reinforced it in many quarters.) In sum, there is a widespre

ing in the United States that the country is, and should be, privileged as a very sp

power, with uniquely good laws and practices. (A somewhat more sophisticated 

of this proposition is that as the United States has unique capabilities it also has 

responsibilities for global order and stability, and so should be privileged above 

nations in the same way that the policeman has certain powers that the civilian d

not. The flaw here is that policemen are given specific powers by law and are acc

able to both the courts and police authorities for their actions and the use or mi

their powers, whereas the United States is neither so empowered nor accountabl

Linked with the sense of exceptionalism there have always been isolationist tend

in American public opinion, though these have not prevented deep engagement 

foreign countries. Much more significant has been unilateralism, the tendency fo

United States to seek to be unconstrained by any outside power or agent. George 

ington urged his countrymen to steer clear of permanent alliances with any port

the foreign world; Thomas Jefferson advised peace, commerce, and honest friend

with all nations, entangling alliances with none. That guidance has generally pre

with the major exceptions of the post–World War II alliances, most especially NA

and perhaps, following 11 September, of the so-called war on terror.

As regards entanglement, even in the case of NATO the U.S. freedom of action w

little constrained, partly because of American preeminence, economic and milita

and partly because despite all the rhetoric of the NATO guarantee, Article 5 of th

Washington Treaty, drafted to be acceptable to the Senate, commits the United S

no more than taking such action as it deems necessary in case of an attack. As re

peace and commerce, the United States has been a leading force in trying to imp

sanctions on various states that have aroused its displeasure, and the war on terr

led to the adoption of the maxim “who is not with us is against us”—which hard

makes for honest friendship, given the genuine differences of opinion that can a

tackling some very difficult policy issues that pursuit of that war encounters.

Beyond particular alliances and their constraints, the United States has shown a 

reluctance to be bound by international law and, at any rate in recent years, at le

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tions, its persistent difficulties with the UN, its general belief that it can, if need be, act

unilaterally without UN Security Council authority, and so on, are matters of record.1

The same is true, particularly in recent years, of its attitude to international treaties.

The Senate’s failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; the watering down of

the verification provisions of the chemical warfare convention; the wrecking of verification of the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention; the withdrawal from the Anti

Ballistic Missile Treaty; the stepping back from the Kyoto environmental accords—all

betoken an approach that rejects outside constraints. As early as 2000 there were signs

of more of this to come, with pressure for the weaponization of space.

All this made and makes for a large difference between most European states and the

United States on the appropriate contributions to security of international law and international organizations. Given that there are undesirable agents and trends in the

wider world, the question is whether they should be tackled unilaterally or multilaterally and, in any case, whether one should rely primarily on military and technical means

or on political and diplomatic. American and European answers to these questions

have differed. There is little that the United States alone can do to check weapons of

mass destruction (WMD) proliferation. Some initiatives, such as missile defense, seem

to assume that such proliferation is unstoppable and that the United States has to cope

with the world that it will certainly produce. Europeans are more likely to ask why

states proliferate and whether it would not be better to address the root causes, which

with few exceptions are genuine security concerns. They would, in any case, wish to

make and uphold effective checks on proliferation by treaties with as good verification

procedures as possible.2

The United States has different views, entertaining grave

doubts about binding itself by treaty and about allowing intrusive verification of itself

Following the 11 September attacks the United States proclaimed itself as engaged in a

war on terrorism. There is almost universal agreement among governments that terror

ism must be opposed, though there are differences about what constitutes it. The

United States now makes opposition to terrorism something like an article of faith.

Long experience has given some European states more relevant expertise than the

United States, whose intelligence agencies before 2001 had hardly focused on the sort

of skills necessary for combating the threat and whose machinery of government had

serious deficiencies with respect to it.3

Europeans are much more likely to ask why terrorists are motivated to act as they do. Many in the United States could not see the con

nections between what the United States had done and not done and the attacks of

September 2001; moreover, many there do not understand that there will be serious

risks as long as there remain areas of grave deprivation, misery, and deep resentment a

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economic, by the powerful.4

In part, the differing approaches are a reflection of relative military strengths—t

ropeans lack overwhelming military power and so must seek other ways to attain 

ends. Matters go deeper than that, however. The very existence and functioning o

EU has amounted to training, of a sort that the United States has never experien

the sharing of sovereignty, even though this has only recently started to affect th

sic concerns of diplomacy. The longer diplomatic tradition in at least some Euro

countries is also relevant. For the nineteenth century, and almost all the first fort

of the twentieth, major European powers were themselves the world powers. The

cesses and influence were not usually the result of overwhelmingly powerful mil

forces. In the earlier years, the Concert of Europe meant limiting each nation’s o

ambitions and actions; hegemony was not the name of the game, at any rate betw

1815 and 1914. All this gives Europeans a different perspective on international r

tions and security tools, an outlook reinforced in many cases by consciousness o

direct impact of major wars on their societies and well-being.

Economic Power

The economic dominance of the United States became a major global factor afte

World War Two. Europe was devastated; most other parts of the world had not b

economically developed. The United States had a booming economy and was the 

creditor nation. Its industries were technologically advanced, and the rules and f

work of the world economic system were largely set, through the Bretton Woods 

ments, in terms advocated by the United States and that met U.S. requirements. 

picture had been modified by the end of the twentieth century by the growth an

covery of Europe, the rise of Japan and certain other Asian economies, and by th

tening development of China and India. The latter two, the last in particular, stil

far to go but the United States is no longer a unique economic actor.

In terms of workforce flexibility, technical and scientific base, and general entrep

neurial qualities, the U.S. economy has great strengths that may keep it in the top

league throughout the twenty-first century. Underlying it are certain social weak

notably the poor underclass and limited provision for it; however, there is movem

out of the underclass, and for Americans not born into it perhaps more upward 

ity is possible than in most other societies. The very fact that the United States is 

one country also brings advantages in certain matters in terms of economies of s

By the end of the twenty-first century U.S. shares of industrial and global econo

output will almost certainly be smaller than at the beginning; some industries an

tivities will have collapsed. However, the country as a whole is likely to stay near 

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power, which will provide important inputs to military and political power.

An immediate result of the attacks of 11 September was the laying out of additional

money, much of it for homeland defense (including pressing ahead with missile defense, which, whatever its theoretical virtues, is clearly not a counter to terrorist or sim

ilar assault on the continental United States) and the retention of military programs

that might have limited utility but that in the present climate no Washington player

wishes to be seen scrapping. That spending connects with the most significant foreseeable change in the American economic position, a change that concerns the dollar. The

country runs very large and unsustainable fiscal and current-account deficits. The dollar has fallen and may well fall farther, with major impact on the ability of the United

States to finance its lifestyle and consumption. That will have psychological effects at

home and abroad, and so will affect its political power.

Military Power

The United States sees military force as a key investment and spends more than the EU

Russia, China, and Japan together on defense; this lead is set to increase. Moreover, most

of the other technically advanced nations with military capabilities are its allies. Under

the circumstances, it might have been a source of astonishment that the United States

continues to spend as it does and to seek ever newer and more advanced systems.5

However, it aims to acquire and maintain military superiority in any and all circumstances

and to avoid the rise of any military rival.6

It has continued to pull farther ahead in total expenditure and technical developments, and farther away in its views on the need

for and utility of military force in international affairs. The forging ahead with such tech

nical developments as network-centric warfare and such doctrinal issues as preemption

or even the use of nuclear weapons for war fighting means that those who cannot or do

not wish to wage war the American way need to consider both how and to what extent

they can collaborate with the U.S. military and, to the extent that they do not do that,

how they can protect and further their interests where military force is a necessary factor

The United States cultivates a so-called warrior ethos within its armed forces; it has in

the recent past espoused a doctrine of overwhelming force, arguing that when American troops are committed they should be in such numbers and wield such firepower

that they can quickly overcome any opponent. That doctrine may have been modified

by the experience of the 2003 war in Iraq and its aftermath, but it, and the associated

but separate issue of seeking high-technology solutions to military problems, still influences the general approach to many security situations. Indeed, the emphasis on

seeking overwhelming force through technical solutions seems likely to continue to be

a major driver in the evolution of U.S. military capacity.

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testing, but at the same time least likely, cases of conflict, and it was most unwilling 

risk its troops in many actual crises in ways that might have helped resolve them.7

light of Vietnam and then Somalia, there was a general American reluctance to risk 

alties, an effort to avoid them by technical solutions and combat at stand-off range

unwillingness to use U.S. troops in situations that did not call for the top end of th

trum of military activity. Some remnants of those attitudes are still to be found, bu

terrorist attacks and the connection that the administration made, rightly or wron

tween them and replacing the Iraqi regime have produced at least a short-term wil

ness to use the military for potentially hazardous missions. There is now certainly 

readiness to incur at least moderate casualties when vital national interests are felt 

at stake. Still, it is too soon to judge whether that will last; the steady, though in tot

small, attrition in Iraq since victory was declared may have reopened some sensitiv

this score, though President Bush’s reelection may argue in the other direction.

Linked with the emphasis on serious war fighting, and because of the stress plac

force protection, U.S. troops have not been wholly, or even very, effective at deali

with the complex security situations involving peacekeeping or nation building t

have become of ever-increasing importance. The postconflict incidents in Iraq in 

civilians were killed by U.S. soldiers unable to handle close contact and gendarm

operations effectively show that there are situations and therefore security probl

where American forces are less than effective.

By way of contrast, the use of European militaries in support of the civil power a

peacekeeping has given the countries concerned insight into the contributions th

be made in crisis management and maintenance of civil society. Nevertheless, man

ropeans are too reluctant to see the need for force and too ready to abdicate deman

military options to the United States. Free from the risk of a serious war in Europe

are generally too content not to develop the capabilities for significant military act

Granted, they do not need to match the level of technical development to which th

United States aspires, since that is generally geared to long-range, high-intensity 

and the particular American concerns; nevertheless, Europeans do need to take d

more seriously and to invest more in certain vital capabilities. In particular, they 

unable now to deploy, command, supply, or sustain well equipped and coherent 

away from their borders. Two individual states (Britain and France) can do that 

modest scale, but either would be hard pressed to deploy more than a division o

Europe or to wage a substantial air campaign with precision guided munitions.

Partially in consequence of this weakness, Europe has much less influence politic

(e.g., in the Middle East or Asia, or even in and over Cyprus) than is appropriate 

might be expected given the facts of history, geography, and economics.

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what the United States does on defense and get for their money only about one-tenth

of the deployable forces. Since then there has been some movement toward greater effectiveness in European forces, but also cuts in defense budgets. Europeans now spend

about 40 percent of what the United States does on defense. All in all, they have too

many forces and platforms of the wrong sort, too little logistic capability, insufficient

intelligence assets, and too few smart weapons. Little of that shortfall will be cured by

progress toward the EU’s “headline goal”—“to be able by 2010 to respond with rapid

and decisive action applying a fully coherent approach to the whole spectrum of crisis

management operations covered by the Treaty on the European Union.”8

The problem

is not numbers of infantry or even jet aircraft; it is the ability (political and practical)

to deploy infantry and sustain it, of aircraft to find their targets and hit them in all con

ditions, and of Europeans to plan and direct campaigns. The United States will

(rightly) not regard the Europeans as serious military players until they have made

themselves much more effective.

Before the Iraqi crisis of 2003 all this threatened a de facto, but unacceptable, division

of responsibilities across the Atlantic, with the Europeans alone engaging in local crisis

management (which may be a frequent requirement) and incurring casualties thereby,

but the United States either demanding leadership of the operation or else interfering

politically, thus putting the Europeans at risk while frustrating their political objectives

In practice, the Europeans were reluctant to undertake alone even the tasks within thei

capabilities, mainly hoping to lock the United States into a common position. Meanwhile

by virtue of being the only state capable of significant power projection, the United State

assumed control in other areas, including defending militarily common interests in the

Middle East or Asia, conducting operations in accordance with its own approach.

So far from the post–11 September terrorist threat bringing about a change in U.S.

views on the role and nature of military force or collaboration on intelligence and police issues that would make the Europeans more credible security partners, major new

tension arose from the Americans’ willingness to use force against the Iraqi regime at a

much earlier stage than almost any other country wished. Nevertheless, to deal with

current security threats the United States needs international cooperation on some aspects of military operations, for the use of bases or airspace, for local knowledge and

skills, and quite possibly for the execution of certain things that the U.S. military does

not do very well, as well as police, justice, and human intelligence. There is also, since

the (at least nominal) handover of political authority to a new Iraqi government, a

deeper appreciation in Washington of the political legitimacy that wider international

support can bring.

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Political Power

In some parts of the world U.S. conventional military strength remains an undo

asset and a major source of political power. That is so in Southeast Asia, where it 

important stabilizing role between China, Japan, and Korea. Some of those state

feel a degree of resentment against what they may see as hegemonic pretensions, 

on the whole military power readily equates with political influence there.

The same is true to an extent in the Middle East. There, however, matters are com

cated for the United States by the rejection of modernity by some elements in Isl

(the United States being in some respects the embodiment of modernity) and by 

volvement with Israel. The connection of the 11 September attacks with both Isl

the Middle East demonstrates that there are limits to the leverage that military p

brings. Indeed, the very superiority of U.S. arms and aspects of American cultur

a reaction that involves other security needs.

Political power in the developed world is in part a function of economics; in par

also a matter of opinion. There are expectations—a habit of acquiescence, a mem

different times. All these give the United States some control over the policies an

rations of European states, and of some others. There are great difficulties in env

ing how that form of power will develop in the coming century. On the one han

globalization will spread aspects of American culture and influence deeply into e

society. As more countries join the world economic order they will be influenced 

economic and financial policies of so important a player there. Some will see clo

links with a major military power as their safeguard against outside or internal i

bilities. Others will continue to feel, even if for no demonstrable reason, that tra

lantic links are essential to their security. Significant U.S. political power will the

last well into the twenty-first century, perhaps right up to its end.

However, there are substantial questions about how that power will be used; abo

weakening from the lack of an appropriate framework in which it can be deploy

about how other power centers will develop, power centers that may work in har

with the United States but that could, if not sensibly handled, become rivals.

U.S.-European Differences in Security Interests, Real and Perceived

Following the Cold War, the nature of security changed profoundly as regards bo

tors and actors. For the world as a whole, there will be major stresses from popu

growth, economic development, and environmental pollution. The latter two are

linked, positively and negatively. Economic development is essential if political s

of a most serious kind are to be contained. However, such development, if done 

the lines of the twentieth century, will bring great environmental stresses. Differ

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eration of weapons of mass destruction—two different problems but possibly linked,

and in American eyes certainly to be considered together. They were of different salience in different countries, both before and after the attacks of 11 September 2001.

The transatlantic differences on proliferation, terrorism, and the so-called states of

concern were not only of perception. Despite their having much in common, there are

differences in security interests between the United States and Europeans. These arise

largely from the U.S. concern and willingness to exercise power and influence, and its

having undertaken defense obligations, especially in Asia and the Middle East. The

United States is deeply engaged in the former, with preparations for major war fighting. European interests there, on the other hand, are largely economic. Korea, Taiwan,

and Japan are not hard security issues for most Europeans, except as regards North Ko

rea, which is a common source of concern in view of its ballistic missile and nuclear

programs; they exercise the United States much more.

On the Middle East, including Iran and Iraq, the United States and the Europeans shar

many interests, but both are deficient in one way or another in pursuing them. There

are strong currents in Iranian political life seeking to return to normal and proper international relations. Bringing that about must be a common objective, but many influential parties in the United States remain fixated on earlier injuries and apparently

fail to understand the pressure that must lead any Iranian government to consider the

acquisition of WMD and to seek a major regional role. The EU efforts to engage the

Iranians in the coalition against terrorism and to induce it to take a proper grip on its

nuclear program may mark the start of better things, but it must be admitted, more

than most European players do, that inducing the regime to modify its most objection

able internal practices and genuinely to forego the option of nuclear weapons on a per

manent basis will be very difficult. As regards Iraq, the Europeans failed to appreciate

the dangers from the regime; the U.S. administration failed to see how its own actions

would tend to frustrate its long-term objectives and provide drivers for terrorism.

More generally, it did not appreciate how its very successes and their impact were

provoking reactions against it, some merely of disgruntlement (China and India, Iran, and

many other states are most unlikely to welcome global efforts at permanent unilateralist

U.S. leadership), some of the sort that resulted in the 11 September incidents.

Also, with respect to the Middle East there has been a long-standing U.S. inability to see

that its interests are not identical with those of Israel. (Even in the Cold War that may no

have been the case; with its end, the divergence is manifest.) On the whole, the European

are clearer sighted on the issues and Western interests but have only recently been able to

make any noticeable contribution to the resolution of the Palestinian problem; even now

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greatly complicates American efforts on proliferation and terrorism.

Until September 2001, the United States generally felt secure behind its ocean ba

from most threats, except ballistic missiles, but made much of the WMD threat a

“rogue states.” Europe is geographically closer than the United States to most wo

proliferators, easier of access from countries from which migrants are likely to co

and it has suffered more terrorist attacks; still, it had not shown the same zeal fo

sile defense or pursuit of rogue states. The more profound differences stemmed 

the fact that despite domestic parochialism and the pressure of sectional interest

United States has a global view and major global responsibilities. Many Europea

failed and still fail to take such a view. Thus although the objective differences in 

term interests are relatively few, and mainly related to the pursuit of national adv

tages in trade and influence, European and U.S. security concerns frequently div

The great difference in perceived security interests is between the European view 

world regulated by international law and involving a multilateral approach, and 

American vision that, at the end of the day, believes that the ultimate safeguard o

interests is to be free to act without outside constraint, conducting military oper

strictly in its own way, impeded as little as possible by alliance structures or the v

of coalition partners. That in turn requires overriding military power and a willi

to prevent any challenger to that power from arising while developing high-tech 

fare on a level and a scale that cannot be matched by others and that isolates the 

from potential partners in the conduct of much military business of its own.

The United States fails to see the need to consolidate a law-based approach to sec

problems or to build international institutions or support that might help safegu

security. The launching of a war without UN sanction to effect regime change in 

only intensified the rejection of hegemonic tendencies. It badly damaged the Sec

Council; it demonstrated the decay within NATO; because of the divergence betw

Britain, France, and Germany it gravely set back EU efforts to make a Common 

eign and Security Policy (CFSP) and European Security and Defense Policy (ESD

produced major splits in Europe and between long-standing European NATO al

and the United States. Both Europeans and Americans now need to reflect hard 

where they stand and, more particularly, whither they should go. In many ways, 

attempts to mend fences, the attack on Iraq may mark a more important watersh

than its precursor, the 11 September incidents.

