The 'special relationship'.

The Obama administration has warned the UK today of the dangers of repatriating powers back from the EU. "Referendums have often turned countries inwards”, a senior figure threatened.  It is likely that the long-term maintenance of the ‘special relationship’ the countries share equates to America needing a strong influence in Europe to push its agenda.  The conclusion, at least a rational one, is that all American administrations within the two-party dualopoly now view the UK as an auxiliary tool to leverage US interests around the world.  This today stretches beyond militarisation of the Middle East and foreign policy to internal affairs that should be settled by the basic right to vote without scaremongering.  The publicly voiced comment, in my opinion, is a thinly-veiled insinuation of divorce and devaluation. 

We need to establish the context of this ‘special relationship’, and whether such boorish bullying should lead to conscription?

The relationship stemmed from WW1, and was ignited again especially in the Washington treaties in the early twentieth century as an alternative to a revival of the Anglo-Japanese alliance for peace in the Pacific and East. However, it wasn’t until 1946 after WW2 that Sir Winston Churchill invoked the idea of a ‘special relationship’.  Since then the two countries have joined an unadulterated relationship in economic activity, trade, commerce, military planning, military operations, nuclear weapons technology and intelligence sharing.  The relationship is summed up handsomely by Margaret Thatcher’s first meeting with Ronald Reagan in 1981, ‘Your problems will be our problems and when you look for friends we shall be there.’ In more recent history it is well documented that Blair and Bush shared an especially close bond.

That isn’t to say there hasn't been floppy phallicity in the love affair.  The Egyptian ‘Suez Crisis’ in 1957 led to British and French armed cooperation in securing the Suez Canal, which was condemned world-wide including by America, that ultimately led to an embarrassing withdrawal and hard frosting.  Harold Wilson's refusal to enter Vietnam was also a recession in relations.  It is said that former President Clinton and Prime Minister John Major enjoyed a particularly poor relationship with both of them refusing to talk to each other during dining.

Upholding such emotional sentiment in a rapidly evolving world is a dangerous process of non-thinking that ignores the unhealthily imbalanced relationship of the present.  Formerly it was especially spectacular and needed because there has never been such close cooperation between superpowers.  European powers had spent a millennia previously squabbling and subjugating each other into submission. Britain’s decline has been reversely mirrored by American dominance. This has undoubtedly had a profound impact on the relationship. As your worldly voice diminishes, you tend to get drowned out.  This is exactly why the ‘special relationship’ and the obscene totality of it is utterly irrelevant and stupid.  From the connotations of ‘special’ it lulls us into something that we can no longer expect.  The UK cannot influence American policies like it did in the past and it is increasingly obvious.

Even as late as 1982 when Britain was still a major power Ronald Reagan attempted to divert an imminent British victory into a ceasefire the Falklands.  The Argentinian government at the time was a despotised military junta that was fighting Communism in South America.  They had attacked a British Island and wanted to remove the democratic rights of those living there.  Margaret Thatcher told Ronald Reagan: “This is the fight for democracy, and this is our Island.  I did not mobilise my country and lose some of my finest men and ships to fail now." There are many moments of justifiable criticism of Thatcher, but this was not one, her rebuttal of American meddling was simply stunning.  It would unlikely be repeated today.  You can compare this directly to the illegal and controversial 1983 American invasion of Grenada that was under commonwealth status.

But where has the ‘special relationship’ landed us today?  Under the UK-American agreed extradition treaty the US government can forcibly request any British citizen to be deported without evidence if they see fit.  The same does not apply for American citizens being deported to Britain as they undergo an internal case and evidence review.   Not to mention two costly and unpopular wars of complete ineptitude pushed through parliament regardless of low public support.  Five hundred service lives lost. Billions wasted. Thanks, friend.

The ‘special relationship’ is dead and the terminology of the past should be avoided at all costs.  It once linked two superpowers that cooperated economically, militaristically and politically in a balanced way.  Now it is whittled to sentiment and servitude.  Britain no longer has the booming bark it had, more accurately a subordinate squeak. Furthermore, countries do not have relationships, they have interests. 

Ultimately the special relationship, not suffered cardiac arrest since Suez, should finally face a final resting and be replaced by mutually beneficial pragmatism.