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How to decolonise Britain We must escape the bind of the American Empire

'The weak, as ever, will do what they must.' (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

'The weak, as ever, will do what they must.' (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)


December 11, 2023   7 mins

There is something strangely flattering in the Russian and Iranian portrayal of Britain as a Machiavellian intriguer, bending the might of the American empire to its own will in subtle and devious ways. For the truth, alas, is somewhat different. Since the end of the Second World War, Britain has been a subordinate part of the American imperial project, perhaps the equivalent of the Indian Princely States or Nigerian kingdoms of Britain’s own lost empire. Britain provides a touch of exotic glamour through the quaint and picturesque customs of its loyal native rulers, and the now largely ceremonial armed forces it maintains. Yet the policy of indirect rule remains in force: British rulers may arrange their own internal affairs as they wish — up to a point — but the vital matters of defence and foreign policy are not permitted to stray from serving Washington’s interests.

Such fealty to an imperial protector may be the lot of all small states: yet where British exceptionalism truly distinguishes itself is in the eagerness of our elites to serve their master, a yearning for subordination which at times arouses as much contempt as satisfaction in the imperial capital. Britain’s elites have chosen to view themselves as, if not equal partners in the imperial project, then a uniquely favoured ally, elevated in affection above rivals by the Special Relationship. That the Special Relationship is an entirely parasocial one is a truth American securocrats are generally too polite to mention, and too hard for their British equivalents to bear. The results have generally been disastrous: so zealous have our leaders been to prove their mettle in imperial wars, Britain committed itself to tasks in Afghanistan and Iraq that proved far beyond its abilities. This eagerness to go above and beyond Washington’s requirements may now be repeating itself both in Ukraine, where America’s second thoughts about continuing a war rapidly turning sour threaten to leave ultra-hawkish Britain looking dangerously exposed, and in the Pacific, where the Royal Navy has almost entirely refashioned itself for a vulnerable auxiliary role in the looming war with China.

“Britain has hitched its security to America’s wagon, and change, when it comes, will come from the imperial metropole.”

Yet the strangest aspect of this humbling dynamic is how natural it all seems: to even notice it is frowned upon in British defence commentary, but to lament it is utterly taboo. Britain’s postwar slide from equal partner to fawning subordinate was such a gentle and gradual decline that it has — with the exception of a few psychic shocks such as Suez and the Skybolt crisis — gone largely unremarked. It is with the aim of rethinking this unhealthy, unrequited relationship that the journalist Tom Stevenson’s excellent new book, Someone Else’s Empire has appeared. “For what must ultimately be psychological reasons, British leaders and national security clerks have tended to dislike seeing Britain framed by American power,” Stevenson observes, yet this state of affairs is neither natural nor desirable: “it is one thing to station military forces around the world to maintain your empire, but quite another to do so for someone else’s”. 

Given the heavy costs and dubious benefits of such a relationship, why should the notionally independent British state not look towards British interests first and foremost? Why should our defence establishment so jealously guard their position as Washington’s loyalest compradors while denying the true nature of their role? Stevenson’s book provides a rare, clear-eyed dissection of Britain’s humbled status. Largely a reworked collection of LRB essays on 21st-century warfare, featuring original reporting from the disastrous fallout of the Arab  Spring — and I can personally attest there is no more radicalising argument against the American empire than direct observation of how the sausage is made — the book is at its strongest in its opening and closing chapters on the mechanics of British self-subordination, and its searing essay on Britain’s defence intelligentsia. 

Stevenson dissects the strange case of the British securocrat class, the products of our cloistered strategic think tanks RUSI, the IISS and Chatham House, and their feeder school, Kings’ Department of War Studies. As he observes: “Among the British defence intelligentsia, Atlanticism is a foundational assumption. A former director of policy planning at the US State Department and a former director at the US National Security Council are on the staff of the IISS. RUSI’s director-general, Karin von Hippel, was once chief of staff to the four-star American general John Allen. In 2021, RUSI’s second largest donor was the US State Department.” Yet despite their obsequiousness to American interests, British security think tanks have “next to no influence across the Atlantic”. In so far as their strategic counsel has been followed by British governments, the results have been, at best, humiliating and at worst war crimes, dragging Britain into reckless campaigns “of the sort that nations were once disarmed for committing”.