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The United States and Europe

in the Twenty-first Century

Some perceptive judgments (such as those by Alexis de Tocqueville) in the ninet

century notwithstanding, an assessment made in 1905 about the principal actors 

factors in international relations and international security in the coming centur

would almost certainly have been significantly inaccurate. The United States mig

have figured very prominently; Germany would probably have been seen as a ma

tor throughout; Asian powers (with the exception of Japan) would have probabl

made much of an appearance. Coal and steel would have been high on the list of 

portant factors; oil, gas, and the internal-combustion engine would have been th

probably not too significant. Likewise, aviation would have had a mention and p

chemical industries, but little would have been made of their potential applicatio

war, while nuclear energy and WMD as the twenty-first century perceives them w

have been absent. The current and prospective uses of space and widespread and 

stant communications would have been unlikely to feature. Globalization, on th

hand, might have been seen as playing a larger role in the twentieth century than 

fact did, at any rate until toward the very end.

Some Factors in International Relations and International Security

Describing what one’s forebears or predecessors failed to foresee can be an easy g

but perhaps not a very useful one. The point in raising it here is to instill a sense 

mility in projecting how the twenty-first century may evolve and what the factor

actors may be. The comments on politics and economics that follow do not seek 

replicate deep scholarship on those subjects. Issues of democracy, markets, and f

trade have a copious professional literature; the aim here is not to provide defini

answers but to raise an awareness that there are very big questions yet to be resol

Thus in suggesting how Europe and the United States might collaborate or how 

United Kingdom might sort out its role in the world, one needs to acknowledge 

the answers are unlikely to be simple and that the course of development is likely 

CHAPTER FOUR

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sues and not simply assuming that oft-repeated formulae from the last sixty years hold

all the truth.

So much has been written on the “revolution in military affairs” and then a successor

concept, network-centric warfare, that one might be tempted to believe that the course

of security in the twenty-first century has been well charted and that, aside from variations in detail and taking account of the possible use of terrorism at the strategic level

and the use of WMD (acknowledged by both the United States and the EU as major se

curity threats), the core structures of hard security can be known tolerably well. However, there is at least an implicit contradiction—if network-centric warfare may indeed

be essential for all-arms, joint, twenty-first century battle, it is not clear what it has to

do with countering strategic terrorism of the sort that involves suicide bombers, crimi

nal networks, and widespread religious ferment. That is not to deny that networkcentric warfare may be useful for such things, but if so, development will be called for

beyond what has so far been put forward.

More fundamentally, it is not beyond doubt that there is a truly strategic threat from

terrorism, in the sense that a major state’s very being or way of life could be so subverted by terrorist actions as to remove its ability to safeguard the generality of its vital

interests. The attacks of 11 September on the United States certainly dealt a heavy blow

to American confidence and have had a major influence on the laying out of resources

and the organization of security machinery, but with all respect and sympathy for the

victims and their families, one has to question whether, as against deaths from other

sources and economic losses from other causes, the United States was fundamentally

damaged by the attacks. Middle Eastern societies have suffered far heavier attrition; the

deaths in Northern Ireland, admittedly over some thirty years, were on a greater scale.

What was changed by 11 September were American perceptions of security and risk.

Those are important, but one must try to see the changes in the perspective of a hundred years and of other changes and potential happenings.

The devastation around the Indian Ocean caused by the earthquake and tidal waves in

December 2004 showed what natural disasters can do, particularly to relatively poor

societies. It is entirely possible that future disasters, attributable to global warming, wil

create equal devastation during the twenty-first century. There is widespread agreement that major changes associated with global warming are in train, but there is not

yet a common psychological perception of the death and destruction that they may en

tail. As regards WMD, in contrast, there is an all too lurid sense of what could be involved. A successful nuclear attack on a city would indeed cause major destruction and

loss of life. Such a thing must be avoided if at all possible. However, a single attack

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even be a devastating blow (in a strict sense) to the country (as opposed to the d

victims) suffering it. The life of the nation would in many cases resume within a re

short period. The same is likely to be true, in many if not most cases, of a chemica

biological attack. Chemicals can be extremely toxic; however, delivering sufficient 

to kill significant numbers of people is difficult and may require hundreds, even 

sands, of tons of them. Biological attacks require much less weight of agent, but 

reliably delivering sufficient lethal doses to inflict widespread death is fairly diffi

An epidemic, once started, can go through an unprotected population swiftly, bu

most agents at least some protective measures are possible. In short, an attack wi

WMD would not simply wipe out a victim country or society. There could be gr

damage or death, but that is most likely as a result of a nuclear attack, which req

an elaborate infrastructure, or of some forms of successful biological attack. The

no room for complacence, but it is necessary to view assessments of the nature o

rity threats to developed (Western) societies with somewhat more skepticism tha

generally used. There are real threats, but they need to be viewed in a perspective 

ferent from that of the last security scare.

Other issues about which skepticism needs to be generated and facile assumptio

swept away include the general benefits of democracy in all circumstances; the a

of markets to solve all economic problems (and some would say to solve social a

litical ones too); and the order of priorities in nation building and the establishm

functioning societies. All those are, of course, linked. The usual assumptions hav

much going for them—which is why they have become working assumptions in 

first place. All however, need to be scrutinized as rigorously as any other hypothe

vanced as to how systems, human or mechanical, work.

Democracy is the great untouchable issue of the twenty-first century. It is assum

be universally good and desirable and, with possible short transitional periods, u

sally applicable—to which there are several points to be made. Firstly, there is of

widespread confusion as to whether is meant responsible government, the rule o

or reasonable and liberal (in the Lockean sense) laws. The three are different and 

have different priorities. Secondly, responsible democracy without the underpin

political education, the spirit of yielding more or less gracefully to the results of 

process, and effective mechanisms to give effect to selection by voters (ands so al

defining who votes) will not last. The experience of decolonization in Africa give

awful warning—Westminster-style democracies in many cases simply turned wi

very few years into long-lasting dictatorships.

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ply to decree that there should be markets. Markets are defined by institutions; they

function in the light of information; and they have to have effective underpinning from

both criminal and civil law. Moreover, the existence and effective use of markets is not

the same as free trade. The latter is in the longer term essential for widespread prosper

ity, but defective markets and the need to cope with issues of unfair competition or

monopoly mean that some limitations and controls are sometimes necessary in the

shorter term.

Changing Security

The United States originally engaged in Europe for security reasons. From 1942 to

1992, that engagement was essential for the security and well-being of both itself and

Western Europe. Up to 1945 American forces, and supplies and materiel even more so,

were required to defeat a hegemonic power that had occupied much of the continent.

After 1945 the eastern part of the continent was occupied by another hostile and

heavily armed power that the Europeans, weakened by the Second World War, could

not resist on their own. U.S. leadership, military and political, was essential and almost

universally acceptable. Thus, the United States had an indispensable role in European

and global security beginning in World War II and extending throughout the Cold

War; even with the end of the latter, political and military factors gave it an active part

in Europe up to the end of the twentieth century.

Engagement in Europe, and political, economic, and military leadership served, of

course, U.S. interests, in addition to European ones, very well. It brought influence, if

not control, over European foreign and defense policies; it ensured that a Soviet Union

viewed as aggressive would not overrun the economically valuable and politically vital

lands of Western Europe or gain a major strategic base in the Near East or Mediterranean. Europe was truly America’s first line of defense, unsurpassed in strategic importance and with shared views on many global issues. Despite the many and long-running

weaknesses in European defense expenditure and planning, and chronic disputes on

burden sharing, holding the Cold War line with the Europeans was cheaper for the

United States, and more effective, than attempting it without them.

With the end of the Cold War, the nature of security in general and of European security in particular altered, and that changed the calculations on both sides of the Atlantic. There is little outside threat of the classical sort to almost any country on the

continent. (Turkey, which lies almost entirely outside Europe and faces both internal

and external security problems, is a partial exception, as were the states of the former

Yugoslavia, which also had major internal problems and confronted threats from

among themselves.) Instead, new threats, or threats on a new scale, ranging from

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trafficking of various sorts, have become the main security concerns in Europe, a

many other places. There is also the impact of the spillover—the impact, direct o

rect, of ethnic and other civil conflict either in Europe or, now more likely, outsi

Both in Europe and elsewhere there is a general need to stabilize countries with w

political systems, very limited resources, and inadequate management and admin

tive skills. In all of this, U.S. military power has proportionately less role to play 

did in confronting the Soviet Union.

The potential contributions of European countries to confronting these new pro

may, in some respects, be relatively greater than their contributions to common se

during the Cold War. Indeed, in some respects the Europeans, individually and col

tively, contribute more in money, action, and engagement to the new security agen

than Americans. In some of the necessary security skills and aptitudes they are a

as well versed as the latter. However, their ability to contribute useful military fo

(and it is to these rather than to the other instruments of diplomacy that the Un

States tends to attach prime importance) in the areas that have become of most 

cern to the United States—the direct security of the United States is now much l

pendent on military engagement in Europe—has recently been much less than it 

before 1991. Most European militaries cannot project forces any distance, and fe

provide forces that can fight the sort of intensive all-arms and joint campaign th

United States has waged in Afghanistan and Iraq. In short, the Europeans need the

United States much less than they used to, and the United States has much less nee

secure Europe militarily than it believed it needed to do in the Cold War; thus the 

are less valuable to each other than they used to be. The benefits to both parties fro

United States having been in Europe are much less, and thus the costs are seen as 

acceptable than in time past.1

Even before the 2003 Iraq conflict, a number of We

European states were, therefore, less inclined to accept automatic American lead

Given the profound transition that security has undergone with the end of the C

War, transatlantic relationships that were originally, and for long after, primarily 

cerned with security should also, prima facie, change. However, most parties hav

reluctant to review the transatlantic relationships. The Europeans have shown, in 

eral, a reluctance to take the steps necessary to address their interests and many o

security concerns on their own, while the United States has its own reason for m

taining the status quo—to preserve its earlier preeminence. It would be a major 

for American diplomacy, in terms of loss of influence, if the United States were n

ger engaged in European security.

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security, came about with surprisingly little upheaval or bloodshed, except in the Caucasus. (There is still trouble between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and in Georgia; Russia

itself is faced with a continuing war against insurrection in Chechnya, which, despite

substantial military commitment, remains unresolved.) Thus, despite the foreseeable

new security challenges, there was after the Cold War a general expectation of a “peace

dividend.” Not unreasonably, military expenditure in most of Europe and in the United

States dropped markedly in the decade after 1991. However, it rapidly became clear

that military capabilities were still required. Immediately after the Cold War there was

the U.S.-led conflict with Iraq; victory came speedily to the coalition through an unhindered, massive buildup of men and materiel and the application of advanced technology. That was followed by a decade of turbulence in the Balkans involving war

fighting and heavily armed crisis management. Meanwhile, the United States once

more pressed ahead with technological developments in the military sphere. It expressed concern over the spread of WMD; there were in Washington very strong currents in favor of some form of missile defense, which led in the first G. W. Bush

administration to the abrogation of the ABM treaty and the commitment of very substantial resources to the development of such defenses.

Europeans, having originally believed that they could mediate the issues in the former

Yugoslavia themselves, rapidly found themselves without sufficient collective military

force, political power and cohesion, or—and perhaps even most importantly—selfconfidence to act without the United States. The EU and its member states had to rely

on American support in military activity in Bosnia in the first half of the 1990s and in

Kosovo in 1999; in the latter case the United States conducted an air campaign of a sor

that the Europeans could not have mounted. On the whole, however, after its experience in Somalia in 1993, the United States was most reluctant to engage in peacekeeping or similar operations in the Balkans or elsewhere (though it was certainly prepared

to engage politically in the Balkans at an earlier stage).

The Attacks of 11 September

The whole (altered) picture of global, including European, security and most especially

U.S. attitudes was given a great jolt by the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, followed a year later by the administration’s seeming determination to topple the regime

of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The latter effort went through unilateralist and then some

what more multilateralist phases. Both it and the so-called war on terror showed great

and, after initial sympathy following September 11, increasing divergences across the

Atlantic, divergencies that widened as the war on terror was connected to regime

change in Iraq.

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the sense of blows against a nation’s heartland or vital interests; they also gave a bo

certain tendencies in the United States that were already manifest. Those included 

cern about the proliferation of WMD and the perception of a need for ballistic mi

defense; they also gave a push to homeland security and led to a substantial uplift 

already very great U.S. defense budget. The fruit born of that last is likely to chang

foundly how the American military wage their campaigns and draw the United Sta

even farther ahead of, and so apart from, the military capabilities of the rest of the 

The upshot will probably make the United States unable, even if it were willing, to 

the actual conduct of major, high-intensity, military operations. (It is already extre

reluctant to share their direction, because of its unilateralist approach to almost al

eign policy issues). These developments are linked to a distinctive American appro

war, essentially one of decisive engagement through overwhelming power, shared b

Europeans, and to a determination to exercise hegemony and allow no rivals to em

that could contest U.S. military, or in many instances political, primacy.

September 11 brought out transatlantic differences over both the use and role of 

tary force, as well as over the scope and role of international law, even the very n

of international relations. Meanwhile, attempts by some in the administration to 

the rooting out of terrorism with the serious but different issue of WMD showe

ther marked divergence of perspective. The developing situation in Afghanistan 

ing the rapid toppling of the Taliban regime in 2001 and the problems that follow

the swift initial military victory in Iraq in 2003 demonstrated the vital need for n

building—that is, the wider policy objectives of eliminating instability, the roots 

rorism, and the soil in which it may flourish can be achieved only by social, polit

and economic change. It is not enough to win a war; one must also win the peac

that is why one goes to war (or should do). The use of military power is very seld

sufficient, though it may be necessary, to bring about the needed changes.

The Europeans have so far had a much greater consciousness of that, and the EU 

principle a much wider range of instruments than has the Pentagon to use in pu

of such an end. However, it has lacked coherence in the making of overall policie

strategies, and it has been ineffective in appreciating the necessary contribution 

itary capabilities to its security ends. Thus the twenty-first century has not got o

good start in U.S.-European cooperation or relations.

In early 2003, acute differences over crucial foreign policy issues arose not only a

the Atlantic but also between leading European states, all of this against the back

ground of the U.S. concerns over Iraq and its possible WMD programs and the c

quent decision by the United States and the United Kingdom to resort to war. Th

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to play over foreign affairs—with few concessions to international or supranational in

stitutions—and also made less likely any European common foreign and security policy over either transatlantic relations or Middle Eastern security. The divisions were

not even offset by a determination among the leading players to sort out their own dif

ferences so as to ensure at least coherence between the policies of the major European

powers, even if the EU itself lacked one of its own.

On a more positive note, following the difficulties that came in the train of military

victory in Iraq there were, by the time of the U.S. presidential elections of November

2004, some encouraging signs, if no firm indication, that an approach that sought as

wide a measure of international support or legitimacy as possible still commanded

some measure of agreement in the United States. The national vote was split fairly

evenly; President Bush was reelected, but many observers saw a quite stark division in

the country. Nonetheless, the very fact of reelection perhaps confirmed the strength of

unilateralist feeling, and it was noticeable in the campaign that international involvement in matters of U.S. security was regarded as dangerous ground (no international

permission chits to be sought before American interests were defended). What can rea

sonably be said is, firstly, that some commentators and actors accordingly see a need to

get things on to a better footing, in the sense of each side of the Atlantic treating the

other with appropriate respect and seriousness, and secondly, that others believe the

Europeans are not worthy of serious consideration (some of the reasons for the latter

view are explored below). The first group divide, very broadly, into those who believe

that it may be possible to return to an earlier era of close though updated relations and

those who, while seeing the virtues of such closeness as may be attainable, consider tha

the last fifty-five years or so were an exceptional period and that a more distant relationship would be neither bad nor inappropriate.2

EU Policy Making

The EU is a unique and still developing institution that combines supranational with

intergovernmental aspects. Its nature brings great benefits and some important increments of strength but also entails certain major weaknesses. Among the problems that

tend to lower its credibility in the eyes of many in Washington, and not only those who

are instinctive unilateralists, is the difficulty with which it formulates coherent policies

especially on issues that go to the heart of diplomatic and military affairs. A major requirement is improvement of the EU decision-making machinery. In addition, most

European governments are reluctant to spend adequately on defense, even for a limited

but necessary set of capabilities, let alone the scale of the United States. That again,

quite properly, lessens European credibility in American and other eyes.

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pranational) Commission or in the Council of Ministers (i.e., national ministers

cluding the European Council (heads of government). The EU lacks apparatus fo

harnessing together the Council and the Commission; both bodies, and how affa

handled between them, need to be addressed. Until Europe has done that, it will 

able to defend its own interests effectively, much less act as a force in the wider w

Even then there will remain great difficulties, because of the role that individual 

tions will continue to play in foreign policy. The making of foreign policy is divi

not only between the Commission and the Council but even more crucially betw

the EU and its member states. They jealously guard their prerogatives over war a

peace, and the CFSP covers only a small part, at best, of European foreign policy

the tension has been alleviated in this sphere, as it has been in the economic, the 

lem will remain.

A related difficulty is the very different perceptions among EU members of their 

ests and of legitimate means for their promotion. Member states need to conside

whether action by the EU, by members individually, or by a small leading group 

best address and promote their interests in the world as it is. Most of them also n

consider whether their interests can be effectively promoted so long as they depe

the extent they do on another, non-European, actor whose interests are different

though having important elements in common. Of course, even if EU members 

content to be dependent free riders, that might not be acceptable in the long term 

the United States.

It is widely recognized that organizational and constitutional changes are requir

the EU, but there has been great difficulty in reaching agreement across the Unio

about what should be done. The changes proposed in the constitutional treaty ag

at the Brussels EU summit of 18 June 2004 may help improve matters, though it 

from certain that they will ever come into force. In the security area the treaty pr

some modest reforms on decision making and the creation of a sort of minister 

foreign affairs by merging the posts of the (ministerial) Council’s High Represen

and of the Commissioner for External Relations. This should, indeed, make for m

coherence between Council (which will remain in the lead on foreign affairs) an

Commission. There is also a very modest extension of the possibility of proceedi

majority vote rather than unanimity.

As regards defense, the treaty will make it easier for a group of member states to 

together on military matters. In justice and home affairs, including police and ju

cooperation, there will be majority voting. This should facilitate the fight agains

and terrorism, although there are rather tight limits on what can be done. In sho

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ficiencies, but there will still be a long way to go before the European Union is a coherent security player.

