Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 119)
WEDNESDAY 2 DECEMBER 2009
STRYKER MCGUIRE
AND JUSTIN
WEBB
Q100 Mr Horam: I was fascinated,
as Ken Purchase obviously was, by this comment of yours: "my
real concern with the ritual debate that greets any meeting of
British and American leaders is that it reflects a deeper unease
on the part of Britons about their identity". I thought that
you were referring to the sort of Dean Acheson comment that we
Brits have "lost an empire and not yet found a role".
We have some sort of foothold to some extent, but we have not
found a real role. I thought that is what you were getting at
there.
Stryker McGuire: That is another
part of it. It is multi-dimensional. I think it is clear that
this country is trying to figure out where it is in the geopolitical
world, not necessarily who you are—that is another issue—
Mr Horam: But where we are.
Stryker McGuire: Where you are.
You have this hearing. Chatham House is just embarking on a long,
nine-month study to talk about where Britain should be in the
world. Britain's relationship with Europe is always an issue.
Your relationship with the United States is always an issue.
Q101 Mr Horam: You probably
heard some of the comments by a previous witness, who was talking
about Europe and saying that he felt, as far as I could see, that
a more integrated approach with Europe would pay dividends for
this country, not only in itself for the UK and for Europe, but
also in relation to America. Would that be so?
Stryker McGuire: Having mentioned
moral authority in terms of what America has wanted from this
country, another thing that Washington wants from London is for
London to play a role in Europe. America feels that that is in
America's interests because Americans prefer the British vision
of Europe to the Franco-German vision of Europe, which they see
as much more federal.
Q102 Mr Horam: It may be,
of course, that if we were to move in that direction, the British
version of Europe would become more like the Franco-German version.
Stryker McGuire: True, but I think
that when David Cameron pulled out of the mainstream centre right
grouping, it was not appreciated in the United States. They would
rather have the British Prime Minister, if the Government change
next time around, active in the way in which Tony Blair and Gordon
Brown have been active than the way in which David Cameron has
suggested he might act in Europe.
Q103 Mr Horam: Mr Webb, do
you agree with that general point about Europe?
Justin Webb: Yes. I think there
is a sort of ambivalence about what they want in Europe that goes
right across the political spectrum. You saw it in the Bush Administration.
I went on a tour of Europe with President Bush quite a few years
ago where we went to Brussels and he saw all the office holders.
There were jokes about the number of presidents he was seeing,
most of them not elected and all this sort of thing, but at the
same time there was an appreciation at that stage in the Bush
Administration that they could go to Brussels and see everyone.
They could see the convenience of that. Yet at the same time they
had a view, and there is generally a view on the right in American
politics, that nation states are important and that individual
European nation states—Britain, yes, but also the eastern
European nations in a sense even more than Britain—need
to play their own, individual distinctive roles.From the Obama
team, there is a similar sense. What really struck me is that
there are one or two strategic policy aims that cut across the
Administrations and which they want from Europe—it's a very
different perspective from ours. The one that really sticks in
my mind is Turkey. I remember sitting down with Paul Wolfowitz
many years ago to interview him about the European Union, and
all he wanted to talk about was getting Turkey into the EU—that
was his central focus at that time. Fast-forwarding to this Administration,
you have Phil Gordon—I haven't talked to him about this,
but he's an expert on Turkey and its relationship with Armenia
and the rest of it—and I think he would also say that the
relationship between Europe and Turkey is hugely important. In
a way, it probably wouldn't be the first thing that would occur
to any of us—to most Europeans. However, when the Americans
view Europe strategically from that distance—when they look
at Europe as a bloc, as they sometimes do—they see it as
useful in terms of attracting people in and solidifying their
friendship or doing other tasks around the world.
Q104 Mr Horam: Therefore,
is talk of the special relationship just window dressing? As you
said, Mr McGuire, the last thing Britain needs is more talk about
the special relationship. Has this just reached a point where
everyone is bored stiff by this nonsense?
Stryker McGuire: I think that
the phrase, or the words, are the problem, in effect, because
they are so freighted. There is certainly nothing wrong with looking
at the relationship, which is a very important one. It is just
that the phrase and the way it's used by politicians, and even
more so by the media, has caused more of a problem than anything
else. The relationship is what it is and it has been what it is
for quite some time.