Like the Five Eyes intelligence arrangement, the function of such institutionalised subordination is simply to align the British defence establishment with Washington’s fickle desires of the moment. Yet if the aim is to serve American interests, the results have proved of doubtful benefit to the imperial centre. For despite “the consistency of British servility”, the results for Washington are generally underwhelming. “Even British participation in the Iraq war was often a liability,” Stevenson observes, as in Basra where, after crowing about the Army’s superior abilities in counterinsurgency drawn from experience in Malaya and Northern Ireland, British “soldiers withdrew from the city in a single night like criminals leaving a burgled house”, leaving US troops to reimpose some fragile order. If Britain hoped to win some special favour from the Iraq adventure, American gratitude was not forthcoming. France and Germany were not punished for their refusal to join in, while Britain earned the dubious status of a regrettable partner in a dalliance Washington wished to forget.

As Stevenson remarks, “passionate Atlanticism proceeds on the assumption that the interests of American power are necessarily coterminous with those of Britain”, an unexamined belief that, if applied in reverse, America’s defence establishment would laugh at in amused horror. Even America’s one true foreign infatuation, with Israel, is now looking shakier than ever before: and there too, when the great ship of US foreign policy eventually changes course, our political establishment will follow in the slipstream, presenting their abrupt about-turn as a decision made in London. Yet the prospect of freeing ourselves from such an unequal relationship, unsatisfactory to both parties but surviving through sheer institutional inertia, is unlikely to come from Whitehall. 

Unlike the US, which sustains the vigorous debate on foreign policy natural to imperial centres, the British defence intelligentsia “is a monolith. There is no prospect of significant disagreement between, say, IISS and RUSI on any significant question of foreign policy. Dissident work on military history and contemporary security is rare.” The price of admission to this sphere is a bending of the knee “so consistent, both over time and between political factions, that one must wonder whether Britain retains an independent foreign policy at all”.

Fortunately for the rest of the world, “Britain isn’t projecting power so much as decadence.” Through the strange alchemy of the MOD’s procurement system, British defence spending is not transmuted into effective military force. Indeed, “the main countervailing force to British militarism has been British economic malaise”, and as an arm of the British state, the MOD is not immune to its vices. Britain’s plummeting GDP is seen, by Stevenson, as a potential safeguard against disastrous foreign adventures. It must be said, however, that lack of capability has never yet prevented our leaders from hurling themselves into conflicts they cannot win, and there is no sign of this dynamic changing.

Rather, the dismal likelihood is that it will take a painful strategic shock, greater in magnitude than the failures of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, to force our leaders to apprehend the nature of their place in the world. Yet there are alternatives, cutting our strategic coat to our economic cloth, that may avert such a rude awakening. Open defiance or abstinence from our supporting role in the empire is not politically likely: yet a quiet commitment to a humbler part would achieve much the same effect without provoking any diplomatic awkwardness. Indeed, Stevenson’s proposal that “the British military could be reoriented towards island defence and away from the problem of maintaining expeditionary functions with declining economic power” is not significantly different from the suggestion of our pre-eminent strategic thinker, Sir Lawrence Freedman, that Britain avoid costly expeditionary adventures and refocus itself on Europe’s northwestern flank. 

A Royal Navy reconfigured for a primary focus on securing the North Atlantic seaways would, indeed, be viewed more positively by Washington itself than an expensive, vulnerable but ultimately symbolic role in distant Asia, even if this newly-limited horizon would cause our rulers grief. The Ukraine war shows the necessity of quickly being able to mobilise a large army of civilians, to produce munitions in vast quantities and dominate the battlefield through artillery and cheaply-produced drones: all capabilities Britain lacks, even as it pokes the Russian bear with a recklessness the Pentagon itself shies from. Stevenson’s urging that “avoiding expeditionary war must become a strategic priority” is surely correct, yet his claim that “territorial disputes arising from remnant imperial possessions, from Gibraltar to Belize to Montserrat, must also be avoided” goes too far. The yearning to throw ourselves headlong into America’s imperial wars must be discarded, but the defence of British citizens, no matter how far-flung, must surely remain the central plank of British defence thinking.

But ultimately, given the leaders we have and the worldview they have not yet shaken off, Britain has hitched its security to America’s wagon, and change, when it comes, will come from the imperial metropole. A Trump victory next year is more likely than not, and a question mark looms over Nato’s very existence. Here the trends toward strategic defeat followed by inward retrenchment look clearer every day. In Ukraine, the growing likelihood of an eventual Russian victory will present a great strategic shock to Europe, highlighting that American defence guarantees are severely circumscribed by the volatility of the empire’s domestic politics. The looming competition with China over mastery of the Pacific presents the greatest challenge military America has ever faced: Washington’s prospects of success look doubtful. From Africa to the Middle East, the flirtation of America’s client states with its strategic rivals has blossomed into committed relationships. 