The enlargement of the EU will in any case make coherent and speedy European decision making, and the whole complex set of relations between EU institutions and

members, even more difficult unless there is radical reform of institutions and procedures.4

There is as yet little sign of willingness to focus on the difficult issues involved,

which are divisive not only between older and newer members but between large and

small. Enlargement has brought in a number of new members from Eastern and Central Europe, mainly small, all poor, and most with particular inclinations to favor

American policies, in part because of the American role in confronting the Soviet Union, and in part because of a concern about what the countries involved might see as

the overweening influence of the major European states. Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, sought in 2003 to exploit this by pointing to these new members as the

“new Europe” and seeking thereby to widen the fissures in the EU. More generally, such

actions and statements raise the question of whether the United States is now concerned to divide and in that way more strongly influence European foreign and defens

policy, rather than, as for many years past, foster greater European integration. In consequence, the EU may find it even more difficult than in the past to pursue effective

policies distinct from those of the United States, or at any rate from those that the

United States would wish Europe to pursue.

The essential question for the EU is: What is necessary to promote and protect, firstly,

its members’ own direct interests, and secondly, wider interests, so as to take its part as

a rich group in promoting the general good? That extends to general policy issues as

well as to the ESDP. There is agreement that some kind of military capability is required, but it has proved far more difficult to say of what kind or how much. It will be

a long time before there is unanimity on such matters. The way forward for Europe wi

have to be collaboration in the first instance between the major diplomatic and military

players, and with those smaller states that can and will act seriously in these affairs—in

short a Directoire. Such language is, of course, non communautaire, but it was how much

of the development of the Union itself was undertaken, by the Franco-German couple.

(That axis cannot now be the motor for development of foreign and defense policies,

though both countries must be involved.)5

Military Capability

At least as significant as the institutional problems and the ability of member states to

block action is the lack of European will to use force in many (and for some states almos

any) circumstances. While military force is less important than the United States believes

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portant in many circumstances, Europe needs to do much more, not least because 

does it will not be taken seriously by the United States or by many other actors. W

Europe can rise to the occasion remains doubtful. Military assets and capabilities a

tools for the pursuit of other policy objectives; they are not ends in themselves. Un

Europeans are clearer on general policy formulation, they will not become clearer 

what they need for the military option and when and how to exercise it. Even when 

general perspective becomes clearer, there will remain specific difficulties.

Effective military capability has three components: will, the willingness to use th

tary option, to kill and be killed; policy, in the sense of formulating an objective tha

be effectively pursued and the ways in which that can be done; and assets—materi

trained personnel, logistics, etc. Europeans have nothing like a common will in t

sense above; they have great difficulty in formulating policy; and almost all are s

ously deficient, and will remain so for many years, in the assets required for all b

smaller and simpler military operations. Willingness to be serious about military 

provements as opposed to rhetoric about them is all too often lacking.

It was the realization that the Europeans lacked sufficient military power, self-conf

and political coherence to act without the United States, coupled with concern tha

Kosovo the Americans were unwilling to act, that led to the British-French St. Mal

tiative in December 1998. This call for the development of European autonomous 

tary capabilities might have been expected from France; at St. Malo, however, the 

tive apparently lay with the British prime minister, who by this action reversed a 

long-standing British position that European military developments must be wit

NATO framework and wholly acceptable to the United States. He was able to do 

despite, or perhaps rather because of, his closeness to the U.S. president, both pe

ally and politically.

The initiative was taken up in and followed through by, at any rate in words, a seri

EU (and NATO) summits—Vienna, Washington (NATO), Cologne, Helsinki, Nice 

cember 2000). Nevertheless, by 2001 the words remained generally more prominen

the augmentation of European military capabilities; most defense budgets were sti

showing no substantive improvement, although at its summit at Laeken in Decem

2001 the Union declared itself able to take on some crisis-management operations

progress and that made on the ESDP and toward the 2010 headline goal constitute 

ful first step; however, it starts to establish neither the role that military capabilitie

should play in European security, nor the extent to which Europeans need to prov

them, nor how they will devise comprehensive policies integrating their employme

with other actions. Moreover, it is fitful and likely to stall.

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in which the former undertakes the serious military tasks and the latter the “soft security” (i.e., policing, gendarmerie, economic, political and legal development) options

might superficially appear attractive. It might, in any case, come about de facto. However, it would be bad for the United States, because of the odium that military engagement can create and because of the ill effects of a one-sided approach to security. The

world needs the effective engagement of the United States, and the United States needs

to be able to ameliorate crises using many forms of engagement, applying military

force only in those limited circumstances where it is necessary. Such a division of labor

would be bad for the Europeans as well, because military action, when required, may

set the terms on which nation building or other complex and long-running actions wi

be carried out. That is, in effect, the United States would dictate the policies, and the

Europeans would have to cope with the consequences. That would tend to produce less

than optimal effects in terms of overall security; it would also reinforce hegemonic and

unilateralist tendencies in the United States. Above all, it is reasonable neither to expec

the United States to bear all the burden of military engagement nor for it to solve prob

lems that are of little concern to it. If military force is needed in some circumstances

Europeans must look to play their part; otherwise all parties will feel the tension between desires, influence, and equitable burden sharing.

Future Transatlantic Relations

The transatlantic differences in political and military power more than ten years after

the end of the Cold War were in some ways surprising.7

The United States and the EU

were comparable in economic size, with the EU having a somewhat larger population;8

they had similar technological bases, and essentially similar levels of development. Together they produced some 58 percent of global GDP and accounted for more than 40

percent of international trade in goods and services. However, the United States had

the advantage of a more truly unified market and economy; of substantially larger

spending on defense (but also significantly greater security commitments, for example

in Asia); and above all, for all the interagency friction and the checks and balances between different branches of government, of much more coherent policy-making structures. In short, the United States was a state where the EU was a new sort of political

entity, going beyond nation-states but also comprising them.

In considering unilateralism and the willingness to use military power, it may be no

coincidence that the United States has been for some fifty years the main home of in

ternational relations theory. Even if the direct impact of that on day-to-day policy formation has been relatively slight, the cumulative effect of tomes on realism, with its

emphasis on force and hegemony, must have had an impact on the climate in which

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the higher reaches of policy making.

At a more popular level, Hollywood, with its battle spectaculars and bad history, 

also have played a role. The expectations among Americans of war and their und

standings of their nation’s past, present, and future influence are both probably s

by films in a way in which European views are not. Linked with that is the contin

reinforcement of various American national myths. All nations have them, but t

the United States have been particularly important in creating a sense of solidari

nation of immigrants from increasingly diverse backgrounds. These myths tend 

inforce the transatlantic divide, to the extent that it comes from the American se

exceptionalism, that America is in some sense a chosen society that could be to o

nations as a beacon or a shining city set on a hill. Indeed, that sense of exception

itself both stemmed from and, toward the end of the twentieth century, contribu

a sense of evangelical (in several senses) Protestantism that contrasted across a spe

of political and religious attitudes with the more secular European outlook.9

Indee

the United States there is not only a political spirit that springs from evangelical or

but also a genuinely religious Right, moved by religion itself. This affects U.S. forei

icies in several ways, not least as regards the Middle East.

Developments in the United States since 11 September, culminating in President 

reelection, have given a further stimulus to longstanding American unilateralist 

dencies that will complicate all the transatlantic relationships. Even before that t

Bush administration had made clear its reservations about, if not actual distaste 

limitations on U.S. freedom of action and sovereignty by international agreemen

ter the attacks, there was a period of restraint and some considerable efforts at se

international consensus in the struggle against terrorism, but these became very 

uated as the months passed. The September 2002 National Security Strategy of th

United States spelled out, if using carefully nuanced language, a strongly unilater

and exceptionalist set of policies.

Even immediately following the attacks, when for the first time in its history NA

voked Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, its mutual defense commitment, the U

States preferred to deal with its allies bilaterally rather than through the alliance

gards the actual conduct of operations in Afghanistan, it is understandable that 

United States did not use alliance machinery; however, that it did not use NATO 

forum for consultation over what it saw (and sees) as the principal security issue 

fronting itself and others, and the one through which it appears or purports to v

most international affairs, raised major questions about the role of the alliance.

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emerge as a result of the Europeans’ cohering together. In the past, NATO provided an

effective instrument for influencing European policies. The United States no longer

feels that it will so function and appears to prefer to emphasize bilateral ties and to

plan and conduct military operations through its own structures rather than alliance

mechanisms. NATO itself suffered acute trauma in early 2003 from France and Germany’s refusal to allow preparations to defend Turkey from Iraqi attack.

Leaders and Followers, Partners and Rivals

In transatlantic relations, the hard question is why 380 million (or more) tolerably rich

Europeans should follow the policies of 276 million rich Americans—policies that are

designed to meet the needs and aspirations of the latter—and why either party should

think that it is right for the Americans to play a major role in providing for the securit

and well-being of the rather greater number of Europeans, and that according to an

American prescription.10 Clearly, given the congruence of interests in a liberal international order, both sides of the Atlantic have an interest in a very wide measure of workin

together, if that can be achieved. Both would benefit from acting together rather than

pursuing separate courses, and it is almost certainly the case that the 5,500,000,000 othe

inhabitants of the planet would be better off if the Americans and Europeans acted together—the very poorest need all the help they can get from the engagement of the

rich—but the issues are who would settle the action to be taken, and how, and who

would pay.

In principle, relations between Europe and the United States should evolve toward the

former’s acquiring a role and influence, political and military, more commensurate

with its population and wealth.11 It would then be able to bear a fairer share of responsibility for global and regional security in the widest sense. The EU’s endeavors to develop the CSFP and the ESDP, as well as the introduction of the common currency,

should lead in that direction to the extent insofar as they are successful. However, for

reasons related to the structural problems in the EU, grave divisions among member

nations (especially after the 2003 war on Iraq), and at least to a degree, U.S. reluctance

neither of those policies is prospering strongly. Paradoxically, the increasing

unilateralism of the United States may tend to produce European movement in the

right direction—that is, toward the EU’s being able to bear a fairer share of the security

burdens. America will find it increasingly difficult to exercise leadership if it can attrac

no followers; the Europeans may conclude that they will have to be able to act themselves if certain things that they wish to see are to be accomplished. However, there wil

be significant problems in such evolution.

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global warming can be tackled successfully only if the West as a whole, and that 

mainly the United States and the EU, acts together. (Involvement by Japan, Cana

Australia, etc., is desirable and useful, but if the two major actors are not effectiv

gaged most actions of others will be in vain.) The EU and the United States shou

work together where they have common interests and where joint action would 

greater leverage than unilateral interventions. These interests would include mak

democratic change and the consolidation of a law-based society in Russia irrever

It should also cover international economic and trade relations and institutions; 

the United States and the European Union have real interests in their smooth an

functioning and in the liberalization of trade; and both have lamentable protecti

tendencies and in particular an inability to deliver on reforms that would most h

leviate poverty and speed development in the poorer countries.

In principle, too, there is joint thinking to be done on the security issues of the M

East, on whose oil both are dependent to a significant degree, and where perhap

greatest challenges to Western security will have their origin. However, European 

tary weakness will make the EU an unsatisfactory partner in that connection for 

time. (U.S. shortcomings make it an unsatisfactory partner there in other ways, b

the Middle East military capacity is an indispensable part of any coherent securi

icy.) Nevertheless, they should address together the Israel-Palestine dispute. The

complicating factor is not European military weakness but, paradoxically, U.S. p

weakness—American inability to master Israeli intransigence against any interfe

in how Washington misconducts its affairs and almost any outside involvement 

that of the United States, which in many ways acts as an Israeli client state. This 

is a major destabilizing factor in the area, one that needs to be addressed for its o

sake as well as for reasons of regional development (economic, social, and politic

and of mitigating a potentially widespread rejection of the West and its values. A

all, the Middle East is an area where Europe and the United States need to collab

but that is at present a major apple of discord between them. They need to do be

with Europe making itself to be more effective and able as a partner and the Uni

States believing less in its own monocular vision.

A historical survey of the twentieth century shows the Americans as having done 

good for the Europeans, though less than the former commonly think.12 For som

years, U.S. involvement was essential to the preservation of a liberal order in Eur

However, the very success of that engagement encouraged a dependence culture 

rope; Europeans forgot in many cases that they might have interests different, or 

least separate, from those of the United States. Among at least some American p

makers there is a strong tendency to believe that what is good for the United Stat

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nate belief that the United States can generally get what it wants on any issue because

of its strength, and that the ability to get its way is sufficient justification for pursuing

its own ends.

Although the genesis of the modern transatlantic relationship was in war and then in

the security field, there has, since the time of the Marshall Plan in the late 1940s, alway

been a good deal of cooperation, bilateral and multilateral, going well beyond defense.

It covers a wide range of economic and trade matters, even though disputes on steel,

bananas, and development and debt can obscure the collaboration that takes place in

the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and other

international economic institutions. So far as security is concerned, the nature of the

cooperation has changed, and that affects the relationship. New concerns call for coop

eration of different sorts, most often not military, and in different ways—for example,

to tackle terrorism or trafficking. Already, it has included wider issues as in the Organi

zation for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the NATO-Russia Council, as

well as work among the Western permanent members of the UN Security Council. That

said, even before the strains produced by the 2003 Iraqi war, there was a great deal of

room for improving and extending the areas of transatlantic cooperation. Nothing since

has changed the need for that, though the options may well have narrowed. There would

be great benefit to be gained from a common approach to improving international security by strengthening the role of international institutions and of the rule of internationa

law, but that is likely to bring on the first great difference with the United States.

As regards formal links between the EU and the United States, cooperation is based on

the Transatlantic Declaration of 1990 and the New Transatlantic Agenda (NTA)

adopted in 1995. There are summit meetings, working groups, and meetings of experts

Much of the dialogue is on trade, but the agenda is broadening. The NTA contains fou

broad objectives for U.S.-EU collaboration:

• Promoting peace and stability, democracy, and development around the world

• Responding to global challenges, including international crime and narcotics,

and disease

• Contributing to the expansion of world trade and closer economic relations—the

NTA calls for support for the World Trade Organization and strengthening the

multilateral trade system

• Building bridges across the Atlantic by expanding commercial, cultural, educational, an

scientific exchanges to enhance public understanding of the transatlantic relationship.

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mented they would make a significant impact on world affairs. However, what ac

happens shows that reality is somewhat behind the ambitious words—the close 

tional cooperation for which the NTA calls is not to be seen.

There are many reasons for that. Both the United States and major members stat

the European Union often prefer to deal bilaterally. Part of the reason, though on

part, is the clumsy machinery for representing the EU; another part is the Union

problem in forming coherent policies; a further significant factor is the safeguar

national autonomy. Meanwhile, in Washington there are some issues surprisingl

allel to the problems of EU policy formation—the frictions in the interagency pr

and, especially since 2003, the desire in some parts of the U.S. machine to split E

rather than collaborate with it.

Defining its own ends is a messier business for the United States than it is for most 

Firstly, there is the structure of the machinery of government, giving authority to C

gress to block policies of the elected executive and also to strike out with policies o

own that may contradict the administration’s. Largely because of the role and pow

Congress, the decision-taking process is particularly open to manipulation by pres

groups, which may exercise influence quite disproportionate to their true significa

national life. The result can be policies that do not reflect the overall interests of th

United States. Secondly, the Washington interagency problem is notorious; someti

the United States is unable to speak with one voice unless the highest levels have b

brought together. Such factors and the increasingly unilateralist U.S. approach to i

tional affairs mean that no improvements in the consultative machinery with the E

improve affairs much; a resolute determination to do better will be more importan

the mechanical aspects of cooperation. Meanwhile, the fundamental issues that lie 

heart of transatlantic relations remain American unilateralism, whether based on i

exceptionalist view of itself or on naked self-interest, and European strategic diffid

As justification for unilateralism, there is an influential view in Washington that 

are many complex threats to the well-being and prosperity of the Western world 

way of life and that only American power and coherence can protect the open, li

order. In short, the United States may be a hegemon, but it is a benign hegemon

living under its direction and influence is better than any realistic alternative for 

world, particularly given European weakness, incoherence, and lack of global vie

complementary rather than contrary view is that U.S. interests require the posse

of unchallengeable military power and the exercise of hegemony. The unique he

of the United States is in this view a model for mankind, and therefore the natio

find no external impediment to doing what is necessary to secure its interests.

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motives, the results may not be optimal; at the very least, reaction against American

power may be traumatic. Acquiescence in U.S. hegemony might, in any case, prevent a

better system from coming into being, by obstructing the development of internationa

law and a more soundly based international system. Often the best may be the enemy

of the good; here, perhaps, even if the benefits of present hegemony be accepted, the

reasonable and present good could be the enemy of the better, the more enduring, and

in the long run, the absolutely essential.13

Moreover, there are obvious dangers in the existence of any one overweening actor.

There are, indeed, checks and balances within the United States but not between that

country and the rest of the world. Its internal checks will not guide it to act in the interests of others; indeed, such is the nature of democracy and the American political

system that they may well produce the precisely opposite effect. There is a great fund o

goodwill in America, willing to do the right thing and to put problems right. However,

for reasons having to do with how American politics works, that goodwill shows

through in government action only sporadically and patchily. Meanwhile, there is in

general no voice of a weight corresponding to the internal interests to argue with the

administration on behalf of outside interests for different courses and different ways o

doing things. That is good neither for global governance nor, in the long run, for the

United States itself. There is no warrant for all other states, with their own distinct interests, simply to subordinate their judgment to that of a governmental machine that i

all too fallible and often not prepared to work in good faith through international institutions. The United States will, very naturally, seek its own perceived advantages—

that is, advantages as perceived by effective domestic interest groups. The results may

provide common benefits, but they are at least as likely not to. Obvious examples are

policies on the environment and agriculture.

In some areas, of course, any power has to be multilateralist except in the short term.

On trade and economic relations, the United States is not supreme. Despite the leading

role of the dollar, Europeans are much more its equals in the economic sphere than in

the security one, and they are therefore often able to resist U.S. pressure there. Washington can impose tariffs unilaterally, but not on a long-term basis—at any rate, not

without weakening the liberal order from which it benefits so much. In cooperation

against crime and terrorism the United States needs the willing sharing of intelligence

and information by others. In other longer-term security issues the EU, incoherent as i

can sometimes be, is already playing a worthwhile role. The pressure at the end of 2004

to enforce a proper democratic outcome to the Ukrainian elections is one example;14

another, where the United States has failed miserably and looks set to continue to do so

for some time, is global warming and the limitations of greenhouse-gas emissions.