Q105 Sir Menzies Campbell:
There's a kind of Lewis Carroll feeling about all this, isn't
there? "Words mean what I want them to mean, and `special
relationship' means what I want it to mean at a particular time
and in a particular context." Both of you have had the responsibility
of representing one country to the other—Mr McGuire, you
have represented Britain to America, and, Mr Webb, you have done
the same in the other direction—so were you guilty of using
this expression? If so, were you aware that it conveyed different
meanings when you did so? Actually, "guilty" is
a bit hard. Were you inclined to use this expression?
Stryker McGuire: That's an interesting
point. In my case, you're absolutely right, in a sense, about
what part of my role was. Interestingly—Justin will have
noticed this—the flagship edition of Newsweek magazine
is in the United States, and then there are international editions,
so 85% of what I did would not have appeared in the United States.
Q106 Sir Menzies Campbell:
So you were representing Britain to the United States, but for
a British readership?
Stryker McGuire: Yes, or for an
American readership that doesn't really want to hear about it
and for editors who don't want to hear about it. For a while,
the words "Tony Blair" were as magical in some ways
as the words "special relationship". If there was a
story about Tony Blair during a certain period, you could get
it into the United States, but for the most part, although I wished
what I was writing was being read more in the United States, it
was really being read in Europe, Singapore and around the world.
Justin Webb: I had the opposite
problem in a way: everyone here thinks they know America, because
lots of them have been on holiday to Orlando and New York. I went
there not knowing much about it, frankly, and part of the value
of being a foreign correspondent is that you grow into the role,
get to know a place, learn about it and then pass that on—that
is the great tradition of foreign reporting. That is a) slightly
difficult in this age, where people can have one-to-one conversations
and b) particularly difficult in America, because people feel
that they know it and own it. But on your point, I don't think
I ever knowingly used the words "special relationship",
except when quoting other people.What interested and fascinated
me during my time there was not the "special relationship"
but the opposite—the incredible cultural divide that exists
between us and them. You can be as friendly as you like with Americans
and feel that you know them, and yet they come from a very different
place. That always struck me as the more interesting aspect of
reporting America—not the closeness and all that, but the
incredible difference.
Q107 Sir Menzies Campbell:
But that is a divide, is it not, that is reflected internally
in America? It is as far from Boise, Idaho, to Washington as it
is from Boise, Idaho, to London.
Justin Webb: Yes, but Boise and
Washington are much, much closer than anywhere in America is with
London. That is the point that I was trying to make. Even Obama,
when you think of him and his background—I remember saying
this during the election—is still closer to Sarah Palin
or John McCain than he is to any Brit, because there are just
those wellsprings of culture that are so hugely different. They
do not mean that we dislike each other necessarily, or that we
cannot be close, or that we do not have a political relationship
that is important in various ways. But it means that, from a reporter's
perspective, when you go to America—I do not think that
I was in any way unique in this—what really interests reporters
who go there and enjoy being there is the differences rather than
the similarities.
Q108 Sir Menzies Campbell:
But is there a ready market for explaining those differences to
the producer of the 10 o'clock news back here at the BBC in London?
I mean, to what extent does what we see on our news bulletins
reflect a conventional view—perhaps a historical view—rather
than the more variegated view that you have just described?
Justin Webb: I think we have got
to be careful, as time passes, that we begin to reflect an America
that is not only the sort of America that we can imagine in our
mind's eye. Obviously, that means the east and west coasts, but
it also means someone in Kansas who has not got a passport and
who is not very interested in the outside world etc., and people
who have not had any link with the outside world for many generations.We
need to understand and report the newer America—the influx
of people, but also the crossover of people, where you have Koreans
married to Afghan-Americans, and you have Chinese married to Latvian-Americans.
You have this sort of incredible melting-pot atmosphere. We need
to reflect on how they live their lives, how they see themselves
as Americans—because they do very much see themselves as
Americans—and that is part of the American story. By contrast,
I think that there is always a tendency in Britain, and sometimes
in British reporting, to go to sort of default positions, which
are that Americans are all either crazy evangelicals or have guns
and are shooting each other all the time, and not to report the
ways in which American life is much more interesting and culturally
diverse than that. That is a challenge for the future.