The sun is setting on the American empire as it once did on our own, and history will force on our defence establishment a reckoning with reality that they have long avoided. Perhaps Europe will be left to fend for itself in a newly-dangerous world, or perhaps we will be drawn tighter into the embrace of America’s smaller and more clearly-defined core empire. Whatever history has in store for us, the nature of Britain’s strategic relationship with its imperial patron means that these decisions will not be made in London. Empires make the rules, and their clients accept them, however vanity forces them to mask the hard realities of power. The weak, as ever, will do what they must.


Aris Roussinos is an UnHerd columnist and a former war reporter.

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Simon Denis
Simon Denis
9 months ago

Surely the real colonisation of Europe is not American but Third world. Is it ghettoes of Americans surrounding and overwhelming one formerly European city after another? Is it Americans who live for twenty years among us and then attack our few remaining children? Was it American “grooming gangs” up and down the spine of Britain who subjected under age girls to atrocity levels of abuse? Is it Americans who greet any criticism with cries of “phobia” or “racism” and immediately recourse to the left wing legal matrix to enforce their stifling of free speech?
This foolish, blinkered little article, in blaming silly old Uncle Sam for the vicious future which the left has prepared for us, is just part of the problem. We have to confront the fact that the left has taken over the western world by a mix of fashion and stealth; that it runs that world by a number of means, the most successful of which is to puppet master soi-disant “liberals” into allowing replacement level immigration by stigmatising opposition as “xenophobic” – how they love their pseudo medical terminology; and that the current collapse of consensus; the current withering away of true cultural vitality; the surge in mental illness, suicide and loneliness are all – all – the inevitable perhaps deliberate result of this self-hating raft of policies.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

Hear hear.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

The people you are talking about have come from countries devastated by wars that the US either started or encouraged.

can't buy my vote
can't buy my vote
9 months ago

Somalia is an economic and human rights nightmare, and has been since independence (i.e., decolonization). I’ve noticed there are 108,000 Somali refugees in the UK. How is that the fault of the US and not the Somali leaders?

Colin Elliott
Colin Elliott
9 months ago

A brief not; Somalia is predominantly composed of the old French and Italian Somalilands. The very small state of British Somaliland became independent and joined the others to form Somalia, but has run itself autonomously from the rest for many years, and declared its independence in 1991, resisted violently. It’s denied international recognition, even by Britain, although peaceful.
I don’t know for sure, but believe the Somali immigrants to the UK are predominantly from the former Italian and French areas, and certainly nothing whatsoever to do with the USA, despite the latter expending many lives and much treasure in trying to help. .

D Glover
D Glover
9 months ago

The three leading countries of origin for migrants to the UK are India, China and Nigeria. Please explain how the USA devastated them.
If there has to be a country with hegemony it had better be the US, because a world ruled by China, or Russia, or Saudi Arabia doesn’t bear thinking about.

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
9 months ago

You offer nothing but vacuous, self-righteous and misleading piffle, some thirty years out of date. They have not “come from countries”, they have traversed several countries, in any one of which they might have found refuge. Instead they chose to scrabble across the globe under criminal auspices to leech on the welfare systems of dying Europe. And you and others like you encourage them. Never mind that it enriches various mafia outfits; never mind that the moment they leave their first refuge they become, in point of fact and motive, an economic migrant; never mind that plenty of them die on the way – anything goes, doesn’t it, so long as you outnumber Europeans in their European homeland? Your attitude reeks of a fundamental indifference to them and a strange hatred for us. It is a strange gleam of good fortune in a world sadly darkened by wilful, arrogant ignorance such as yours, that most of us are aware of the dodges, ruses, sophistries and lies by which you sustain this abusive situation.

Chipoko
Chipoko
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

Spot on!

Citizen Diversity
Citizen Diversity
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

France rejects 75% of all asylum claims. Germany and Denmark 50% each. The UK pays the French to stop the boats but then takes the failed claimants, only rejecting around 16% of claims (not that makes much difference. See, for example, the Wikipedia article ‘The Killing of Emily Jones’).
Germaine to Mr Roussinos’s piece is the fate of the Roman province of Britannia. Contributing its military to failed imperial ambitions, and then slipping out of the reach of imperial governance, its rulers unable to stem the arrival of the boats; the original inhabitants of the territory were eventually recast as foreigners (the term ‘Welsh’ meaning foreigner in Old Saxon). Foreigners in their own land. Supreme irony.
China will still be there at the end of the century. Whereas it might be conjectured that Europe and the USA will have (how shall it be put to avoid any bad feeling?) ‘changed significantly’, firstly demographically, and then as a consequence, politically. So much so politically that there will be no interest in pursuing these current American political concerns. That lamp is going out.