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better than denying the problem and doing nothing. If this major problem is to 

tackled it will be from the eastern side of the Atlantic, not the western.

On matters of security more narrowly defined, it is not clear that the United Stat

very open to outside influences. In that it is not, of course, unique. Issues of war 

peace are notoriously matters for sovereign states, and that remains true of EU m

bers, even though they have progressed beyond where the United States is in ma

outside of the military security area. European soft power, or ability to influence 

ers, is in itself inadequate to tackle many problems. Hard power remains necessa

most of that can come only from the United States in the immediate future; the 

tion is how will it be used, in conjunction with what soft power, within what fram

work, and to what ends.

A Summing Up

By wealth, population, technical base, and military power, the United States is rig

major actor on the world stage and will almost certainly continue to be so for de

to come. Economically it has been so throughout the twentieth century; politica

has been so since 1941. All this once attached great importance to the different s

transatlantic relations: those between the EU and the U.S. administration; those 

tween the European members of NATO, individually and occasionally collectivel

the United States; and those that each major European country has—for instanc

the Department of State or Defense. The relationships were, and are, manifold, d

ing greatly in their intensity and impact; even Britain’s much mentioned special 

tionship consists of at least three separate components.

Despite Paul Kennedy’s warning in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1988), 

no sign yet that the United States is exhausting itself. One day, however, its relati

possibly its absolute power may change. The Western European powers exhauste

themselves in two world wars, which tended rather to enrich the United States an

tainly resulted in the transfer of predominance to it. Few statesmen or diplomats 

have foreseen in 1902 or even 1932 how completely French and British power wo

collapse; few foresaw in 1982 that within a decade the Soviet Union would be no 

and that Russia would be a weak, impoverished power with an economy the size 

best) that of a small Western European state. It would be against all historical expe

for the United States to continue indefinitely to be so predominant as it was in 194

even as it is now. Nor is even its indefinite continuance as a major player guarantee

The European nations have been described as “postmodern”;15 that is, they have 

doned much of the classic insistence on sovereignty and a conflictual approach t

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of the EU members as they stood before the 2004 enlargement. The United States, on

the other hand, for all its modernity, in some ways remains a classic nineteenth-centur

actor, like Russia, China, or India. That involves severe limitations, in practice often

greater than for any of those three states, on the role of international law and international institutions in the pursuit of U.S. interests. Unlike those other powers, however,

the United States has overwhelming military, economic, and thence political power. It

emphasizes sovereignty—its own, the absence of any authority that can bind the state

or people of the United States unless they have most specifically consented to the bind

ing, its general unwillingness to accept any outside rules, and its desire to interpret any

rules it does accept in its own way.

America has never resolved its tension over the nature of its involvement with the

wider world, which is, put simply, between diplomatic isolationism and engagement. It

is not isolationist in the original sense of that term, nor has it been since the end of the

nineteenth century. Its wider roles in Asia and the Middle East continue and arguably

have increased with the ambitions of some in Washington to remake the latter in democratic form. Moreover, from 1945, despite considerable doubts in some parts of the

American body politic about international law and engagement with international

bodies, it has and exercises an influential role in global organizations, such as the UN,

the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. However, its unilateralist tendencies draw on 

heritage of seeking to avoid entanglement with others and their interests in any sense

in which that would impede its own sovereignty, as well as on the feelings of superiority to other actors and all external authority. That same sense of superiority also, of

course, drives many of the impulses toward engagement: the United States knows best,

it has political and economic policies that are good for all, and it will seek to enforce

them both in its own interest and more generally.

American military strength, while increasing in both relative and absolute terms, is

likely to become less and less usable and useful, or rather, the problems that it can itsel

resolve will become a smaller part of the total. The marginal utility of additional carrier task groups or army divisions, above a relatively small number, will diminish rapidly, for the United States is already so much stronger in such things than any

conceivable conventional enemy. As 11 September showed, asymmetric attacks are

much more likely than conventional warfare. No state capable of balanced judgment is

likely to wish to launch its aircraft against the U.S. Air Force; no naval combatant will

seek oceanic conflict with the U.S. Navy. Both state and nonstate actors may, however,

seek to make covert attacks on American civilian and military installations or to instill

fear and disorder into American economic and social life. If a country can be identified

as having been a base for the launching of attacks, military power enables the United

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preemption, ahead of the fact. However, if no such target can be identified, stron

ventional armed forces may not be able to do very much to ensure security.16 Mil

power of the sort that the United States now deploys with such superiority will n

come redundant, a lesson that the Europeans in general have yet to learn; it will, 

ever, yield markedly diminishing returns.

The United States enjoys not only great military power but also great soft power

power is increased by checking unilateralist tendencies; it has been persuasively a

that America may weaken itself by seeking to go it alone and that there are real d

for it in a foreign policy that combines unilateralism, arrogance, and parochialis

The soft power wielded by the United States includes its language, which has bec

lingua franca; the attractiveness of its popular culture, including music, dress, an

food; its material success; and above all its role in globalization, including in com

cations and information technology. All of these may, of course, as well as provid

major poles of attraction, produce a sort of Hegelian reaction or antithesis, fueli

sentment in other civilizations and political systems.

The attractiveness of some aspects of American soft power is easy to see. Wealth

style, and freedom of expression all have a natural appeal to most, if not to all. L

easy to discern is why food, drink, and clothes in the American style should appe

much, particularly to the young. Worldwide marketing is no doubt part of the an

the halo effect of success—wealthy and prosperous people drink X, eat Y, wear Z

do likewise I too shall partake of their lifestyle.

However, the U.S. lead in globalization is, by definition, bound to diminish, at le

relative terms, as other parts of the world are linked up, acquire their own linkag

participate in its further spread. The U.S. proportion of world population will di

ish, while the absolute and relative wealth of India and China will almost certain

crease, and the same may be true of other populous countries. Technology and m

wealth may still give an importance to the United States well beyond its populati

size, and in particular, military technology will give it great power in some spher

However, in a globalizing world, where democracy and transparency will increase 

general American thrust succeeds, the United States will find it increasingly difficu

decline to share its wealth and prosperity, and certainly to share its hegemony.

The effect on the American outlook, on American exceptionalism, of more of th

world either becoming more like the United States or reacting against it and its i

ence, is difficult to gauge. It may lead to a retreat into isolationism; it may enhan

unilateralist tendencies; it may even lead to a deeper engagement with the world 

greater degree of accommodation to differing views and interests. Whichever of 

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the European experience will be such that exactly the same policies and responses will

be appropriate. Therefore, if the Europeans are to safeguard their interests, they will

have to consider for themselves what those interests are and how they should be pursued. That is reinforced by the thought that adverse reactions to American actions may

be reflected onto the Europeans as fellow capitalists and would-be neo-imperialists.

That again is a reason for Europeans to seek their own policies and responses.

Given a free and prosperous Europe and a level playing field, it is not difficult to see

that it too could enjoy significant soft power. The English language, or its absence, may

be a partial barrier to some European cultural artifacts, but aspects of European style

do have a high degree of attraction, not least in the United States. One reason Europe

may not be able to compete is that, as the Victorians knew, trade follows the flag (as, of

course, does in due course a reaction against the colonizers). Because the United States

is heavily engaged in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan in a way that the Europeans are not,

American culture has an easier entrée to parts of Asia. More global engagement by the

Europeans would help a virtuous circle; more hard power would bring more soft

power, though it might also provoke American resentment and resistance, unless matters were under U.S. control.

Both sides of the Atlantic should recognize that their common concerns now are very

different from those of 1950. In the big picture, Europe should need the United States

only in the same way as the United States needs Europe, in tackling global issues where

multilateral cooperation represents the only way forward. However, in some importan

aspects the United States provides at present what Europe still lacks, relative coherence

in foreign policy making (even when the policies themselves are open to question) and

effective military force. Europe should set about remedying those lacks now. It should

do so in a pattern that meets its needs, not necessarily American designs. Though that

may not accord with immediate U.S. wishes it would be in the longer-term American

interests, as well as those of Europe and the wider world. The United States and Europ

as partners are more likely to be able to avoid the reaction against the U.S. way of doin

things that will flow from its sole hegemony. Jointly, they may provoke a reaction

against a perceived dyarchy, but that is less likely than a reaction against the United

States alone. Meanwhile, there will be occasions when European interests as distinct

from American ones will be safeguarded by the limitation of U.S. hegemony.

As for policy making, the Europeans have to address a unique problem, combining the institutions of the EU, and the result with that of the roles of the member states. Divisions be

tween members large and small, new and old, will complicate matters. The larger European

states will often be unwilling to yield substantial sovereignty to supranational machinery or

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have been worked out the European Union will not be an effective diplomatic and se

actor, and so transatlantic relationships will remain unbalanced and unsatisfactory.

As regards military matters, part of the solution is simpler than those for the politica

ones—that is, spending rather more, and spending much more effectively. The latter 

technically easy, though politically difficult. The former will be difficult for some imp

players, like Germany and Italy. However, in principle, the military aspect is doable. T

is not to create a second military on the American model but to provide an effective 

ment to protect and pursue European interests, at first in Europe’s backyard and then 

ther afield, be it in Africa, the Middle East, or wherever those interests may lie. Coop

with the U.S. military is in principle highly desirable, but that depends in equal meas

whether the Americans desire and accept it, and make the necessary adjustments in t

own policies and doctrines. All that is not very likely in the near future.

If the Europeans fail to sort out their political and military capabilities, the transat

relationships will indeed be made anew, but in a way in which Europe will have les

ence on U.S. policies, not more. That is, countries of equal wealth, at least equal cu

and social development, and with a greater population will be subject to a global

hegemon, just as the countries of Asia or the Middle East are, and as those of Afric

would be if the United States could be bothered with them. NATO, despite the fine 

was never really a balanced partnership, but the present prospect would be much l

anced, and without the underlying necessity for the United States to manage the se

of Europeans because of their weakness. Without countervailing balancers the Uni

States will shape the international system in its own preferred form, which will ref

own interests or perhaps the perceived interests of certain elements of the body po

goes without saying that that form would be greatly preferable to that which (say) 

viet Union might have sought, or even that which (say) China might seek in the fu

does not follow by any means that it would be optimal, even for the United States 

long term. It is time for Europeans to act effectively in the international system, co

tively and as individual national players, in a manner consistent with their wealth a

level of development—in short, in accordance with their importance.

Thinking independently is not a hostile act. To engage and debate is not to be an

American; indeed endeavoring to maintain a relationship that reflects the necess

and factors of half a century ago is far more likely to lead to tension in the longe

As many American commentators have recognized, the only entity of any compa

weight to the United States in this century is likely to be the European Union. Sin

United States, for understandable if not supportable reasons, will not take the le

reforming the transatlantic relationships, the Europeans must.

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Whither Britain?

The question of transatlantic relations is more difficult for the United Kingdom 

for any other European nation. History (often misunderstood), sentiment, and a 

perspective and consciousness, not to mention strands of domestic politics and a 

dent press, make the calm identification and pursuit of national interests very di

So (paradoxically) does the relative improvement in the United Kingdom’s econo

and political stability since 1982. Successive governments have often been at pain

obscure the real issues and to proclaim, at best, the need to avoid choices. Unfort

nately, the avoidance of choice, though sometimes a short-term necessity, is but 

a basis for long-term strategy. It is now time for the United Kingdom to confron

tual position in the world, form a view about its long-term interests, and think a

transatlantic relations in that context.

For fifty years from 1815 Britain was a highly successful state, economically, poli

militarily, and so diplomatically. That had indeed been true from some years bef

and continued to be so, to an extent (but a declining one), afterward. Despite the 

of the North American colonies, Britain was able to pursue a successful grand st

It had organized (and financed) coalitions to defeat the Napoleonic system, whic

mobilized almost all Europe and its resources. It was able to order much of the w

commerce and trade, be the leading industrial country, be supreme in maritime 

ters, and acquire a second empire. At home, Britain undertook political reform t

was felt at the time to have been successful (except in Ireland) and had a constitu

that combined liberty with stability, despite the Chartist agitation, the Tolpuddle 

tyrs, etc.1

It was internationally in the top league, and in overall weight and influ

was second to none. British statesmen had for the most part a clear view of the n

interest and how it should best be pursued.

The contrast with the situation at the beginning of the twenty-first century is ac

There has been a century of fumbling for a grand strategy; of losing economic m

tum and then an empire; and of failure to effect necessary reforms, or at least of

CHAPTER FIVE

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those that were nevertheless contrived to make a series of mistakes the cumulative effect of which was devastating. They failed to define, much less pursue, rational nationa

interests. Britain was less successful than France, or even Germany, in formulating and

pursuing its ends in the twentieth century.2

Indeed a major criticism is that it has not

even tried; despite great potential advantages, it has since 1956—Suez—tended to cast

its role and objective as that of the principal supporter of another power. Before Suez

its twentieth-century grand strategy had sometimes been inept; afterward it became al

but nonexistent, other than in nailing its colors to another country’s mast.

From the early twentieth century onward Britain has suffered severe failures in definin

desirable and attainable ends, and in using appropriate means to obtain them. The rea

sons for that are many and complex. Some have been unavoidable; others might have

been circumvented by competent statecraft. Of course, all countries experienced difficulties with formulating appropriate strategies in the twentieth century. Part of the

problem was the rise of democracy; diplomacy and, to a lesser extent, grand strategy in

the ancien régime was almost entirely an aristocratic activity and skill. That is no longer acceptable—wider political awareness and engagement, a popular press, the rise of

a superpower duopoly and then the collapse of one of its members, the phenomenon

of globalization, and the increasing importance of nonstate actors have affected all

players on the international stage and overtaken old-fashioned strategic thinking. The

complexities of global trade, interwoven economies, and barely understood economic

phenomena all make it difficult for any country to evolve a grand strategy, but stating

the difficulties does not justify not attempting the task. Whether or not blame should

attach to individuals or groups, the fact is that Britain for too long was on holiday from

grand strategy. It is no longer able to indulge itself in that way. National and global interests alike demand a return to strategic thinking.

Grand strategy has itself undergone profound alteration. It is not, and never was, simply military; in the sixteenth century, fishing was promoted to provide England a

source of hardy mariners; later the Navigation Acts were an intimate part of Britain’s rise

to commercial preeminence. By design or accident, the repeal of the Corn Laws not only

enabled an industrial workforce to be fed cheaply but gave a major practical demonstration of the British economist David Ricardo’s teachings on comparative advantage, encouraging Britain to concentrate on being the workshop of the world. Obviously, after

the successes of the early industrial revolution, some falling back in Britain’s relative

position was inescapable as other countries developed. However, there were more profound problems than relative economic change. From the 1870s there was a clear failure to adapt the industries on which British prosperity had been built. Germany

applied new technologies and indeed launched new industries, as did the United States

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potential of Russian industry.

Fighting two debilitating world wars further undermined Britain’s position. Whe

or not either war could have been avoided, the fact was that by 1945 the British e

omy was in dire straits; politically the Empire had suffered major blows from en

and allies, and the governing elite had lost faith in themselves and their mission. 

manship of the highest order would have been hard pressed to cope. Externally t

were additional difficult changes in both Europe and Asia. However, no realistic 

sessment of grand strategy took place. There was drift, and the best that can be s

is that overall the military position in which Britain reached by 1957 was not inc

tent with the appropriate security posture for the Cold War. Politically and econ

cally, the judgment would have to be far harsher. Repeated failure to address the 

as it was and make necessary changes persisted in some spheres down to the 198

in others until after 2000.

Whatever the pre-1945 failures, close alignment with the United States during th

War was understandable and to a large extent desirable. So long as that confront

lasted, a reasonable judgment is that the United Kingdom’s supreme interest was 

taining U.S. engagement in Europe and, within that, positions of British influenc

within NATO. With the end of the Cold War and the removal of the Soviet threa

ferent considerations apply. The costs of subordination became much more evid

and the benefits far less. In any case, the desire to involve the United States focus

upon the means rather than the end; now there is the need to consider both end

means. It is time for Britain to set about rediscovering itself and once more iden

and pursuing its own interests.

That is not a plea for selfish unilateralism. A wide view of a nation’s interests ma

give great weight to the interests and concerns of others. There are good argume

some merging of sovereignty, for putting significant resources at the disposal of 

and for accepting restrictions on what a nation does or can do. The point is that 

should be the application of mind to facts to define objectives, analyze the conse

quences of particular policies and positions, and work out consequences—not si

unthinking followership.

Earlier chapters have outlined Churchill’s hopes in 1945 for an enduring partner

with the United States. With the exception of Edward Heath, most of his success

lowed a similar line (at any rate after 1956), however clear the gap in capabilities 

tween Britain and the United States had become, and however clear therefrom that t

could not be a partnership such as Churchill sought but a most unequal linkage. Pol

erected a new relationship, which they repeatedly referred to as a special relationship

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many influential players in Washington wished to disabuse the British.3

Margaret Thatcher in particular rejected, with visceral force, most things European and

saw the world in terms of very close alignment with the United States. Her departure

from the British political scene did not change things very much. Her successor, John

Major, had a less wholehearted aversion to Europe, and his successor (Tony Blair) started

with a strongly pro-European stance. However, that opening position was overtaken by

events and by Tony Blair’s close personal and political alignment with President Clinton

and then by a different but in some ways even closer relationship with the second President Bush. The result was that the opening years of the twenty-first century saw the

United Kingdom in very close support of the United States, politically and militarily.

In the period leading up to the 2003 Iraqi conflict the United Kingdom, as it had done

for some years, continued to support the United States in air operations designed to

protect the northern Kurds and the southern Shiite Arabs. On less dramatic matters it

reportedly urged within the European Union (admittedly along with others, such as

Greece) the U.S. line on the need for an early date for EU entry negotiations with Turkey. During 2002, despite the significant role the United Kingdom had played in the

genesis of the ESDP, little British energy went into resuscitating that initiative as opposed to what was invested in rallying support for the United States over Iraq. As regards the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Britain, despite many reservations in official circle

about the Israeli posture and actions, did not significantly distance itself from the

American position and certainly did not seek to induce the EU to use its undoubted

potential trade leverage over Israel.4

When it came to fighting, Britain provided troops

for combat roles in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, and it made a significant military

contribution against Iraq in 2003.