Q109 Sir Menzies Campbell:
Now you are back living and working in Britain, do you have any
sense that perceptions of the United States here in Britain are
inaccurate by virtue of the fact that there is insufficient reporting
coverage of the distinctions that you have just described?
Justin Webb: I think there is
an overall perception of the United States that does not always
do justice to the degree of outward-looking openness that exists
there. Having come back here, one of the things that always strikes
me when talking to people here about the US is that people here
assume that Americans are much more introverted and isolated than
they actually are. Going back to something that was said earlier,
I think that one of the things about the Obama Administration—it
was said with reference to Bush and whether or not it mattered
whether Britain went along with Iraq; it improved his poll ratings
when it became obvious that Britain would do so—is that
there is a hunger in America not only for outside approbation
but for contact with and interest in the outside world. After
all, it set up—in a large part—the institutions of
global governance.
Sir Menzies Campbell: The post Second
World War institutions—NATO, the United Nations, the World
Bank.
Justin Webb: Yes, and given the
right persuasion it could probably do it again. To many Brits,
that is a bit of a surprise, because their assumption is that
Americans are naturally isolationist, but I don't think they are.
Sir Menzies Campbell: Do you have any
reflections on that, Mr McGuire?
Stryker McGuire: A couple of things:
on the question of identity that Justin mentioned, one of your
former colleagues, Rageh Omaar, who was at the BBC and now works
at al-Jazeera, went over and did a series of documentaries on
Islam in America. It was fascinating. He actually could not find
a single Muslim in America who identified himself or herself as
a Muslim first and an American second. They all identified themselves
as Americans, but he said—he is British and, I think, of
Somali descent—that to him that is simply not always true
in this country.
Sir Menzies Campbell: We got into that
argument about the cricket test. I don't think there is a baseball
test yet. Thank you.
Q110 Mr Illsley: To take up
the point that Justin made, he said that the Americans are more
outward-looking than we give them credit for, but before George
Bush was elected, he had only visited Mexico—it was the
only country that he had ever visited. Only 7% of Americans hold
a passport. I appreciate what you are saying about formulating
a lot of our world institutions—
Justin Webb: Is it 7%? I think
it is more.
Mr Illsley: Only 7% of Americans hold
a passport.
Stryker McGuire: I think that's
changed.
Justin Webb: Can I just address
that passport issue before we go on to something else? This is
not to cavil at the 7%, but until recently—it is no longer
the case now, I think—you did not need a passport in America
to go to Canada, the Caribbean or Mexico. I wonder how many Brits
have passports only to go to France or Spain. Think of the country's
size and the cultural diversity that there is on America's doorstep.
Q111 Mr Illsley: I don't disagree
with that. Americans have no need for a passport to go on holiday.
They can visit the Caribbean and Canada on their ID cards, as
you point out. A small proportion of them would travel long distances
abroad and engage abroad. When you talked about the Americans
being involved in the creation of some of our great world institutions,
do you mean at a level of government, or do you mean that there
is a view that the people of America embrace world events? My
experience is that America is inward-looking and insular. Their
TV and news bulletins are very much localised.
Justin Webb: That's certainly
true. There is an odd ambivalence at the level of ordinary people
and their interests when you think that so many of them, so recently,
came from somewhere else. There is still an openness, too. You
can go to parts of America and meet people who are quite recent
immigrants and who have a lot of financial or familial links with,
or just an interest in, areas of the world that you do not normally
associate with Americans being interested in them. So, there are
some pockets of America where there is enormous knowledge of,
interest in and often financial support for parts of the outside
world. What I am suggesting is that that is part of the foundation
of America that we do not often think about. There is knowledge
there, and interest in the outside world, and it is certainly
not reflected in the mainstream media at all now, really, which
many Americans regret. They are not quite as cut off as we think
they are.
Q112 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Mr Webb,
you've commented about the anti-Americanism in the British press
and described attitudes towards America of "scorn and derision".
I understand what you mean about the British press, actually.
[Interruption.] I am not talking personally, here. The
press take the same view about Germany. Successive German ambassadors
used to say to me that they just despaired at the way cartoons
always show Germans with helmets on, even though Germany has been
virtually a pacifist country for 60 years. Does this matter?
