Global Security: UK-US Relations - Foreign Affairs Committee Contents


Written evidence from Ian Kearns, Senior Analyst, British American Security Information Council

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

    — Britain needs to be more assertive in its relationship with the United States through the varied channels at its disposal, rejecting a subservient role, but equally being aware of the limited power Britain can wield in a world characterized by shifting power balances.— The effects of globalisation is inevitably encroaching upon the US/UK relationship, as Washington focuses more attention on the relationship with up-and-coming world powers. We also have to recognise that Washington is likely to pay more attention to a UK voice within Europe, rather than isolated.— Conversely Britain benefits heavily from and is increasingly defined by globalisation, and it is directly in the UK interest to pursue the development and observance of international law and tighter global co-operation.

    — The UK has established a reputation in Washington as taking a lead on `responsible' disarmament (as exemplified by the arms trade treaty and the global nuclear disarmament agenda). Now that President Obama has outlined his strategy on this, the UK will need to work hard to stay ahead of the game, and to influence the direction of travel.

BASIC

  The British American Security Information Council (BASIC) is an independent research organisation that analyses government policies and promotes public awareness of defence, disarmament, military strategy and nuclear policies in order to foster informed debate. BASIC has offices in London and in Washington and its governing Council includes former US ambassadors, academics and politicians.

We look to a world free from the dangers posed by nuclear weapons; we engage with policy makers and opinion shapers in a constructive manner, and serve as a trusted source of information for politicians, government officials and other decision-makers to promote effective strategies toward nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. We facilitate opportunities for transatlantic dialogue on multilateral nuclear disarmament to flourish and promote active partnerships within the network of international NGOs in order to develop practical alternative approaches and strategies that can achieve progress towards multilateral nuclear disarmament.

INTRODUCTION

  1.  The bilateral relationship with the United States is the most important the United Kingdom has, and future relations with the Obama Administration present both an opportunity and a challenge. Britain has a particular chance to be in the vanguard of moves towards nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in step with the Obama agenda on this issue. But despite the enduring close ties between our two countries, Britain is not the only government competing for the President's ear. As the US Administration develops its relations with emerging economies, the British government cannot be complacent. There have been strains in the relationship in the recent past and changes in the underlying structures of the international system, outlined later in this submission, are likely to mean it will be subject to further strain in future. The Committee's work on this issue therefore represents a timely and important opportunity to reflect on the basis, nature and value of the relationship to the UK and on the approach necessary to keep that relationship healthy in future.

THE BASIS OF THE BILATERAL RELATIONSHIP

  2.  The UK-US relationship rests on a mix of linguistic, cultural, historic and strategic ties.

It has often been defined by personalities, for example Margaret Thatcher's relationship with Ronald Reagan, and Tony Blair's with George Bush. But too often, since the end of the Cold War, Britain stands accused of failing to define its own agenda, and of following the US lead.

  3.  The strategic relationship remains extremely close today however and is manifested in a number of ways. For example:

    — There is daily co-operation between the UK and US intelligence services and surveillance agencies, which is as valuable as ever at a time when both countries face a threat from international terrorism.

    — The two countries are co-operating closely, with other allies, to ensure the Taliban and al-Qaeda do not re-take control of Afghanistan.

    — There is co-operation on promoting stability in Pakistan, a country of real national security concern to both the US and the UK.

    — UK and US diplomats engage in close co-operation within NATO in pursuit of an alliance that is both cohesive, and fit for purpose, in terms of the contemporary security challenges it must face.

    — Advice from the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence, if not politicised, is said to be considered the best in the world by Washington.

    — Perhaps most strikingly, the level of co-operation between the two on highly sensitive military technology is well above the norm, even for a close alliance relationship. Admiral William Crowe, the former ambassador to London under President Bill Clinton, likened the US-UK nuclear relationship to that of an iceberg, "with a small tip of it sticking out, but beneath the water there is quite a bit of everyday business that goes on between our two governments in a fashion that's unprecedented in the world." The two countries exchange classified nuclear information, advanced technology and a range of materials under the 1954 Mutual Defence Agreement, renewed every ten years. The personal bonds between the US/UK scientific and technical establishments are deeply rooted.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE UK-US FOREIGN POLICY RELATIONSHIP TO GLOBAL SECURITY

  4.  In addition to being a foundation stone of UK foreign policy and national security, and an important alliance relationship for the United States, the relationship has also made a major difference to European and global security over a period of several decades. In recent times, the UK-US relationship has underpinned international resolve to reverse Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, the intervention in Kosovo to prevent and reverse ethnic cleansing there, and action against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan after the attacks of 9/11.

5.  As a result, not only has the political and strategic value of the relationship to the UK over the years been enormous but, arguably with the exception of the invasion of Iraq, the relationship itself has made a long-term and positive contribution to wider global security.