Over that conflict, it gave strong and consistent political support to the United States,

well ahead of any other major nation, markedly in front of almost all European states

and far more than France and Germany, over the need to tackle Saddam Hussein. It wa

prepared to inflict grave damage on the EU (admittedly because, from a different perspective, France and Germany were also prepared to see damage inflicted) and to join

with the United States in a war that met neither the classical criteria of a just war nor

the requirements of the United Nations Charter as generally understood and that was

not demanded as a matter of immediate prudence. From the U.S. initiatives, which the

United Kingdom followed closely (although securing some important modifications in

attempting to act through the UN), flowed damage to the United Nations and the international system, revelation of some grave fault lines in NATO, and loss of much

British influence in the EU. The United Kingdom’s positioning alongside the United

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more than a decade ahead.

At the beginning of 2003, despite some major reservations in the Labour Party o

specific question of military action against Iraq, there was little effective politica

lenge to the British government’s general posture. The Conservative opposition a

peared to support the government fully on the issue, as did most of the press. Th

government thus won divisions in the House of Commons despite significant La

votes against.5

Overall, there was little public opposition to the proposition that 

United Kingdom should in almost all cases automatically support the United Sta

and work closely with it. Nevertheless, there were and are real grounds for a reco

eration of that line.

In part the reasons why Britain needs at this stage to regain its ability to address 

gic issues have to do with its role and position, or potential position, in the EU; a

same time, they arise from a strict examination of national interests. A balanced 

ment requires an analysis of what the United Kingdom derives, directly and indi

and is likely to derive in future from such close, quasi-automatic, association. It 

quires consideration of what price it is likely to have to pay for the benefits recei

again directly and indirectly. In short, are the British people better or worse off f

their very close following of the United States? All this, moreover, needs to be do

both the immediate and the longer-term future. The vital question is whether sh

a world beneficial for and to the United Kingdom is more likely to come about f

automatic public locking-on to U.S. positions, or in some other way.

The Benefits

The potential direct benefits to the United Kingdom from continuing a very clos

ciation with the United States can be characterized as, on the one hand, helping 

shape a world of the sort that would be beneficial to the United Kingdom—that 

quiring and exercising influence with the United States so that the latter’s great e

nomic and political weight is, so far as possible, applied in ways that are helpful 

United Kingdom rather than otherwise. There is, on the other hand, the matter o

strengthening the existing ties, which yield concrete benefits in the military and 

gence areas. The indirect benefits might include increasing the United Kingdom’

eral standing in the world, and hence its soft power.

Given that the United Kingdom, like other rich Western states, has many interest

common with the United States, there can be obvious advantages from pursuing 

interests alongside it, since the latter has unmatched military power and preemin

political weight. That was, in a nutshell, the argument for U.S. leadership during 

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only by the close and direct engagement of the United States in European security.

What then benefited the United States usually benefited the Europeans too; the relatively few instances where that was not the case were outweighed by the essential general gains. However, with the subsequent shift in the nature of security and the

development of differing national interests, perceived interests, and differing means of

pursuing interests, that may no longer be the case.

Political Influence

The great difficulty is to know how much the United Kingdom benefits from a special,

and in practice particularly subordinate, relationship with the United States.6

That close

involvement yields some influence is scarcely to be doubted. The issues to be addressed

are how much of that intangible matter is gained at present from a close alignment;

how much there may be in the future, and in what connections; and how important

that which is gained actually is. In the other side of the scales must be placed the costs

of gaining whatever benefit is to be had.

The buildup to the confrontation with Iraq saw a degree of multilateralism and UN in

volvement that was somewhat at odds with the picture of an administration determined on a unilateralist approach to the world. Some commentators ascribed the shift

or apparent shift, to the diplomacy and argumentation of the British prime minister.

Unlike the French and German leaders, Mr. Blair gave public support to President

Bush, but he is said to have argued the multilateral case in private. If changes could be

put down to his intervention it would certainly add weight to the argument that the

close relationship yielded influence. Whether, taking a long-term view, it yielded sufficient influence and more overall benefit to the United Kingdom than a different relationship would have done is, of course, a different matter. The instant assessment of

the balance of close engagement shows that the United States was prepared when it

could not get its way multilaterally to act as it thought fit, and it is difficult to see what

immediate or longer-term benefits the United Kingdom derived by way of shaping the

international system or resolving the Palestine/Israeli conflict.

It has been suggested that Tony Blair early on formed the judgment that it would be a

severe setback if the United States were driven to act alone—the line, that is, that another voice at the table, even in an unequal partnership, would be preferable to pure

American unilateralism. Just why that should be so is not clear; if the result is an action

that would have been taken unilaterally in any case, there seems no advantage in mask

ing, to a small extent, its unilateral nature. Support of the United States won some favorable regard for Blair and the United Kingdom in that country, but the tangible

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elsewhere have been very real.

It is possible, of course, that speaking out could have led to a loss of influence in 

ington, in which case the United States would have pursued a purely unilateral c

with even greater damage to the international system and British (and other) int

within that. That is, the best attainable outcome may have been that, by comprom

its own immediate interests, Britain influenced the United States to a greater ext

than would otherwise have been the case. It is difficult to ascertain whether that 

been the case in particular instances, not only because it is difficult to gauge wha

British intervention had in Washington but because a clear definition of British 

ests has been lacking.

Whatever the precise balance of advantage and cost of the support for the Iraq w

be, what is necessary in ascertaining the appropriateness of this aspect of U.S.-B

relations is judgment as to whether the giving and accepting of counsel necessar

volves the subordination of the pursuit of British interests to public acquiescenc

American views. Clearly the Bush administration has been most unwilling to acc

public criticism, as shown in its reactions to the French and German positions o

Iraq conflict. The question is, however, whether it would have moved, to a greate

lesser extent than it did, in the direction desired by Tony Blair if he had made it cle

unless there was substantial movement he would not support the president and hi

Since as it was the administration could take his public support for granted, it is n

what negotiating leverage the United Kingdom had in this particular instance.7

More generally, as chapters 3 and 4 above indicate, significant British influence o

U.S. actions or policies is not unknown but has been rare and may be becoming 

All indications are that in the future it will become rarer yet. If that is so, privy c

may produce little benefit for the United Kingdom and so justify little subordina

interests. It is, for example, possible that Britain has weakened its standing in Eu

in the Middle East by acquiescing to Washington on issues where speaking out w

have yielded greater soft power in the long term, and where, in any case, at the en

the day, it has had no perceptible influence on the actual U.S. policy outcomes.

Military Cooperation

The benefits to the United Kingdom from its close association with the United Sta

easiest to ascertain in the military area. The Ministry of Defence has studied the m

and quantified the benefits. They are most obvious in respect of major weapons sy

For example, producing itself a missile system with the capabilities of Trident wou

been well beyond the United Kingdom’s economic strength. Submarine-launched 

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have been required for their domestic development. At a lower level, the common servicing of Trident missiles at a U.S. facility saves the United Kingdom very substantial

sums. (If nuclear testing were ever resumed, the United Kingdom would have no site of

its own at which to do it.) In other words, the United Kingdom has had very large tangible benefits from its military association with the United States, and without them it

would have less effective systems or fewer capabilities, or a much higher defense budget.

There are also other significant operational benefits from the two countries’ armed

forces acting together. The Royal Air Force is well ahead of other European air forces in

what it can do and how it does it. The benefits for the Royal Navy’s working abilities

have been even greater; during the Cold War it operated at a technical and professiona

level surpassed, and that only in parts, by the U.S. Navy. The issues for the future are

whether such benefits will be needed and available, and if so whether they will be dependent upon something like the earlier intimate and “special” relationship, and at

what price in political autonomy. Such questions go to the heart of what the United

Kingdom will wish to do militarily and how that will compare with the concerns of the

United States; they also raise major issues of defense industrial policy on both sides of

the Atlantic.

On that latter, the close relationship with the United States yields considerable benefit

to British defense industries. U.S. policy is notoriously obstructive and protectionist in

this area, but the limited attempts to free it up have benefited British companies, with

which American collaboration is closer than with most others. BAE, for example, had

U.S. sales of $4,000 million in 2001. Some of this sort of relationship would continue

without the close political relations between governments, but the possibility of moving or diminishing the formidable barriers would be less without the political collaboration. At the same time, it must be admitted that all the closeness has not moved the

American position very far; transatlantic military trade is still very much a one-way

street; all European companies together account for only 3 percent of the U.S. defense market.8

Intelligence Cooperation

British-U.S. cooperation in the intelligence field has been important since the Second

World War; both sides have benefited greatly, though it is not easy to quantify the benefits in financial terms. A degree of quantification was, in principle, easier when security

depended, for example, very heavily on satellites and the United Kingdom benefited

from “overhead” collection on a scale that it could not have afforded itself. Today the

relationship also involves intimate working relationships and exchanges of analysis and

interpretation on a privileged basis. The benefits with respect to how the United

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War and remain very valuable.

The relationship still gives access to data that the United Kingdom could not hav

lected without expenditure on an inconceivable scale; what may have changed is 

relevance of some of that intelligence. Before September 2001 the United States w

preeminently well geared to the forms of collection best calculated to help in cou

ing terrorism or other items on the new security agenda. Indeed, because the contr

tions of U.S. intelligence to the problems of the new security agenda are less preem

it now has much more to gain from collaboration with others. The habits of wor

together, both on collection and interpretation, fostered over the years can still b

particular benefit to the United Kingdom, which would be most unlikely to cons

foregoing the benefits so long as they were on offer.

The Costs of Collaboration

The obvious costs of particularly close collaboration with the United States are o

main sorts: firstly, dependence on the United States and the consequent need to 

form to its policies, doctrines, and ways of doing things, which may not be the m

appropriate for meeting the United Kingdom’s needs; and secondly, loss or impa

of influence in Europe and more widely. The second sort was demonstrated by t

sults of the close association in early 2003 with the United States over the lead-u

and consequences of war with Iraq. The divisions between the United Kingdom 

one side, and France and Germany on the other, may well have put back the poss

of an effective CFSP for many years. Certainly they undermined in the short term 

claim by Britain to a leading role in determining EU foreign policy and gravely d

aged attempts by the Union to forge more coherent and effective policies.9

The first sort of cost includes the fact that often in the British policy-making pro

there is the explicit desire to avoid crossing the U.S. line; particular groups may p

for a course not on the basis of British interests but because it commends itself t

United States. Thus senior naval officers may wish the United Kingdom to avoid 

cies that would be at variance with those favored by the U.S. Navy, because of the 

working relationship with the latter. For example, even modest post–Cold War p

als from a dependable ally for collaboration on submarines were difficult for the

United Kingdom because of U.S. classification sensitivities. Again, at a time when 

Conventional Forces in Europe arms control negotiations were proceeding apace 

American naval officers were very resistant to applying any such measures to the

assets, senior British officers felt an acute need not to differ. Correcting that sort 

dency requires political and official effort and, even more crucially, awareness of 

such a distorting factor arises.

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cisions along lines that are designed to fit in with the United States and its interests

rather than the United Kingdom’s own needs. If a country wishes to influence the

United States in military decisions, it has to be able to fight alongside American forces

Since the end of the Vietnam War, the United Kingdom has shown a desire to collaborate with the United States in almost all of its major military activities outside Southeast Asia, although not to participate in its minor interventions in the Western

Hemisphere (e.g., Grenada, Panama, or Haiti). It has been a most steadfast proponent

of “NATO First” and of the need for U.S. engagement in European security. It has seen

its likely major military deployments as coalition operations with U.S. leadership.

European nations need to deliberate very carefully on what military tasks they are likely

to need to undertake and how they will undertake them. This applies with particular

force to the United Kingdom, because of its close military involvement with the United

States and its clearly expressed desire to maintain a large degree of interoperability with

it. Even in the cases when the Americans’ policy is wise, the means they favor for imple

menting it may well not be suited to the capabilities and preferences of junior partners

Engagement with the United States may therefore cause problems, not least in terms o

the levels and especially the nature of defense expenditure, if a partner wishes to be

interoperable. This may not have been a significant problem for the United Kingdom

so far, but it will very probably become so in the near future. There seems no likelihoo

that the United States will turn away from seeking high-technology solutions to military problems or from spending on a scale that no other society will match.

More generally, the costs of dependence involve the risk of the Americans’ turning off 

supply of materiel or intelligence. A suggestion of the difficulties that would be likely

to arise could be seen when, during the post-Yugoslavian tensions in the Balkans, U.S.

intelligence was withdrawn from coalition operations, not because of policy difference

with the United Kingdom but because of congressional unwillingness to see an arms

embargo enforced. A more significant lesson could be drawn from the 1956 Suez imbroglio, where the vital resource withheld to frustrate independent British policies was

support for the pound sterling. France drew from that episode the lesson that it should

never be dependent on the United States; the United Kingdom drew the very different

conclusion that it must never act without American support. The former may not have

been correct in the context of the Cold War; the latter may not be appropriate in the

very different post–Cold War era. There seems to be no evidence that cutoffs of materiel or intelligence have been threatened to gain British acquiescence in U.S. policies

in recent years, but perhaps there has been no need even to threaten that, since British

acquiescence for most U.S. policies has been so readily forthcoming. If the United

Kingdom joined more closely with a Europe that resisted American policies more

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United Kingdom in being seen as more or less automatically following Europe ra

than America. All of that demonstrates that receiving substantial U.S. military an

telligence benefits is not cost free.

All states err from time to time, and the repercussions of American errors are by 

of the nation’s size likely to be great, particularly on smaller and weaker players. 

United States may pursue courses that are not in its own best interests, let alone 

of other nations. Some countries may have no alternative but to follow larger on

those who have an option, the risk of entanglement in mistaken policies needs to 

weighed with care. In any case, those that could enjoy wider options must thin

providing themselves the wherewithal to act when the United States does not w

do so, whether for good or bad reasons. Much of that applies to larger European 

tries generally; some applies with particular force to the United Kingdom, becau

political and military structures and habits give it wider options than, say, Germ

joys. Such thinking underlay the St. Malo initiative, where the British prime min

was apparently concerned that as regards Kosovo the United States would not ac

the Europeans at that stage could not. He correctly saw the need for the Europea

who had the economic resources, to fit themselves for at least a degree of indepe

military action.

Britain in Europe

Despite having missed and made a mess of many opportunities for assuming a le

role in Europe, and despite continuing Euro-skepticism, the United Kingdom is 

to remain a member of the EU and to strive to increase its influence there. Britai

ability to secure what it wants within what is undoubtedly the most important in

tional forum for its general well-being is and will be influenced by the perceptio

other European governments (and peoples) of its activities and commitments. S

ing aside from the generality of European opinion will therefore in itself bring a 

That price may be the impairment of the EU’s development or of the United King

role in Europe, or both. Such a price may be tolerable, even necessary, but it will be 

must be offset against the benefits that close shadowing of U.S. policies may bring

Notwithstanding enlargement, the predominant political and much of the econo

weight within the European Union remains in the original founder members, es

cially France and Germany, who opposed in common the U.S. line on Iraq in 200

Each has significant domestic political and economic problems, and in different 

each has failed to implement reform in the economic sphere. There is no ready w

which the United Kingdom can find extensive early common ground with them 

form the EU’s internal business or to move it forward as an international actor. F

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French accent. Despite great willingness to collaborate with the United Kingdom on

military matters, it has in recent years sought to reinvigorate a Franco-German axis in

which it has the preponderant voice and to diminish opportunities for British influence, seemingly concerned not only about British links with the United States but also

that an increase in British influence in the EU would limit its own. Germany is still un

sure of itself as a major diplomatic or military actor outside Europe.

Whatever the strength of the arguments that the United Kingdom should seek to reinforce European capabilities, and they are considerable, London does not have a simple

option of turning from an American engagement to a European one, where it would b

welcomed with open arms. In any case, whatever the opportunities for Britain to have

made a role for itself in Europe half a century ago, the effluxion of time has closed off

many options. Nevertheless, the arguments for Britain’s focusing on its own influence

within the EU are very strong. There is a commonality of interests and approaches, as

well as economic benefits, all pointing to the need to maximize rather than diminish

British influence there.

Closeness to the United States may, of course, affect Britain’s role in Europe in a positive sense, even if it weakens the country’s ability to influence some fellow members of

the EU on foreign policy issues. In military matters it undoubtedly gives an edge to

Britain’s ability to play a leading role in European defense; it may help with influence

with some newer members, though to the extent that they incline toward a U.S. line

that is likely to be a result of their direct contact with the United States, not their approval of a British stance. However, more generally, there is evidence that such closeness has hampered Britain’s ability to play a role in Europe. That has operated both on

outside actors, as in Charles de Gaulle’s rejection of the United Kingdom because of its

American links and in the inhibition of British officials and ministers in looking to Eu

rope as they seek to maintain and reinforce transatlantic ties. Nevertheless, nothing

suggests that the United Kingdom’s core interests differ significantly from those of

other major European states. If there are constant divergences of Britain’s policies from

those of, say, France or Germany, the question of why that is so must surely arise. The

causes and justification for the differences must be looked into; even if there are good

objective grounds for them, the penalty that they bring in terms of diminution of British influence in the European Union and of EU influence in the world must be weighe

against the direct gains from the pursuit of an American orientation.

What such an orientation requires can, of course, be subject to change. There have ove

the years been shifts in the U.S. attitude toward European integration and Britain’s

place in that. In the 1940s and for long after, the pressure from Washington was toward

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in Washington seems against integration and toward picking partners for coaliti

the willing. Certainly there is now no suggestion from that quarter that the Unit

Kingdom should pursue deeper European engagement. Washington appears to h

taken the view that its interests will be served by preventing not only the emerge

any hostile power that could oppose it but even a Europe coherent and unified in 

lomatic and security issues. Having long opposed separate European security str

tures, it now apparently seeks in addition to divide Europeans, that it may more 

assert its way generally. For Britain as an EU member, the working out of such p

can only pose continual embarrassment, aside from impediments to its own inte

(unless those are defined as always following the U.S. lead).

To Choose or Not to Choose

It has been a long-standing maxim of British policy that the country must avoid 

damental choice between Europe and America. Mrs. Thatcher implicitly, and to 

tent explicitly, rejected that while in office; she was more forthright after her fall 

power, when she became very clear about the choice that should be made—that 

favor of the United States. It must be considered whether the maxim is any longe

useful or even a safe guide to policy. A choice should not be lightly made, and th

should be no rejection of the American pole purely for reasons of national asser

along the lines of Gaullist policy in France. Nevertheless, it is time to address two 

tions openly and honestly. Firstly, is the current prime minister’s assumption tha

ain must automatically position itself with the United States and seek to be close

than any other country reasonable, feasible, or desirable? Secondly, should and d

Britain’s future lie in Europe, and if so, does that mean that avoiding a fundamen

choice is an outmoded rule? Is avoiding choice a tenable position?