Justin Webb: That's an interesting
point. It may be that we treat too many parts of the world with
scorn and derision. My particular issue about America was that
I felt that we were missing out. It wasn't an altruistic thing.
I just feel that in our reporting of America—I include myself
in this; it wasn't a criticism of other journalists—there
is a trap when you go to America. For instance, on evangelical
Protestantism, which is a fascinating side of American life, there
is a tendency—a terribly easy and slightly lazy one—just
to find the kind of "craziest" people and suggest or
insinuate that they somehow represent America. A more rounded
and interesting view of that group of people would show the extraordinary
way in which, although they do have some pretty outlandish views
on all sorts of topics, evangelical Protestantism drives people's
lives, causes them to go to prisons to help combat recidivism,
and causes all sorts of aspects of American life, such as its
aid programme under Bush in Africa.What I was suggesting is that
there is a tendency—you are absolutely right that we do
this in every country, but I have only noticed this about America—to
deal in headlines that give a less interesting picture than could
be got by delving a little bit under the surface.
Q113 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Doesn't
this partly arise out of a kind of familiarity—almost affection?
We talked earlier about the fact that you can't found a foreign
policy on sentiment, but at a popular level, there is a colossal
trade in popular music, films, television, internet contacts and
travel, which arguably has gotten stronger. Just to take the pop
music industry, when I was growing up, there was a sort of vestigial
French and even German attempt to break into the British charts.
I am told by my children that that doesn't exist now. I am told
that this magnetic pole—maybe the issue is simply one of
language—is creating an "Anglosphere", or a global
culture, which is incredibly strong here. Maybe it doesn't resonate
so much in America.
Justin Webb: There is also a problem
there in terms of perceptions. In a sense perhaps it doesn't matter,
but in terms of our relationship with America, whatever that is—whether
it's special or not—it is interesting. For instance, it
always struck me that when I met British people who came to holiday
in the States—we would be talking somewhere—that one
of the things that really surprised them, and shocked them in
some cases, was how peaceful it was. They would say, "It's
amazing, isn't it? You don't have to carry a gun. You can go about
your business." In many ways, parts of suburban America are
more peaceful than some parts of suburban Britain. It was interesting
to discuss with them why that might be. I felt that too often,
they got their views of America from the odd visit to Manhattan
and popular culture writ large, which gives you a sense of a huge
and slightly dangerous—almost deranged—place.Actually,
if you go to most of small-town America—to Iowa, for example,
where the presidential process begins—it is small, peaceful
and home-loving in a kind of almost schmaltzy way that we would
associate with the 1950s, and yet it actually exists right now,
in 2009, in the most powerful country on earth. That is an interesting
thing that I don't think people get.
Stryker McGuire: It's funny, because
I see it slightly differently; I mean, I agree with almost all
of what you say, but what I'm struck by when I go back is the
amazing encroachment of religion on American life. Even within
families that I know, I've seen the situation change so dramatically.
You mentioned the suburbs; in suburban New York and suburban Pittsburgh,
there are school boards arguing over evolution versus intelligent
design/creationism. I find that to be quite remarkable. I remember
that in the late '70s, I think, I did one of the first stories
for Newsweek—it was on the cover—about the
rise of the religious right, which was really quite new at that
time; it certainly took place in my lifetime. To see how that
has affected the political world in the United States since the
late '70s—between then and now—is, I think, quite
remarkable.
Q114 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Can
I follow up the point about language, though? Do the Americans
in any sense see themselves as part of a global English language
community? The rise of India, which the Americans have latched
on to very much recently, must be helped by the fact that it is
in large part an English-speaking continent, and that, of course,
is partly because of us—or, indeed, mainly because of us.
Getting away from pure sentiment, it must have some influence
on world outlook and foreign policy—or not?
Justin Webb: On the question of
language it goes back to this really interesting issue about whether
America regards itself in 10, 20 or 30 years' time as an English-speaking
country. You go to parts of America now and there are little stickers
on cars saying, "This is America. Speak English". It
is a real source of hot controversy and it's something that's
terribly difficult for politicians on both sides of the spectrum,
because of Latino voters—and the "Speak English"
things are talking about Spanish, of course, and specifically
about Mexicans. The issue is whether in the race to get those
all-important votes, the parties, both Republican and Democrat,
slightly lose, in years to come, the attachment that at the moment,
generally, America has to the idea that it is an English-speaking
country. That then obviously plays into whether or not, in worldwide
terms, it sees itself as part of an association of English-speaking
nations. You could postulate that in, say, 50 years, America won't
regard itself as simply an English-speaking nation, but as something
more.