  6.  However, the relationship is also more complex than the comments above imply and merely declaring its importance tells us nothing we might need to know about how to maximise its health, or value, from the perspective of UK interests. The UK debate on the special relationship often takes place either in a historical vacuum or on the basis of one-sided, often mythologised, accounts of war-time co-operation. This is despite the fact that a setting of the contemporary relationship within a longer term and more balanced historical context can be very valuable for understanding both the relationship's role in UK policy and its potential future direction.

  7.  The relationship has not always been one of harmony. Even before the trauma of Iraq, and more recent disputes over the release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Ali Al-Megrahi, there were severe ups and downs. Suez, and periods during the 1960s when Harold Wilson refused to send troops to Vietnam and Edward Heath prioritised relations with Europe over those with the United States, were low points. Britain needs to be aware that other serious divergences will emerge in the future, and could flare up over such issues as climate change or Afghanistan.

  8.  Despite an often assumed sentimental basis to the relationship among many in the current generation of UK political leaders, moreover, the truth is that the relationship was attractive to UK policy-makers at the end of the Second World War for the hard headed political reason that it offered a strategy for protecting UK interests in the context of ongoing national decline.[78]

  9.  Both of these previous features of the relationship are important today.

  The first demonstrates that the long-standing importance of the relationship does not imply total and continuous agreement though the perception persists in some quarters that it does and that the relationship is one of almost total agreement and sentimental attachment that stretches well beyond shared interests. In fact, many in Washington wonder why Britain does not speak up more publicly in timely fashion to challenge the US. When Britain over-rode US objections on Sierra Leone, its armed intervention there helped end the civil war. Earlier periods of disagreement also did not destroy the relationship and indeed the earlier low points have since been eclipsed by periods of intense personal warmth and close inter-state partnership.

  The second serves to remind us that it was national strategy and interests, not sentiment, that underpinned the UK approach to the "special relationship", and acceptance of a subservient role within it.

  10.  Today, both of these points appear to be more clearly understood in Washington than they are among the political class in London. The arrival of President Obama, with an outlook that appears closer to that of British and wider European attitudes on international affairs than that of the previous Bush Administration, may serve to sustain this situation, though it should not be allowed to do so.

  11.  Barack Obama's comment in The Audacity of Hope, that Bush multilateralism amounted to a rounding up of the United Kingdom and Togo, and the US then doing as it pleased, is not reassuring in terms of how the UK is perceived in the US. Senior British diplomats that have served in Washington in recent years understand this reality, and express dismay at the failure of UK leaders to think in terms of hard edged national interest rather than increasingly misguided appeals to sentiment.

A CHANGING STRATEGIC CONTEXT AND IMPLICATIONS FOR UK-US RELATIONS

  12.  Some of the British illusions here badly need to be challenged, not least because behind the positive day to day relationship a process of power diffusion is creating long-term structural pressures which may result in a greater divergence of interests and greater strains in future.

13.  There are three dimensions to this. First, as new powers rise in the East and the balance of world power changes, the US finds itself confronting stronger challenges to its leadership abroad while simultaneously suffering economic hardship at home. Partly as a result, its economic and political interests and concerns are not only intensifying but also geographically diversifying and Europe is becoming less central to the US world view than at any time since 1945. In these circumstances, and given both the collective failure of European leaders to show cohesive and strong international leadership since the end of the Cold War, and the widespread scepticism and even derision in the US in relation to Europe's international role, there is now a real danger that the US will be less willing and perhaps even less able to invest in the military defence of Europe and specifically of the UK in future, as it has done for much of the last seven decades.

  14.  Second, the UK will have to take into account the arrival of a European President in its relations with the US. For the first time, if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified by Dublin on 2 October, Europe really will have a single telephone number, addressing Henry Kissinger's historic complaint.

  15.  Third, as power shifts to some extent from state to non-state actors like terrorist groups that can operate across national borders, and issues such as climate change emerge as literally global in reach, there is an increasing realisation on the part of many that more effective multilateral co-operation to tackle transnational and global threats across a wide range of issues is going to be needed in future (IPPR, 2009). However, while this is now a widely accepted view in a medium-sized country like the UK, it is less widely accepted in the United States, where some (though thankfully not the current Administration) still believe a more assertive use of American power can bring the desired international results.

  16.  This is directly relevant to the UK-US relationship because when a US Administration seeks to pursue this more robust line, as it did during the first term of the George W Bush presidency and in relation to Iraq, this can fracture public opinion in the UK and place huge strains on the transatlantic relationship, leaving ministers feeling trapped between the demands of supporting their most important ally on the one hand, or reflecting domestic public opinion or an alternative viewpoint on the required strategy on the other. As globalisation and the need for more multilateral co-operation in response to it continues to develop apace, the dilemma here is likely to be exposed more frequently and to become more acute as a result.