In his address to British ambassadors in January 2003, the prime minister argued 

Britain must be at the center of Europe and that to separate itself from Europe w

be madness. However, he also argued that the first principle of foreign policy is t

Britain should remain the closest ally of the United States. It is not easy to see ho

desire that Britain should be at the heart of Europe can be accomplished if Lond

first foreign policy aim is to be the closest ally of the United States. His argumen

not make clear why the latter must be an absolute, what the benefits are, or why 

will always outweigh the costs, no matter what price the United States asks.

The prime minister indeed asserted that Britain’s European and American roles 

force each other—that Britain could be a transatlantic bridge. There are severe li

such a metaphor, however, not least that a bridge generally links two fixed points

moving, developing, and interacting entities. More importantly, it is not clear ho

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of the United States—and that (by strong implication) that interest is entirely in the

United Kingdom’s hands and should be pursued whatever the cost. The correct answer

to the first question must surely be, as Lord Palmerston pointed out a century and a

half ago, that Britain has enduring interests rather than enduring friends. There are

great advantages to be had from a close relationship with the United States, but that

should never be an absolute; the national interest must be weighed occasion by occasion, or at least from time to time.

As regards the second question, the European Union has many weaknesses and many

failings. However, geography, history, and the working of the international system indi

cate that Britain’s long-term interests are likely to be better served as an influential par

of an effective EU than in pursuing them alone. Most objective observers would agree

on that, however much they might differ on the details and eventual extent of EU integration. Here the choice is not between joining Europe and becoming effectively the

fifty-first of the United States; it is between joining Europe and being an outside petitioner of the United States, receiving some benefits, at some cost and without a major

voice in the determination of U.S. policy.

Striking the Balance

Time and again, it has been possible to see the United Kingdom following a U.S. line

where there was no direct benefit to the United Kingdom and where the indirect benefits are so indirect as to be invisible. The Middle East is perhaps the clearest example of

that, whether over Israel/Palestine or Iraq.10 Whether considered on objective grounds of

what is likely to secure a just and lasting peace or on grounds of national self-interest,

there is nothing to be said for the United Kingdom’s hesitation to condemn and take appropriate action against the illegal activities of Israel. Nevertheless, the United Kingdom has blocked even mild European action on that and, despite pressing the U.S.

president to agree to the publication of the quadripartite “road map,” has not spoken

out clearly against the long-running and consistent American bias on the matter.11

As regards Iraq, the United Kingdom undoubtedly shared with the United States a

common (if mistaken) view, based on intelligence reporting, of Saddam Hussein’s doings and misdoings over a long period. He headed an evil regime that had sought and

continued to seek weapons of mass destruction. He had also used such weapons,

though not against any well-armed Western power from which retaliation might have

been expected. Early statements from the Bush administration in 2002 ignored the

most obvious questions that would arise from an attempt to change the regime.12 It is

possible, though far from certain, that Mr. Blair’s diplomacy was a factor in the admin

istration’s later more sensible and fleshed-out approach. It did not, however, stop a

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moreover, a question whether the United Kingdom’s standing in the world at lar

in Europe was enhanced by such strong expressions of solidarity, and in due cou

demonstrations of it by joining in the war, when others were much more relucta

there was a pressing need to build up the role and relevance of the United Nation

of a rule-based international system. The current system is not an unchanging g

major aspect of any choice is its making or remaking. At present, the unilateral A

can attitudes, military power, and political influence mean that in many ways the

United States is the system. However, a unipolar system cannot be counted upon 

main either stable or benign over time.

Even if the prime minister’s private interventions with the president can be cred

with helping guide the latter to the UN route in late 2002, there is a strong case t

given the earlier incoherent thinking on Iraq in the United States and the lack of 

likely immediate threat to any Western country, and notwithstanding the short, 

tarily successful, and not too destructive initial intervention, Britain’s actions an

words damaged rather than enhanced its general position. Also, it is not clear wh

benefits they brought and bought with respect to the United States that would n

been available to a somewhat more distant interlocutor.

Even if it be admitted that the United Kingdom has from time to time a significant 

pact on American policy, that impact is likely, even with administrations less unila

in outlook than the second Bush one, to be less decisive than the effect that the U

Kingdom could have upon policy formation in Europe, where it is dealing with s

of broadly its own size and weight. It may be objected that Britain could never e

ther France or Germany in political impact in Europe. That may be true in the sh

term, given the United Kingdom’s long history of standing aside (not to say obst

tion), its manifestly close association with the policies of a non-European power

the special factors affecting the Franco-German couple. However, globally, the U

Kingdom has more weight than either France or Germany alone over a range of 

and there it can have a major impact, as the St. Malo initiative showed. Clear com

ment to Europe and the addition of Britain’s weight to carrying forward the EU’

velopment, would increase the British role and the country’s ability to affect the

formulation of European policy.

It may be objected that the EU is a political and military lightweight, that major 

on its policy formation is of less effect than a small impact on U.S. policy makin

is true, but it is not the whole truth. There are several important glosses to be ma

Firstly, the EU is an economic heavyweight, and influencing the development of i

nomic policies is of real national interest to the United Kingdom and can serve i

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kets and free trade, its particular economic policies in practice very much (understand

ably) serve its own interests; there is a long history of damage to British interests from

those policies. Secondly, while the EU does indeed have far to go in developing coherent and effective foreign policy, there is every indication that the world needs alternatives to a unilateralist U.S. hegemonic approach. British and wider interests would

therefore be better served were the United Kingdom to put its weight and influence

into making the European Union a proper strategic and diplomatic actor rather than

simply reinforcing, almost automatically, American policies. Even if Britain’s every immediate economic and military want could be met by adhering to the United States it

would be wrong to do that, neglecting the development of Europe, because in time the

United Kingdom would end up taking whatever policies the United States handed out,

and in due course it would find an international system forged by U.S. policies and by

the reactions of China, India, or the Muslim world against them. Only by the wildest

chance could that system meet Britain’s long-term requirements.

In short, effort put into strengthening the weaker foreign policy entity, where British

input might on occasion be decisive or at least very influential, would in the present

state of the world be a better investment than attempting to temper or steer the doings

of an actor who feels itself so strong that it will ultimately seek its own ends almost irrespective of the needs or arguments of others.

There is another aspect to all this, much less easily voiced in the United Kingdom (and

with even greater difficulty in England) than in France or even Italy or Spain—nationa

pride or feelings of worth. Britain is chauvinistic and has a chauvinistic press. However

that chauvinism is very rarely, if ever, displayed toward one power, to which British policies are regularly subordinated and the policies of which are so strongly maintained that

the United Kingdom can have little impact upon them. It is highly undesirable to encourage chauvinism or anti-Americanism. However, a reasonable pride in England,

Britain, and Europe, their political and cultural achievements, and a sense of the great

many good things that have come thence (as well as some bad ones) might reasonably

lead to a feeling that a position of perpetual subordination to American whims and

prejudices is no good thing, any more than subordination to French or German ones

would be. In urging that, one does not need to uphold uncritically some unhistorical

view of the state or the nation-state in all its alleged post-Westphalian or nineteenthcentury sovereignty. One need do no more than suggest that a reasonable feeling of

sympathy with one’s own group and its values has a role to play. Groups or entities

called England, Britain, and the United Kingdom exist. They form parts of larger

wholes, in which they should have appropriate voices. Sometimes they represent a collection of views or aspirations that can best be considered on their own merits. Often

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freely chosen on their merits, partnerships that will usually involve a true comm

of interests and a sharing of authority.

The French, perhaps for the wrong reasons—after all le soldat Chauvin was a (m

cal) Frenchman—recognized that at an early stage. For reasons connected with t

different fates and roles in the Second World War, and with Churchill’s part in th

conflict and his relationship with Roosevelt, the British did not do so and have n

done so yet. Sixty-five years after a war in which Britain’s only hope of avoiding 

was linkage with the United States, the time has surely come to consider again w

the maxims of almost all earlier statesmen, and indeed of Churchill himself befo

1939, may not provide useful alternative guidance for the coming century. Obvio

the past cannot be a complete guide to the future; certain things have changed fo

The world of the twenty-first century is not that of William Pitt (Elder or Young

Lord Castlereagh, Palmerston, or the Marquis of Salisbury. Equally, it is not that 

Churchill, Bevin, or Thatcher. Britain has to address the world as it is, to conside

it might better shape that world to its tastes and interests. In a world that has cha

very greatly in less than two decades, maxims forged in the last sixty years of the 

tieth century should be regarded as no more persuasive than those applied from 

to 1914. All may have something to teach; none is likely to provide a golden key 

ery question.

The United States has indeed done much good; it has also done considerable har

the views of many leading Americans as to the universality of its way of doing an

derstanding things are unhistorical and need to be seen as the creatures of a part

time and place. Great as is the weight of the United States, it has not found uniq

truth or virtue. It should be a valued partner, not an automatic choice for Britain

spective of other claims. With little objective justification, 1776 saw the rupturin

one set of ties between Britain and what became the United States. It is now time

much more justification, to end the present links and forge new and more whole

ones based on a true view of interests and a desire for cordial cooperation rather 

control and direction.

On any view, in economic, military, political, and cultural matters, the United St

will be a major part of the world that Britain faces. Cooperation with it will ofte

beneficial. Nevertheless, demographically and increasingly economically, the Un

States will, as the twenty-first century progresses, be a smaller part of the whole. 

tically, the effect of a single overwhelming, unipolar, conventional military capab

will diminish as new, “asymmetric” threats arise in response or reaction to it and 

new security challenges to which it provides no answers become ever more appa

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it will need to find partners appropriate to the pursuit of those interests. Sometimes

the right partner, alone or with others, will be the United States; often the appropriate

partners will be other Europeans; sometimes extra-European links will be important

(and sometimes extra-European players will seek partners who are not the United

States simply to avoid its overweening influence).

All this is no more than a call for the United Kingdom to apply (mutatis mutandis) to

itself the approaches that the United States unhesitatingly applies to its own national

interest. It does not imply a rejection of the United States, much less of the important values enshrined in some of the latter’s founding documents. It does imply inde

pendent thought about the interests of those who live within the United Kingdom

and of those in the wider world. It must involve consideration of the wider entities o

which, by reason of history and geography and political decisions, the United Kingdom forms a part.

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New Relationships for Old

No nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest; a

prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from [this m

’Tis folly for one Nation to look for disinterested favors from ano

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate upon r

vours from Nation to Nation.

The course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of oth

Without U.S. military and economic involvement, Britain and Western Europe w

not have survived the Second World War in recognizable form; without such inv

ment during the Cold War they might well not have survived the challenge of So

oppression and dictatorship.

The Past

When it finally entered the Second World War, the United States provided not on

arsenal of democracy but also many fighting men in the European theater, and a 

preponderance of them in the Pacific. It provided both credit and munitions to a 

ain that neither had the one nor could produce the other in sufficient quantity, a

helped keep supplies going to the Soviet Union. After the war, despite history an

internal pressures toward isolationism and unilateralism, the United States playe

major role in making the world system. It was, with some limitations, a multilate

tor, joining in a profoundly important transatlantic partnership. U.S. financial p

relaunched Western Europe and then its engagement throughout the Cold War; 

Americans protected that area and also ensured the eventual freedom of Central 

Eastern Europe, and indeed ultimately made possible that of Russia itself. All Eu

ans, therefore, have much for which to thank America.

CHAPTER SIX

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velt recognized the challenge from Nazi Germany, and he was greatly concerned lest th

British fleet fall into German hands. At first he hoped to hold off the threat by support

ing France and Britain. Even when it became clear that the defeat of the Third Reich by

Britain alone was most unlikely, the United States was not moved to enter the war directly and fully; Japan’s attack and Hitler’s declaration of war were required for that.

During the Cold War, facing what was seen as a worldwide challenge from a potentially

global actor, Washington saw that its vital interests would have been seriously undermined if the relatively rich and developed states of Western Europe were to fall to the

Soviet empire. Hence there was a shared vital interest in direct American involvement

in European security.

The resulting transatlantic regime was thus based on American support for Europe

against a Soviet threat and was, for a large part of the postwar period, manifested by a

large U.S. military presence in Europe. The link, embodied in and demonstrated by the

North Atlantic Alliance, gave rise to the sense that the relationship of the United States

with Europe was different from relations with other parts of the world. Over time ther

came to be emphasis on a community of values, liberal or democratic, as well as shared

security interests. The rhetoric on shared values was sometimes more evident than the

substance. At times of considerable domestic repression both Portugal and Turkey wer

able to be members of NATO (though Spain was not admitted during the Franco era—

which did not prevent bilateral U.S. defense arrangements with that country). Nevertheless, the polarization with the Soviet Union did give reality to talk of democracy,

freedom, and a genuine shared security, involving values as well as territory. When that

threat dissipated it was not clear why Europe should still want U.S. engagement in its

security, either physically or by way of guarantee. Attempts to spell out the need, such

as NATO’s “Strategic Concepts” of 1991 and 1999, were not convincing; they were rhet

oric rather than demonstration. The truth perhaps lay in a word heard more often in

academic than in diplomatic circles—unipolarity. Since there was one and only one all

powerful actor, the United States, there was at least a supposition that it would need to

cope with almost all significant security threats; expressed somewhat differently, if the

United States was the indispensable power, it should clearly continue to be the key in

European security.

The actual and substantive change in transatlantic relations brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union was obscured for a while by a number of factors. Firstly, almost all parties continued to say (for whatever reason) how necessary U.S. involvemen

was. Secondly, the Europeans showed themselves incapable, despite their wealth, of

dealing with the military and political issues that arose in the former Yugoslavia. (In

part, they were self-deterred—they lacked the confidence that they could manage the

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in the necessary military capabilities.) However, by the beginning of the twenty-

century, particularly in the light of the Kosovo war (1999) and of the preparation

second conflict with Iraq, the differences were manifest between what the United 

could and would do and what most of the Europeans believed the appropriate w

tackling problems. The Kosovo operation was declared a success, and in a techni

sense it was, but the mutual loss of confidence across the Atlantic, as well as the 

onstration of weaknesses in NATO’s means of doing things, probably made it th

and last war of the Alliance as such.

Arrangements that gave a necessary primacy to the United States were understan

in the period immediately after the Second World War. Only that country had th

nomic and military strength to start renewal and safeguard security in Europe. M

over, so long as the Soviet Union existed, with its vast armed forces and great ars

nuclear weapons, the need for deep U.S. engagement in European security was p

ble. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, growth in the economic stre

of Western European states, and an increase in the impact of the European Unio

case for that engagement was much diminished and the role of the transatlantic 

much less clear. Nevertheless, because of its military and economic (and so polit

strength, the United States must figure very largely in the operation of the intern

tional system, or rather systems, and so also in the foreign relations of European 

The question is how should it figure.

The Present

U.S. engagement in Europe and elsewhere must be seen in the perspective of ear

history, going back to the American Revolution. More than in any European cou

the political legacy of two hundred years ago is alive and flourishing in the Unite

States. American unwillingness to be subordinated to any outside power or influ

marks a real divide across the Atlantic. The feeling of exceptionalism, drawn orig

from Protestant rhetoric, is a factor not found in even the most Protestant of Eu

countries. Moreover, while the strong private charitable currents within the Unit

States impart to the nation a desire to do good, to help the poor and afflicted, ou

its boundaries, they tend to define the good that it wishes to do very narrowly; th

a general American tendency to identify worthy and unworthy actors and recipie

Shades of gray are not usually part of the analysis.

Much the same is true of the U.S. government as an actor, and its policies are sub

a degree of influence by internal pressure groups not frequently found elsewhere

governments understandably place their own national interests first, but in Euro

any rate there is a marked and growing tendency to subordinate the national to

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that in the United States; indeed, there has been a recent tendency to back away from

even self-imposed or negotiated restraints of international law. Moreover, the feeling o

exceptionalism leads frequently to a desire to export what are seen as the American vir

tues and values; a strong school of so-called neoconservatives seeks to remold the

world in what it perceives as the American image, spreading political democracy and

economic liberalism. It does not hesitate to advocate the use of armed force to that end

in certain cases.

Since the end of the Cold War there have been, and with the second Bush administration there now are, real questions as to what sort of actor the United States will be. The

instincts of the principal makers of policy lean toward unfettered primacy and rejection

of even the lightest of outside constraints. U.S. political weight can indeed ensure that

many desirable things happen. Equally, it can prevent the coming about of many things,

for good or ill, possibly frustrating others’ security or economic objectives. Nevertheless, it seems clear to almost all outsiders that neither in international economics nor i

current security needs is the United States likely to achieve its ends if it acts alone.

In establishing global order, neither Asia, with the exception of Australasia (and, in a

limited sphere, Japan) nor Africa will yield much help to the United States in either the

security or the economic spheres. Europe and the United States have much more in

common. There is almost bound to remain a different relationship with Europeans

than with other parts of the world in tackling global issues, even if the tasks are to be

tackled in an essentially unilateral way.

Europe needs the United States for the same essential reasons as the United States

needs Europe—to help consolidate and safeguard a liberal world order. At present, and

above all, to the extent that the application of military force is a necessary part of that

safeguarding, Europe needs the United States because the former is not, and its compo

nent states are not, capable of fighting a serious military campaign beyond the borders

A further current reason for U.S. engagement in European security structures is to act

as a check and lever. That, of course, runs both ways: engaged, the United States may

check and influence European policies; however, a United States directly involved in a

multilateral framework may be less likely to be able to pursue its own policies without

regard to the needs and interests of others. However, such leverage will be more and

more difficult to achieve in practice, since the United States shows so little willingness

to subordinate itself to allies in the interests of alliance solidarity.

While all countries have a general interest in peace and economic development, there

will be in a complex world differences of interests and, even more, of perceived interests. Peace at what price, and with what risks? Whose economic development, and on

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to pursue their own interests, which may or may not be coincident with those of 

countries. An objective view does not suggest that the United States is either alw

the wrong side or always on the right; its governments are both as fallible and as 

to be right as any others. However, since Washington needs, in many areas, to tak

little notice of the requirements of others, it may pursue policies that have an ad

effect elsewhere in a way that states that have to be more responsive to internatio

opinion cannot. Despite assertions of American primacy and the need to mainta

perpetual subordination of the judgments or interests of others to those of the U

States can be justified on the basis of neither history nor principle. Some subord

may indeed be necessary and so appropriate in particular cases, but the need has 

judged in the light of all the circumstances.

There are a range of problems in the face of which Europe as a whole cannot yet 

on its own feet, much less be an effective leader for others. The underlying lack i

political weight and military capability. Similar problems affect the individual Eu

pean states too.