Q115 Mr Hamilton: I bow to
your superior experience here, but I wouldn't have thought they'd
ever let that happen in America—that they'd ever let English
become a second language in the United States, whatever the demographic
changes.
Justin Webb: Well, I think it's
an open question, to be honest. I'm not sure about a second language,
but if you go to parts of the United States, to Miami—
Stryker McGuire: It's sort of
a co-language.
Justin Webb: Yes, it's a co-language
already, and the issue is whether, at some stage in the future,
that is something that they would address. There are certainly
many Americans who feel that the English language is under threat.
I simply throw that in.
Stryker McGuire: I think these
things take a long, long time, sometimes. I think that still in
the United States the largest national group, if I'm expressing
that right, is German. That's the largest in terms of where people
have come from—it's huge.
Chairman: That would be going back three
or four generations.
Stryker McGuire: Absolutely, but
that's why it's so big.
Chairman: And you've got a big Irish
group as well.
Stryker McGuire: Yes.
Sir Menzies Campbell: Northern Europeans,
in fact.
Q116 Mr Hamilton: Can I just
move us on a bit—or back, to an extent—to the special
relationship, but on the defence level. Mr McGuire, at one point
you said, I think, you believe that the UK's role in the world
will shrink with its budget—of course, it is pretty inevitable
that our budget will shrink—and that in a transfer from
using hard power to soft power, the main instrument of soft power
would be the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and we're obviously
diminishing its budget as well, so a cash-starved British Army
would have important implications for the future of NATO. I just
want to come back to this perception of the United States and
how it sees the United Kingdom. Does it see the UK as increasingly
part of an integrated Europe, given what's happened in recent
weeks with the Lisbon Treaty, and how are its political perceptions
changing with the increased importance of, and the increasing
importance that the US gives to, China and India—the emerging
giant economic countries, the emerging economies?
Stryker McGuire: I think that
it's because of precisely what you're talking about that America
has quite different relationships with different countries. If
you speak in terms of the defence relationship, I think that the
relationship that the United States has with the UK is still very,
very important. As I think one of your witnesses said before,
there are only two real armies in Europe and only one of those
armies has been an incredibly loyal ally to the United States.
I think that that is very important.On the other hand, China and
Japan now own 47% of US Treasury securities. They basically have
their hand around the neck of the dollar, as it were, so with
them you have to have a different kind of relationship. Mexico
is now the largest source of immigration to the United States,
so that relationship is very important. There's the relationship
between the United States and Israel, which certainly might be
called a special relationship. But all those relationships are
quite different in nature, and I think that that's really the
lesson of what has happened in the past several decades—how
those relationships have had to morph to adapt to changing global
conditions.
Justin Webb: I think it's worth
mentioning that at the level of people-to-people contacts, it
is still a fact, particularly among Americans of a certain age,
that there is something special about Britain—or England,
as Stryker rightly said they always call it. If you go to Billings,
Montana, or Virgin, Utah, or Wichita, Kansas, and you get off
the plane and go to a Starbucks and say, "Could I have a
cappuccino and a muffin?" there'll be a ruffle of interest:
"Oh my God, could you just say that again?" There is
that extraordinary affinity that they feel with something about
us. It's partly the accent, but it's partly something more. You
can look at the adverts on late-night cable TV. If people want
to advertise things as trustworthy and solid, they will still
use, as often as not, an English accent. There is this hard-wiring,
almost, in Americans of that generation to regard Britain as special
when they look across at Europe, but as we've already discussed,
in all sorts of other ways, we don't really think the relationship
is that special at all.I'll just mention one thing, though. We've
talked quite a bit about defence, relative size and power and
all the rest of it. There is—I always felt this in the time
I was there—a genuine respect. Of course, they would say
this, wouldn't they? But there is a real respect among senior
American military people for their British counterparts. I spent
a bit of time in Fort Leavenworth—I don't know if you've
been there; it's a fascinating place. It's where they educate
their brightest soldiers and they think about the past war and
the lessons that can be learned and think about future wars as
well. The guy who ran Fort Leavenworth, General Caldwell, has,
I think, just gone to Afghanistan to be in charge of training
the Afghan army for McChrystal, so it's a really important key
role. When you go to Fort Leavenworth and talk to them—there
are British officers there—you get a sense of a closeness.