  17.  Structural changes, therefore, in this early period of the 21st century have the serious potential to complicate and undermine a shared and cohesive account of UK-US strategic challenges, interests and responses.

IMPLICATIONS FOR BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY

  18.  All of this has major implications for UK foreign and national security policy. There is an urgent need for UK policymakers to get beyond declarations on the importance of the relationship and to begin defining more clearly what the UK actually needs from it. To that end, we need a clearer and fully up to date statement of UK national interests to underpin policy and the approach to the relationship with the United States.

19.  The government's 2009 national security strategy update, Security for the Next Generation, offers an account of the UK's international position which can be summarised as follows. The UK, it is said, is:

    — an established democracy committed to the rule of law;

    — an open economy, with a global, not only local and regional pattern of inward and outward trade and investment;

    — a global hub for a number of activities and services including financial services, communications, transport, the media (partly as a result of English being a world language) and education;

    — a country with a growing and increasingly diverse population in which international events can have a very direct impact on our communities domestically and in which international instability and tension can be played out on UK streets;

    — a country with limited domestic food and energy resources;

    — a leading member of a number of important international organisations (NATO, the EU, the UN Security Council, the G8 and G20); and

    — one of the world's five recognized nuclear weapons states.

  20.  On this basis, it is possible to be explicit about three core features of the UK national interest.[79] These are that:

    First, as a relatively open economy and society, heavily bought into and dependent upon global trade, investment and people flows, the UK has a strong national interest in building a rules based international order both to maintain these flows and to address a range of global and transnational security threats.[80] The UK national interest, in other words, will be well served by attempts to strengthen international law and global co-operation across a wide range of issues, an agenda underlined by President Barack Obama when he chaired the Security Council session on 24 September 2009. As an outward-looking country with citizens and representatives well linked in to global events, Britain could use its relationship with the United States to encourage informed debate around how the west relates effectively to the rest of the world in pursuit of this agenda.

    Second, given the blurring of domestic and foreign policy boundaries and the UK's susceptibility to be impacted seriously by events elsewhere in the world, the UK has a strong national as well as moral interest in tackling some of the long-term drivers of international instability such as global poverty, inequality, health challenges, competition over energy supplies, and the increasingly evident and disruptive effects of climate change.

    Third, given its status as a nuclear power with a weapons infrastructure closely bound to the US complex, Britain is in a strong position to seize the initiative and play a leadership role on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. There is increasing cross-party support for this agenda in Britain and there is a chance to co-operate with the Obama Administration for real progress. As evidenced by a recent high-level Parliamentary delegation to Washington facilitated by BASIC and under the aegis of the APPG for Global Security and Non-proliferation, decision-makers in Washington are impressed when exposed to this unity, our best chance to influence crucial forthcoming debates on the Hill. President Obama has repeatedly expressed his understanding that progress on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are mutually beneficial to each other, expressed most forcefully during his speech in Prague on 5 April 2009 and in front of the UN General Assembly on 23 September 2009. His opponent in the 2008 presidential election, Sen John McCain (Republican-Arizona), has also acknowledged the importance of US movement on nuclear arms control to revive global nuclear non-proliferation efforts and has called for a world free of nuclear weapons.[81]

  The UK can take a number of steps here, beyond those already being taken. In particular, and following on from the repeated offer from the Prime Minister made at the United Nations on 23 September to reduce the number of submarines in the Trident fleet from four to three boats as part of the disarmament process, the UK can and should look to reduce the number of nuclear warheads it possesses further. This will require re-examining what minimum means in the context of the UK's minimum deterrent.

  Arguably, though, it is even more important to consider how we might use the close relationship we have with the US to further the agenda promoted by the President in this area. UK scientists could be encouraged to share expertise and opinion relevant to CTBT ratification concerns with colleagues and members of Congress in the United States, and the UK could fund and support a major Track II nuclear disarmament diplomacy initiative among representatives of the P-5, plus India, Israel and Pakistan. The US Administration is ambitious on this agenda but also heavily preoccupied with the recession, Afghanistan and healthcare reform; and while the President can outline his vision, his Administration is going to need all the help it can get on this agenda, particularly from America's closest allies.

  21.  These illustrative features of the UK national interest suggest the need for a series of changes of emphasis in policy with regard to the US.

  It is clear, for example, that the UK has an interest in re-balancing the relationship. The UK has an interest in a US that:

    — values and seeks multilateral solutions to a range of international problems from nuclear proliferation to climate change;

    — has some understanding of the importance but also the limits of what hard power can achieve;

    — supports and seeks to build respect for international law; and

    — uses soft power and persuasion to rebuild respect for the United States itself.