First of all, the EU is not a nation-state; it does not have one foreign policy. It ha

common policies but no comprehensive ones; meanwhile, its constituent memb

taining and guarding jealously their power and individual authority in many are

foreign affairs, also have their own. Even worse, the EU lacks coherence in policy 

mation; its machinery is not effective in its parts, and there is a lack of coordinat

between the different organs. Responsibilities are divided between the Council a

Commission, and there is no satisfactory mechanism for articulation between th

All this will be made worse by enlargement, despite the efforts to produce and ad

constitutional treaty.

Even if the EU could somehow formulate effective foreign policies, it would do so 

in many areas, because it lacks capabilities, especially but not only military ones, to 

effect to them. The Union has advanced to expressing the desire for a modest level 

military capabilities but not to providing the necessary resources. Even if those w

forthcoming, there would still be a lack of policy for their use. Above all, linked wi

incoherence of policy formation but not identical with it, there is a lack of will to do 

necessary as a major political actor on the world stage—in particular, to use force.

Europe collectively has become inward looking, and some European states have be

isolationist, in the sense of bounding their horizons by the immediate geographica

Europe is unable to protect its interests in the world or to make the impact that it s

considering its wealth, culture, geography, and history. There is a need (and, despit

many problems, some opportunity) to rectify that and for Europe to grow up. Tha

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general. In the medium and longer terms, it would even be good for America.

The opportunity lies in the absence of overwhelming, or indeed almost any, threat of

conventional war to Europe. During the Cold War, the imperative was to face the Sovie

Union; that required territorial defense, heavy U.S. engagement, and subordination of

many local policies to keeping the United States engaged and providing a credible defense. Europe still needs friends and collaborators to deal with the new security agenda

and, more generally, to promote its interests, but others need Europe as much. Even th

United States needs Europe, if it is to promote a liberal economic agenda, pursue terrorists, promote Western values, and undertake political and economic development in

backward areas.

On the other hand, that opportunity is limited by the post–11 September American

obsession with doing what it wants in its own way—not least in waging the “war on

terror.” Until the 2000 Bush administration, the United States was reasonably supportive of developments in EU foreign and security policies, though there had long been

major hesitation about any degree of European autonomy in military matters. Of Europe’s heavyweights, the United Kingdom, its leading military power, had changed tack

and was supportive of the development of an ESDP, which indeed had sprung from an

Anglo-French initiative in 1998. France was pulling in the right direction. Only Germany was lagging. That state of affairs was deteriorating markedly by the start of 2003

largely over the U.S. initiatives on Iraq; the actual outbreak of war resulted in a major

setback for the development of European policies. The emphasis on military solutions

relying on strengths that are peculiarly America’s own and the rejection of other opinions and approaches make it difficult for European or any other actors to pursue differ

ent strategies, even though the same factors point to the need to hear other voices and

to the necessity for Europeans to get their act together.

The United Kingdom continued to align itself very closely with the United States over

Iraq—indeed, the prime minister made general close alignment a rule of policy, not

simply a pragmatic matter flowing from the facts of particular cases. Public opinion in

Europe was much more reserved. France and Germany celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the Elysée Treaty (the Franco-German Friendship Treaty of 22 January 1963) by

an attempted relaunch of their axis within the EU—an undertaking largely directed, it

appeared, against U.S. policies and probably British influence in Europe. Germany asserted that it would not take part in any war and, with France and Belgium, refused to

agree to NATO planning for sending military aid to Turkey to help repel any attack on

it following a U.S. strike on Iraq. In riposte, eight EU countries (including the United

Kingdom) came out in support of the United States. In short, there was no common

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one. All this also severely damaged (or perhaps more accurately, demonstrated th

isting damage to) NATO.

The Future

The divisions across the Atlantic seem likely to remain very great. Efforts to heal 

rifts are likely to be palliatives rather than cures that go to the roots of the matte

However, the advantages of, indeed the need for, coherent and cohesive action, w

on the environment, on terrorism, or on international development, remain. Ma

gent problems in the field of international relations and security cannot be solve

any one nation alone. Even allowing for some divergences of real interests, there 

much that Western nations could accomplish together. The issues include:

• Pursuing a liberal economic order

• Building up the rule of law and strengthening international institutions

• Defusing international tensions in potential flash points

• Engaging with Islam on modernity

• Fighting against international crime, trafficking, terror

• Promoting development of poor countries.

Unfortunately, one has only to list these to see that they are likely to augment th

strains in transatlantic relations rather than lead to effective collaboration. Whil

are some hopeful signs—the United States is doing a little more on development

there is some collaboration on crime, etc.—there is very little progress on intern

law, no agenda on Islam (a U.S. Middle East policy is in place that may lead to be

developments but is at least equally likely to cause major upset and long-lasting 

moil in the region), and there have been setbacks to free trade. The faults are not 

one side, and European countries in many cases need to be less parochial. (Parad

cally, for it was in U.S. politics that it originally arose, the term “isolationist” can 

more readily be applied to the Old Continent.) European nations need to develo

range of capabilities for foreign policy, military, diplomatic, policy formulating, 

then to engage in the world, not assuming that Asia, the Middle East, and South 

ica are not real concerns for them but can simply be left to the United States. Eur

the World has to be the motto.

The old relationships ended de facto with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. They w

further distressed by the early years of Bosnia. The cracks were hidden by Europ

and Americans who for different reasons did not wish to acknowledge the chang

even that there could be a change. The theologizing on separable but not separat

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prevent U.S. disengagement. The underlying reasons for that attempt were far from clear

For some European countries, fear of Germany may have been a factor; a blindness to

transatlantic differences of interest seems to have seized others. In asserting the impor

tance of a transatlantic link the Europeans and Americans were not ad idem.

2

The bargain had always meant different things to the contracting parties, and the differences

were increased by the end of the strategic situation that had led to the relationship in

the first place.

Madeleine Albright as secretary of state famously asserted that the United States is the

indispensable power. Given the size and impact of the United States there is validity in

that, though not necessarily in the sense in which the secretary meant it. If the United

States is adamantly opposed to something it may well not happen, though contrary examples could be found. Moreover, many things, particularly of a major military nature

can at present be undertaken only by the United States. It is not the case, however, that

nothing can happen if the United States is not engaged. Many useful and necessary thing

can and could happen if it fell quiet. In many spheres the world could live with U.S. isola

tionism; that, however, is not what is on offer. The United States is not isolationist. It is in

fact unilateralist, with a strong sense of its exceptionalism and a self-appointed vocation

as the shining city on the hill but little experience in continual engagement.

For the United States, the essential issue is how it will manifest its exceptionalism. It

has two options: to conduct itself as if the rules that apply to others do not apply to it;

to act as if it were truly sui generis; or to act as an exemplar, to say that its vocation is t

point the way, by example and precept, for others to follow in creating a civil society of

states, possibly even a civil society of civil societies. There seems very little sign of the

third at present. The country that historically has stressed the rule of laws over men, that

domestically is arguably all too much involved with litigation and has embodied a complex system of constitutional checks and balances as a necessary part of freedom, insists

at the international level on reserving the right of Americans to act without law, without

checks or balances, and indeed commits itself to preventing the emergence of an equal.3

There will in future be a transatlantic relationship, or rather several—United States–EU,

United States in NATO, United States and France/Germany/United Kingdom—different

from the relationships between other parts of the world. However, it is another question whether there will be any deeper or more special kind of relationship than that

which arises from a broad coincidence of approach, and whether in some fundamenta

sense any European country, or group of them, will enjoy a true strategic partnership

with the United States that is different in quality from other relationships and will endure over time and through changing circumstances. If any will, national foreign

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to be framed on other bases, perhaps with lesser objectives but also perhaps with

greater attention to Europe’s and European countries’ own concerns.

Future transatlantic relationships will be not only different from the ones that ex

for the last half of the twentieth century but less intensive. The objective must be 

that each is as substantive as possible. That means focusing on the real issues and 

real nature of the problems, not on a fictitious or recollected but long-gone set o

tionships. When all that is possible has been done, there may be less cooperation 

the Atlantic than would in principle be desirable. That may be regretted, but the 

cannot be to perpetuate or even stabilize the old relationships. The world has change

are gone, and we should not be trying to recall them; they no longer conform to the 

ties. There is now the need to forge a new set of relationships that can serve Europe’s 

rent needs and help promote its own interests, as well as those of America.

Fundamental to the relationships will be how long the world remains unipolar. T

U.S. national security strategy may set out the aim of preventing the emergence 

rival, but history suggests that in the long term that may not be an attainable obj

Even if it were, there must be doubts as to how stabilizing it would be. There was 

comment in the twentieth century on how destabilizing a balance-of-power app

to international relations can be, and lessons, appropriate or not, have been draw

from the entanglements of the powers before 1914. Unipolarity may, however, al

destabilizing in both the same and different ways; as noted elsewhere, China, Ind

others are unlikely to rest content with arrangements in which a country with qu

small proportion of the world’s population sets the rules and then interprets and 

plies them. The same sentiment in even heightened form may apply to much of 

Muslim world. The results may include both attempts to combine against the Un

States in order to balance it (which may well not succeed in a military sense) and 

feeding of those feelings that have nurtured al Qaeda. To the extent that U.S. dom

nance comes simply from the facts of economic and political weight, unipolarity 

be disliked but tolerated. To the extent that it is a proclaimed objective, it is likely 

provoke reactions, not only in Asia but in Europe too, which will neither help th

United States attain its ends nor assist the smooth working of the international s

At the very least, if the United States finds itself carrying a big stick it would do w

walk softly. Better would be to work positively for an ordering of things such tha

neighbors work together on their security within an increasingly law-aided syste

Whatever the perceived deficiencies of European statesmen at present, the fact is 

the populations of the major European countries, with the possible exception of 

United Kingdom, will not support governments that align themselves with a Un

States that rejects international law and institutions and seeks overt hegemony a

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partners, but setting aside public opinion in Europe is not a long-term option for politicians who wish to be reelected. Faced with Soviet threats, some were prepared to take

political risks; in the absence of such compelling factors they will not seek to go agains

public sentiment. Many aspects of U.S. culture (in the wider sense) will be warmly wel

comed in Europe; a commitment to maintaining a unipolar world will not.

Britain’s Relationships Special and Natural

The United Kingdom’s relations with the EU and its predecessor organizations have

from the beginning been fraught with difficulty. The same is true of its relations with

the United States during most of the time of the latter’s existence, but this latter is not

generally acknowledged. Future relationships with both should include a substantial

and substantive revision of British vision (or myopia) and policies.

Britain’s problems with Europe are in part due to the legacy and vision of empire,

and in part to an absence of the formative experiences of defeat and devastation in

war that shaped France and Germany. In part too, however, they reflect the pursuit o

a relationship with the United States different in kind from all others. In the beginning a Churchillian vision, that pursuit became a national self-deception in an effort

to stay at the top table when, objectively, power had departed.

Whatever the reasons, the inclination to pursue a “special relationship” with the United

States at the cost of other more immediate and needed relations dictated by geography

economics, and politics should now be put aside. It brings neither great influence over

the United States nor a voice in the world that could not be obtained by other means.

Indeed it may well hinder both: so long as the United States knows that it will have

British support no matter what, it has no inducement to defer to British opinion; so

long as the rest of the world sees London as simply a faithful echo of Washington, it

will wish to talk to the principal not the lieutenant and will condemn the lieutenant

equally with the principal.

Given American power, there is, of course, an argument for joining with it so as to be

on its side. That was not felt to be an argument to join France in Napoleon’s time, nor

Germany in the twentieth century. Of course, U.S. economic liberalism and democracy

are much more desirable things than totalitarianism or even authoritarianism. The

United States is by historical standards a benign hegemon. However, as Lord Acton famously observed, all power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

With effective checks on the United States from neither international law nor other

powers it would be expecting more than history has ever seen that it would always do

the right thing. The British government’s current approach, though it has post-1945

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least the question should be asked, and then answered only after careful thought

Quite understandably, the United States will seek to promote its own interests. It 

generally do that in a constructive way. However, its interests will not always be t

of the United Kingdom, and it has already made very clear that it will not be con

strained by international law when that conflicts with its own judgment of its in

No prudent British government should assume that it can serve its own or wider 

ests simply by adopting the U.S. position for the present and the foreseeable futu

ten it may do so, but that must be the result of strategic thinking about ends and

means. Above all, the United Kingdom must make clear that its support is not gi

automatically. In any case, even if there is substance in an American position, Br

interests may be better served by paying attention to other substance in other co

tries’ positions; that, after all, is what diplomacy should be about. It is time for th

United Kingdom to take the long view—to think about a balance of advantage, t

and to others. It should also think about what the world would be like were the U

States to be left without a proper partner, one that shared the decisions and the r

The so-called special relationship arose much later than is often thought; it was 

thinner and did far less for Britain after the Second World War than is commonl

lieved. So far as it existed, it was forged in the exigencies of war and related to th

has had continuing military and intelligence utility to the United Kingdom, but 

come at a heavy political price. The benefits have been limited in extent and dur

the costs have been substantial—as earlier generations of American statesmen re

when they tried to induce Britain into a more Europe-oriented course. The relat

ship became in political discourse a substitute for empire. It is now high time th

United Kingdom and its political classes look at what it has brought and what it 

reasonably be expected to bring in the future, and to set against the benefits the 

national interests foregone.

Perhaps Britain should adopt toward its former colony Thomas Jefferson’s presc

for the young republic—peace, commerce, and honest friendship but without en

gling alliance. What would Britain lose if it did so? What might it gain elsewhere

the very least, standing ready to join coalitions on their merits, Britain would be 

fied that its interests were being consulted on each decision; it might even find it

being courted by the United States. Military cooperation would still be possible, as 

exchanges of intelligence. Certainly, some in Washington might try to run down th

telligence relationship, which would cause serious losses for the United Kingdom. 

ever, if the relationship continues only at the price of British subservience, it is diff

see that the balance of advantage is positive for Britain. All the intelligence there is

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the national interest. Meanwhile, with the ending of automatic support, those element

in the United States determined on unilateral action would be deprived, at home and

abroad, of the cover and hence political benefits of British agreement, bought at no

cost to the United States. For its part, the United Kingdom would be able to do what it

judged right and expedient on the particular merits of each case. In short, the United

Kingdom should repudiate the newly proclaimed basis for policy of simply being the

closest ally of the United States. Let it become so because Washington courts it for wha

it can bring, and because Americans feel that gaining its support is worthwhile.

Such a change would meet vociferous opposition from some sections of the British

press and so from aspects of public opinion influenced by what they read there. It would

have significant implications for the shape and capabilities of British armed forces and so

disturb some senior officers. On the other hand, apart from the political and diplomatic

advantages, a more rational laying out of limited resources on defense capabilities might

emerge from a partial turning away from the desire to produce elements capable of integrating with and operating alongside the U.S. forces in high-tempo warfare. It would require political courage of a high order, given the longstanding tendencies of most

British leaders since Suez. If change in the presumption of almost automatic support

for Washington were linked, as it should be, with a more positive attitude toward Europe, the initial pressures against it would be very great. There would be a need for sus

tained political leadership of a high order. It has to be admitted that there seems little

sign of that on the horizon at the moment.

As regards Europe, the European Union must mature as a military and political actor,

making available the necessary resources and fostering a sense of its worth. The United

Kingdom will have to face many problems, some of its own making in finding a place

at the center of a more effective Europe. It must continue to strive in that direction,

however, while doing all that it can to increase the diplomatic weight and effectiveness

of the EU. It must seek, too, to prevent feckless anti-Americanism or equally feckless

anti-Europeanism from paralyzing attempts to make balanced and mutually advantageous transatlantic partnerships.

Both distancing itself from an illusory special relationship and increasing the European

Union’s influence call for a change in British reflexes and in distorted perceptions of

history and international relations. The agenda is hard, and the syllabus of learning dif

ficult, but they should be undertaken now.

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Notes

Introduction: Why Another Book?

Epigraph: Robert Calasso, The Marriage of

Cadmus and Harmony (New York: Vintage,

1994), chap. 1.

1. These observations apply in particular to

Western Europe—that is, countries not in the

Soviet sphere of influence in the Cold War—

but they are becoming relevant also to many

Eastern European states.

2. That did not, of course, prevent serious differences rising, and, in the earlier years, real

threats of things unraveling. For example, in

1953 Dulles, the American secretary of state,

warned publicly of a possible agonizing reappraisal of American policy. He told Eden that

the United States might swing over to a policy of hemispheric defense, with the emphasis on Asia.

Chapter One: The Beginning

1. President Cleveland stated that the United

States itself would adjudicate the boundary

and thereafter resist as willful aggression any

attempt to assert claims on what it determined to be Venezuelan territory. At the time,

the United States had two second-class battleships and twelve cruisers, to Britain’s fortyfour battleships and forty-one cruisers.

2. In January 1921 the British ambassador in

Washington said (to newspaper correspondents) that Britain and America were drifting

toward war. His later clarification was that he

did not currently foresee an Anglo-American

war but did envisage a deadly struggle disguised as peace.

3. That is, cabinet member responsible for finance and economic policy.

4. Certain U.S. actions were decidedly counterproductive. The Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930

raised tariffs to protect domestic industries.

The United Kingdom then raised tariffs on

most imports, but with preferential treatment

for the Empire (and certain other countries).

5. So nerve-wracked did it become that from

September 1938 public meetings concerned

with international affairs were banned.

6. However, after a speech by a French m

the opening of an American war mem

September 1938, which had implied th

alliance was evolving, he had flatly den

involvement in a “Franco-British front

Chapter Two: The Special Relationship

Grows and Ends, 1940–1946

1. July–October 1940.

2. From April 1941 the United States un

the patrolling of the western Atlantic, 

though formal responsibility for conv

tection remained with the British.

3. After Pearl Harbor, Donovan’s organ

became the Office of Strategic Service

4. The British had been intercepting U

lomatic cables in the early days of th

Churchill was thus aware of Ambass

Joseph Kennedy’s advice that makin

materiel available to Britain would b

waste of effort.

5. Even then, officials in the United State

backpedal and water down the agreem

the president, Eisenhower, stood firm. 

as the 1990s there were still complicati

6. In fairness to McMahon it must be said 

later declared that if he had been inform

the administration of the history of Brit

collaboration on atomic energy he wou

have pressed for a bill in so restrictive a 

7. Prime minister from 26 July 1945.

8. Australia twenty-three thousand, Can

thirty-seven thousand, India twenty-f

thousand, New Zealand ten thousand

South Africa six thousand.