I'm sure they are close to the French in all sorts of military
ways, and all the more so since France came back into the full
ambit of NATO, but I think the real closeness, respect and friendship
that exists is something that you shouldn't ignore.
Q117 Mr Hamilton: That leads
me neatly into my second question, which is: do we in Britain
pay too much heed to what the President says? Are we too interested
in the US Government's view and the relationship between Government
and Government, and not enough in other sections of US society?
As you say, the military has a close relationship, but there must
be other sections of US society—media, the arts and cultural
areas—
Justin Webb: Well, television.
Mr Hamilton:—where there is a very
different and perhaps closer relationship.
Justin Webb: We have a natural
tendency to think of ourselves as being swamped by American television,
but actually I think that, in many respects, it is almost the
opposite. Think of the success of things such as "The Office".
Many formats go over there and are—with various tweaks—hugely
successful. There are all sorts of ways and areas of life where
we do influence America. If we want to satisfy ourselves, maybe
we should obsess more about those and less about the relationship
and which door in the White House we get into. We might have more
joy that way. You certainly get an impression when you live in
the States of all sorts of ways in which things that you recognise
as once being British still have a role.
Stryker McGuire: Ambassador Simon
Cowell.
Q118 Mr Moss: My first question
is to Mr McGuire. I read with great interest the article that
appeared in the August edition of Newsweek. I see it is
the international edition, and bearing in mind what you said earlier
about Americans not necessarily reading what you were writing
in Newsweek, it is a very strong indictment of—to
coin a phrase from the States—the state of the nation of
this country. I am recommending it to David Cameron as a basis
for attacking the Labour Government over the last 12 years. Would
you say that opinion is shared by movers and shakers in the United
States, or is it a very personal view?
Stryker McGuire: I don't think
it is an indictment, really. Some of the language on the cover
and in the headlines is, as usual, stronger than the story itself.
I think the story just says that the relationship has changed,
that there is nothing wrong with that and that the UK should basically
move on, rethink its position in the world and not always view
itself in terms of senior partner and junior partner. I don't
think that's really an indictment.
Mr Moss: What you are saying is that
the current state of our finances, the current position of the
City of London and the current position vis-a"-vis our armed
forces and the need to perhaps row back in defence spending—all
these diminish our role; and your title, of course, is "Forget
The Great in Britain". That is not an indictment?
Stryker McGuire: I don't think
so. I really think that it is more descriptive. In fact, you could
write a similar story about the United States, which is itself
in decline—Wall Street has had the same problems as the
City, and budget cuts will be dramatic. There is health-care reform,
too: if you take federal taxes, for people making, I think, more
than $500,000, the health-care tax will be added to city tax,
state tax and so on, so there will be some people—admittedly,
quite wealthy people—in the United States paying 60% taxes.
I think it is really a description of what I think is going on
in this country, but frankly you could write the same thing about
indebtedness in the United States.
Q119 Mr Moss: I would like
to move on to the UK's diplomatic operation and ask your views
on how well or otherwise you think it is doing in the States.
In particular, did we use everything to the full during the change
of Administration? What effect, if any, would a diminution of
our diplomatic operation in the States have on our relationship?
Stryker McGuire: To the extent
that the relationship would be affected, it would take some time.
I personally have tremendous respect for your foreign service.
It has always been my experience while travelling around the world
and covering stories that you are often far better off in many
countries going to the British Embassy than to the American Embassy.
They are simply better informed. The professionalism in your foreign
service obviously goes straight through the ambassadorial ranks.
You have very few, if any—I guess you have a few—high
commissioners and ambassadors who are in effect political appointees,
whereas in the United States these days almost all of them are.
I guess I have a sort of nostalgia for the Foreign Office that
pushes me in the direction of not wanting to see it get smaller
than it is, but it already has gotten quite a bit smaller and,
given the budgetary constraints that everybody will be facing
over the next decade in the United States and the UK, I think
that that is bound to be affected.
|