  Where the US seeks to lead not dominate, and to pursue multilateral solutions and a rules based international order, the UK should actively support it. Where it does not, and where it engages in activity that is contrary to long-term UK interests, it should not. This is not an easy balance to maintain and an issue-by-issue approach is necessary. The Blair government stands accused of making a catastrophic mistake in relation to Iraq but managed to find its own voice on issues like climate change, where the UK position was radically different to that being taken up by the Bush Administration.

  22.  This suggestion for a re-balancing, and that the UK should be more assertive in the relationship with the US from time to time, sets alarm bells ringing for some. But it simply lacks credibility to claim, as some do, that any public disagreement with the US on a major issue would destroy the relationship. The history of the relationship tells us otherwise and there are examples of other countries, not least Germany and France, which have strongly disagreed in public with the US without any long-term and lasting damage to their relationship. Despite its often strident criticism of US foreign policy in the past, France still manages to co-operate with the US in important ways. Americans have little respect for subservience.

  23.  It is also important to bear in mind that at any given time the view of the US Administration is only one view among many to be found within the United States. There is always a vigorous foreign and security policy debate in Washington, with many analysts and politicians disagreeing with the incumbent Administration. If we allow debate and even disagreement with a US Administration to be painted as disloyalty to an ally we unnecessarily limit the room for UK manoeuvre and allow the UK national interest to be subsumed within that of the United States. Moreover, if we treat the views of the current US Administration as a permanent feature of the landscape, we fail to acknowledge the obvious point that US politics is itself dynamic and cyclical. Different parties come to hold Congressional majorities and administration positions obviously change over time, with implications for the UK, which need to be familiar with both the Administration and the power of Congress. Despite the undoubted importance and value of the relationship to the UK therefore, to simply agree with the United States in all circumstances is to agree to be buffeted by the prevailing political winds in Washington.

  24.  Beyond this, it also seems clear that there is a need to move beyond illusions of a special relationship between the UK and US and to acknowledge that, as William Wallace and Christopher Phillips recently noted: "The Obama Administration, even more than the Bush Administration at the end of its term, is interested in a partnership with the major European states collectively more than with the United Kingdom alone—let alone with the UK as interpreter and `bridge' to thinking in Paris and Berlin" (Wallace and Phillips, 2009: 283). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a speech to the Council for Foreign Relations in Washington on 15 July explained the administration's approach to revitalize US relations with its "historic" and "bedrock" allies without mentioning Britain a single time. She specifically referred to improving relations with Europe and put special emphasis on major and emerging powers—China, India, Russia and Brazil, as well as Turkey, Indonesia, and South Africa.

  As the United States faces new global challenges it will look more and more to the European states to both look after their own security and to make a more effective contribution to the maintenance of international order and stability. This in turn will mean that, to strengthen and sustain the transatlantic alliance for the future, European foreign and security policy co-operation must now be taken more seriously. If the Lisbon Treaty comes into force, it will be.

  25.  Finally, the required changes are not all about foreign policy. There is an important need to develop and allow a more open debate on the relationship with the US inside the UK itself. British policy-makers are often reluctant to allow such discussion for fear of facilitating an outflow of anti-American sentiment among a vociferous minority. However, there needs to be a recognition that whenever the relationship is allowed to lapse into either unconditional support for US positions, or unconditional opposition, the health of the relationship is in doubt. More debate is healthy.

  26.  The UK-US relationship can continue to make a vital contribution to the promotion of UK national interests, and to wider global security for many years to come. Sober judgments however, on where the interests of the two countries overlap, and the development of policy on that basis and no other, will be the surest way to ensure that outcome.

24 September 2009







78   This use of the relationship to manage the consequences of decline is visible in the combination of a "America in Britain's Place" narrative on the promotion of a liberal international economic order after the Second World War and a "hug them close" strategy on national security in the same period. Both reflected British weakness and a belief that the US was best placed to provide an international environment conducive to British interests. Subservience to the US was also made more palatable by the linguistic, cultural and ideological similarities between the UK and US already outlined. Back

79   Clearly, this is an illustrative and not exhaustive list. Back

80   The issue agenda here is wide, ranging from human rights, global trade negotiations, and reform of the international financial system to a strengthening of the international regimes to deal with nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, global bio-security, and the increasingly important areas of cyber and space-security. On some issues, such as international institutional reform, the UK is well placed through its permanent membership of the UN Security Council to play a leading diplomatic role in trying to bring about change. On other issues, such as nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, the UK not only can and should seek to play a leading role as a member of the P-5 group of nuclear weapons states, but is also well placed to use its close relationship and history of nuclear co-operation with the United States to collaborate in efforts to strengthen the non-proliferation regime globally. Back

81   Elisabeth Bumiller, "McCain Breaks with Bush on Nuclear Disarmament", The New York Times, 28 May 2008 and see Sen McCain's Floor Statement on "A World Without Nuclear Weapons," 3 June 2009. Back


 
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