9. At the Placentia Bay meeting in Augu

which had produced the Atlantic Cha

tension had already been manifest. Th

United States had pressed for wording 

geted at imperial preference, and the m

general political wording on freedom 

seen as anti-imperial.

10. The United States could hope to prod

and a half divisions by September 194

operations in the European theater.

11. It is not necessary to accept that the F

and British position at Suez was right 

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both in weakening allies to whom it looked

for support in Europe and beyond (and reducing their confidence in the United States)

and in not aiding its own position in the Middle East.

12. It is right to note, nevertheless, the intimacy between Macmillan and Eisenhower, which enabled a resumption of cooperation after the

debacle of Suez and the (more surprising) close

relationship between Macmillan and Kennedy.

Chapter Three: The American Half Century,

and European Contrasts

1. In 1919 the Protestant Evangelical Churches

of America denounced the League of Nations

as the antichrist.

2. They would have wished to see the ABMT retained and certainly not simply abrogated; the

CTBT ratified; verification provisions, even if

not perfect, for the BTWC agreed; and effective verification implemented for the CWC.

3. Moreover, while successive U.S. administrations were in principle against terrorism, they

allowed over many years money to be raised

for Irish terrorism and were less than dynamic

in pressing for the extradition of convicted

IRA terrorists. See the report of the bipartisan

(Kean) commission into 9/11, published 22

July 2004.

4. Which is by no means to say that terrorists

spring only from the most deprived; many do

not. The point is that perceived misery and

injustice frequently provoke a resort to violence, especially if no other channels through

which to pursue their rectification are felt to

be available.

5. In 2003, at constant 2000 U.S. dollar prices

and exchange rates, $417,400 million; all Europe $195,000 million; Japan $46,900 million,

China $32,800 million, and Russia $13,000

million. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, www.sipri.org/contents/

milap/milex/mex_major_spenders.pdf and

www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/mex

_wnr_table.html.

6. See the National Security Strategy of the United

States (Washington, D.C.: White House, September 2002), chap. 9, available at www

.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf.

7. The 2001 fighting in Afghanistan, in connection with a most important U.S. interest, illustrates the favored way of war—on the ground,

a handful of special forces and later a few elite

proxies, while the United States provides intense air power. This mode reflects little desire

to engage in peacekeeping or state building, es

sential as they may be to long-term stability.

8. Council of the European Union, “Headline

Goal 2010: Approved by General Affairs and

External Relations Council on 17 May 2004,

endorsed by the European Council of 17 and

18 June 2004,” available at ue.eu.int/uedocs/

cmsUpload/2010%20Headline%20Goal.pdf.

Chapter Four: The United States and Europe i

the Twenty-first Century

1. This view is not shared by all European states

Smaller ones in the east and in the north still

see great attraction in U.S. engagement, not

least to prevent the domination of larger European neighbors.

2. See, for example, D. Marquand, “Goodbye th

West,” Prospect (August 2004), p. 14.

3. In the area where it is most effective, the economic, the EU has to a large extent sorted itself out. The (supranational) commission has

well defined powers and the machinery to ap

ply them.

4. NATO will be similarly affected by its own en

largement and is already suffering from its

own lack of coherence and from the unwillingness of many of its European members to

be serious about defense.

5. Germany is not yet ready, militarily or diplomatically; European defense without the

United Kingdom, Europe’s leading military

power, is not feasible.

6. See Maartje Rutten, comp., From St. Malo to

Nice: European Defence—Core Documents,

Chaillot Paper 47 (Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, May 2001), available at www.iss-eu.org/chaillot/chai47e.pdf.

7. Samuel Huntington had written more than

ten years before that a cohesive Europe would

have the population resources, economic

strength, technology, and actual and potentia

strength to be the preeminent power of the

twenty-first century.

8. GDP 2000: United States $9,764.8 billion,

European Union $7,899.3 billion, at 2000

prices and exchange rates; 2004 GDP, at cur

rent prices and exchange rates, $11,664.6 bil

lion, EU $12,089.9 billion (all U.S. dollars).

OECD Statistics Portal, www.oecd.org/

dataoecd/48/4/33727936.pdf. The EU

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States 276,000,000.

9. John Winthrop described his intended settlement in Massachusetts as “a city upon a hill.”

10. The EU population on 1 January 2004 was

380.8 million, according to Eurostat; that of

the ten acceding countries was 74.1 million.

11. Given greater population and broadly equal

economic size, European military effort

might be expected to be on the same scale as

that of the United States. That, however, as

well as being unlikely from the European

policy side, would seem to run head-on into

the commitment in the U.S. national security

strategy to avoid the emergence of any potential military rival.

12. The American engagement in the First World

War, for example, though important, was

small and late. Only with its entry into the

Second World War, more than two years after

the commencement of the conflict, did it become a major player in European affairs. During the Cold War it provided essential support

on the great issue of deterring Soviet aggression, but even then it was by no means always

a supporter of the other major interests or

policies of European states.

13. See Ewan Harrison, review article in International Affairs 80, no. 4 (July 2004), discussing

three American-authored books on U.S. primacy and its cost and benefits.

14. See R. Kagan in the Washington Post, 5 December 2004, p. B07, available at www

.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34023

-2004Dec3.html?sub=new.

15. Robert Cooper, The Post-Modern State and the

World Order, 2d ed. (London: Demos, 2000).

For a different perspective, which also emphasizes the difficulties, Robert Kagan, Of Paradise

and Power: America and Europe in the New

World Order (New York: Knopf, 2003).

16. “Conventional” here in the sense of normal

military, naval, and air formations and weapons, not as opposed to “nuclear.”

17. Joseph Nye, The Paradox of American

Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower

Can’t Go It Alone (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford

Univ. Press, 2002).

Chapter Five: Whither Britain?

1. Chartists: members of a working-class movement of 1836–58 concerned principally with

electoral reform but associated with a number

six members of an agricultural proto-

the Dorset village of Tolpuddle, who i

were arrested for unlawful assembly a

ing “unlawful oaths.” Sentenced to tra

tation to Australia, they were released 

after a public outcry.

2. With the obvious exception of 1933–4

ain’s entry into the First World War w

hardly better considered than German

Powers’ failure to get out before 1918 

common disaster.

3. For example, in 1962 at the time of the 

of SKYBOLT, elements in the State Dep

including George Ball, hoped that if it 

would take the special relationship wit

well as ending the British deterrent.

4. It must be noted the prime minister at 

called for proper attention to the confl

resumption of processes, and that his p

led to the president’s eventual agreeme

publication of the “road map” and und

to press for its implementation.

5. Support ebbed during 2004 in the ligh

the difficulties on the ground in Iraq a

deficiencies in the decision-making ma

that had led Britain into the war. An o

port by a former secretary to the cabin

Butler Report) made clear serious shor

ings, despite exonerating individuals.

6. It has been suggested that the prime m

(Blair) does not know how to say no t

American interlocutors.

7. As Sir R. Braithwaite has pointed out (in 

pect, May 2003), a junior partner who is 

for granted is a junior partner with no i

8. D. Keohane, The EU and Armaments 

tion, Working Paper (London: Centre 

ropean Reform, 2002), p. 13.

9. Indeed, the divisions at the beginning 

also caused severe damage to NATO t

though at that stage it was principally 

and Germany who were out of step w

ers in the alliance, especially over prot

for Turkey.

10. In all fairness, one should note that B

has long held back from endorsing th

line on Iran and its inclusion in an “a

evil.” British ministers have also voice

criticism of Israel than American one

that was not difficult.

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ous historical baggage that impedes its freedom

of action domestically and internationally.

12. Such as who would succeed, by what means,

and who would run the country while civil

society was being rebuilt, fending off separatist tendencies.

Chapter Six: New Relationships for Old

Epigraphs: George Washington, 1778;

George Washington, Farewell Address; and

President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2003.

1. For the European Defence Identity. The argument was that there should not be a separate

separated out from NATO. Thus the European

would not have a capability divorced from the

alliance, its structures, or U.S. involvement.

2. For the United States, NATO was about containing communist expansion, and in due

course exerting American leadership over Eu

ropean foreign and defence policies; for the

Europeans, it was about resisting Soviet or

Russian aggression and safeguarding against

German waywardness.

3. National Security Strategy of the United States

chap. 9, p. 30.

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Abbreviations

EU European Union

CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy

ESDP European Security and Defence Policy

IMF International Monetary Fund

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NTA New Transatlantic Agenda

OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

WMD weapons of mass destruction

WTO World Trade Organization

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Further Reading

ARTICLES AND PAPERS

Allin, Dana H. “The Crisis of the West.” International Affairs 80, no. 4 (July 2004), p. 649.

Betts, Richard K. “The Persistence of American

Primacy.” International Affairs 81, no. 1 (January 2005), p. 1.

Calleo, David P. “The Broken West.” Survival 46,

no. 3 (Autumn 2004), p. 29.

Coker, Christopher. Empires in Conflict. Whitehall

Paper 58. London: RUSI, 2003.

Cooper, Robert. The Post-Modern State and the

World Order. 2d ed. London: Demos, 2000.

Cox, Michael. “Martians and Venusians in the

New World Order.” International Affairs 79,

no. 3 (May 2003), p. 523.

Daalder, Ivo H. “The End of Atlanticism.” Survival

45, no. 2 (Summer 2003), p. 147.

Dunne, Tim. “Atlanticism in British Security Strategy.” International Affairs 80, no. 5 (October

2004), p. 893.

Everts, Steven, and Daniel Keohane. “The European Convention and EU Foreign Policy:

Learning from Failure.” Survival 45, no. 3 (Autumn 2003), p. 167.

Hassner, Pierre. The United States: The Empire of

Force or the Force of Empire? Chaillot Paper 54.

Paris: EUI, 2002.

Hopkinson, William. La fin de l’ “Atlantique

Nord.” Critique Internationale 15. Paris:

Presses de Sciences Po, Avril 2002.

———. Whither NATO? Discussion Paper 79.

London: RIIA, 1998.

Ikenberry, G. John. “American Grand Strategy in

the Age of Terror.” Survival 43, no. 4 (Winter

2001), p. 19.

———. “The End of the Neo-Conservative Moment.” Survival 46, no. 1 (Spring 2004), p. 7.

Jones, Erik. “The Rhetoric of Crisis.” International

Affairs 80, no. 4 (July 2004), p. 587.

Kagan, Robert. “The World and President Bush.”

Survival 43, no. 1 (Spring 2001), p. 7.

Kagan, Robert, Bertram Christoph, and Heisbourg

François. “One Year After: A Grand Strategy

for the West.” Survival 44, no. 4 (Win

2002), p. 135.

Keohane, Daniel. The EU and Armaments 

tion. Working Paper. London: Centre 

ropean Reform, 2002.

Leffler, Melvyn P. “9/11 and the Past and F

American Foreign Policy.” Internation

79, no. 5 (October 2003), p. 1045.

Lindley-French, Julian. Terms of Engageme

Chaillot Paper 52. Paris: EUI, 2002.

Lindstrom, Gustav, ed. Shift or Rift. Trans

Book. Paris: EUI, 2003.

Marquand, D. “Goodbye the West.” Prosp

gust 2004).

Mazaar, Michael J. “Acting Like a Leader.” 

44, no. 4 (Winter 2002), p. 107.

National Security Strategy of the United States

ington, D.C.: White House, September 2

Rhodes, Edwards. “The Imperial Logic of B

Liberal Agenda.” Survival 45, no. 1 (Sp

2003), p. 131.

Rutten, Maartje, comp. From St. Malo to N

ropean Defence—Core Documents. Cha

per 47. Paris: European Union Institut

Security Studies, May 2001.

Steinberg, James B. “An Elective Partnersh

vaging Transatlantic Relations.” Surviv

no. 2 (Summer 2003), p. 113.

Wallace, William. “The Collapse of British 

Policy.” International Affairs 81, no. 1 

2005), p. 53.

Williams, Paul. “Who’s Making UK Foreig

icy?” International Affairs 80, no. 5 (Oc

2004), p. 911.

BOOKS

Blackwill, Robert D., and Michael Stuerme

Allies Divided: Transatlantic Policies for 

Greater Middle East. Cambridge, Mass

Press, 1997.

Boyle, Peter G., ed. The Eden-Eisenhower C

spondence, 1955–57. Chapel Hill: Univ

North Carolina Press, 2005.

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Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1940–57.

London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1995.

Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–

1837. London: Pimlico, 2003.

Cooper, Robert. The Breaking of Nations: Order

and Chaos in the Twenty-first Century. London:

Atlantic Books, 2004.

Denman, Roy. Missed Chances: Britain and Europe

in the Twentieth Century. London: Cassell, 1996.

Dickie, John. “Special” No More: Anglo-American

Relations—Rhetoric and Reality. London:

Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1994.

Leonard, Mark. Why Europe Will Run the Twentyfirst Century. London: Fourth Estate, 2005.

Murphy, John F. The United States and the Rule of

Law in International Affairs. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004.

Nye, Joseph S., Jr. The Paradox of American Power:

Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It

Alone. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002.

Twentieth Century. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrav

Macmillan, 1998.

Prestowitz, Clyde V. Rogue Nation: American

Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions. New York: Basic Books, 2004.

Renwick, Robin. Fighting with Allies: America and

Britain in Peace and War. Basingstoke, U.K.:

Palgrave Macmillan, 1996.

Rifkin, Jeremy. The European Dream: How Europe’s Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing

the American Dream. New York: Tarcher, 2004

Sardar, Ziauddin, and Merryl Wyn Davies. Why Do

People Hate America? London: Icon Books, 2002

Siedentop, Larry. Democracy in Europe. London:

Penguin, 2000.

Singer, Peter. The President of Good and Evil: Ques

tioning the Ethics of George W. Bush. London:

Penguin Group, 2004.

Todorov, Tzvetan. The New World Disorder. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell, 2005.

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About the Author

Born in 1943, George William Hopkinson read history at Pembroke College Cam

bridge and entered the Home Civil Service in 1965. Transferring from the Treasu

the Ministry of Defence in 1986, he was appointed head of the Defence Arms Co

Unit in 1988 and Assistant Under Secretary of State (Policy) in 1993. As such he 

particularly concerned with bilateral relationships with members of NATO and t

mer Warsaw Pact, European security institutions including NATO, Western Euro

Union, and European Union matters, and negotiations on arms control treaties.

Mr. Hopkinson was visiting fellow in the Global Security Programme, Cambridg

1991–92. On leaving government service in 1997 he joined the Royal Institute of 

national Affairs (Chatham House), becoming deputy director and director of stu

before retiring in June 2000 to read and write. His particular concerns are transa

relations and European security. He has been an associate fellow of Chatham Ho

and RUSI, and a visiting fellow at the Centre for International Studies, Cambrid

versity. In 2001 he was Senior Visiting Fellow at the WEU Institute in Paris, and 

visiting researcher at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Swede

His publications include Changing Options, British Defence and Global Security (

Whither NATO (1998), The Making of British Defence Policy (2000), Enlargement

New NATO (2001), and Sizing and Shaping European Armed Forces (2004). He ha

published numerous contributions to journals and to edited works; examples ar

“Arms Control and Supplier Restraints” in Non-Conventional Weapons Proliferat

the Middle East (1993), “International Organizations in the 21st Century: Challe

Facing the International System” in the Europa Directory of International Organi

(1999 to 2004), and “La fin de l’ Atlantique Nord,” in Critique internationale, no. 

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The Newport Papers

China’s Nuclear Force Modernization, edited by Lyle J. Goldstein with Andrew S.

Erickson (no. 22, April 2005).

Latin American Security Challenges: A Collaborative Inquiry from North and Sou

edited by Paul D. Taylor (no. 21, 2004).

Global War Game: Second Series, 1984–1988, by Robert Gile (no. 20, 2004).

The Evolution of the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Strategy, 1977–1986, by John Hattend

(no. 19, 2004).

Military Transformation and the Defense Industry after Next: The Defense Indus

Implications of Network-Centric Warfare, by Peter J. Dombrowski, Eugene Gho

Andrew L. Ross (no. 18, 2003).

The Limits of Transformation: Officer Attitudes toward the Revolution in Military 

by Thomas G. Mahnken and James R. FitzSimonds (no. 17, 2003).

The Third Battle: Innovation in the U.S. Navy’s Silent Cold War Struggle with Sovi

marines, by Owen R. Cote, Jr. (no. 16, 2003).

International Law and Naval War: The Effect of Marine Safety and Pollution Con

tions during International Armed Conflict, by Dr. Sonja Ann Jozef Boelaert-Suo

(no. 15, December 2000).

Theater Ballistic Missile Defense from the Sea: Issues for the Maritime Component 

mander, by Commander Charles C. Swicker, U.S. Navy (no. 14, August 1998).

Sailing New Seas, by Admiral J. Paul Reason, U.S. Navy, with David G. Freymann (n

March 1998).

What Color Helmet? Reforming Security Council Peacekeeping Mandates, by Myro

Nordquist (no. 12, August 1997).

The International Legal Ramifications of United States Counter-Proliferation Strat

Problems and Prospects, by Frank Gibson Goldman (no. 11, April 1997).

Chaos Theory: The Essentials for Military Applications, by Major Glenn E. Jam

U.S. Air Force (no. 10, October 1996).

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Spain, by James J. Tritten and Vice Admiral Luigi Donolo, Italian Navy (Retired) (no. 9

December 1995).

Physics and Metaphysics of Deterrence: The British Approach, by Myron A. Greenberg

(no. 8, December 1994).

Mission in the East: The Building of an Army in a Democracy in the New German States,

by Colonel Mark E. Victorson, U.S. Army (no. 7, June 1994).

The Burden of Trafalgar: Decisive Battle and Naval Strategic Expectations on the Eve of

the First World War, by Jan S. Breemer (no. 6, October 1993).

Beyond Mahan: A Proposal for a U.S. Naval Strategy in the Twenty-First Century, by

Colonel Gary W. Anderson, U.S. Marine Corps (no. 5, August 1993).

Global War Game: The First Five Years, by Bud Hay and Bob Gile (no. 4, June 1993).

The “New” Law of the Sea and the Law of Armed Conflict at Sea, by Horace B.

Robertson, Jr. (no. 3, October 1992).

Toward a Pax Universalis: A Historical Critique of the National Military Strategy for the

1990s, by Lieutenant Colonel Gary W. Anderson, U.S. Marine Corps (no. 2, April

1992).

“Are We Beasts?” Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II “Area Bombing,” by

Christopher C. Harmon (no. 1, December 1991).

Newport Papers 4, 10, and from 14 on are available online (Acrobat required) at

www.nwc.navy.mil/press/npapers/newpaper.htm.

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