Colin Elliott
Colin Elliott
9 months ago

If that were so, why would they want to come here, or go to the USA? The truth is that in a troubled world, despots rule in many places. Unsurprisingly, if they do’t emigrate, the people may rebel, in hope of achieving a government something like that of the USA, of which they know a lot in this age of modern communications.
In practice, it seldom goes well. Either the despots react viciously and successfully, at other times, they succeed to some extent, but are plunged into chaos; if we don’t help, they’re murdered, gassed, starved, executed. If we do, we’re blamed for causing it. And even if democracy is established, the traditions and institutions to make it immediately successful may not be well-enough developed.
Yet countries like Germany, Japan, and South Korea prove that US involvement doesn’t mean devastation.

Citizen Diversity
Citizen Diversity
9 months ago
Reply to  Colin Elliott

Well, not devastating so far.

Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson
9 months ago

Rubbish man

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
9 months ago

They did a pretty good job of devastating themselves and would have done so perfectly well without any intervention from the US.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
9 months ago

This is totally ridiculous, an absurd woke caricature. The US has many faults, but it is blamed by many whatever it does. Syria? Somalia? Albania? sub-Saharan Africa? The “refugees” real or not from those regions have very little to do with any the US has done

0 0
0 0
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

What a strange diatribe! Where did you get your idea of the ‘left’ from?

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
9 months ago
Reply to  0 0

From their conduct. But what a futile reply to my post! Clearly, your mind is well represented by your flag of convenience – a double zero.

tom j
tom j
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

While I agree with you, I assumed the article was to be about trans flags as well as open borders which I also do blame Uncle Sam for. Look at how we embraced BLM in 2020, very much like an India princely state taking up cricket.

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
9 months ago
Reply to  tom j

But Uncle Sam has himself been taken over, don’t you see? The sane old chap of thirty-five years ago would never have fallen for the simple inversion of racial stereotypes which passes for “progressive” today; nor would he have discounted culture and the distinct intellectual climates in which different nations are marinated; nor would he have imagined that current rates of immigration can lead to anything but division; nor would he have junked all call to assimilation or cultivated a hatred for the enlightenment. That he is sponsoring all this now is a tragedy and crime, but one which must be ascribed to its real authors: the reds, who festered quietly in the academic undergrowth until they could spread and impose their poison throughout the world of learning.These are the enemy, not America itself.

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

To be fair, the fascination with multiculturalism and the fixation upon racism are hallmarks of American culture, the legacy of slavery and a nation formed of successive waves of immigrants from various places. CRT is an American invention. The whole social justice movement and the trans rights things both started here. In the greater scope though, you’re correct. Both America and the UK have the same problem, a bloated aristocracy of technocrats and ideologues determined to ram globalist ideologies down the throats of an unwilling public. Most of our domestic problems are directly attributable to this on both sides of the Atlantic, and obviously you folks got the short end of the stick when it comes to immigration. We too have waves of migrants, but at least most of them aren’t radical terrorists who hate everything about us and regularly blow themselves up.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

Did you bother to read the article?!
What exactly is new about the point made by Aris?
How did you manage to bang on about migration when the article is about UK’s foreign policy?!

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
9 months ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

Why not just go and restore your head to its usual station, somewhere to the south of your liver?

Mrs R
Mrs R
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

You are quite correct but why have we as a nation been brow beaten into tolerating so much that really should never have been tolerated for a second?
Where do the roots of shift lie? Political correctness?
Why have people been forced into silence, those who tried to speak demonised as racists etc? Where is the poisoned well from which this toxicity sprang?
I believe it was nurtured and disseminated in our universities that had followed the lead of American universities. These institutions have become little more than indoctrination centres for there can be no diversity of viewpoint allowed. It is in universities that Woke culture has been incubated and subsequently spread into departments of schools, institutions of all kinds and businesses.
The plan was a simple one, it took a long time to get to where we are but it was left untroubled to flourish freely and for that reason its roots run very deep and it will be extremely difficult to eradicate it. The idea was conceived by the Marxist academic Gramsci. In 1915 he wrote: “Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.” He wrote a great deal more. Interesting to read about.

Chipoko
Chipoko
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

Well said, Sir!

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
9 months ago
Reply to  Chipoko

Suck up!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

Agree. It’s rubbishy journalism.

Last edited 9 months ago by UnHerd Reader
Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

So many red necks on unheard these days… sad

Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Denis

It’s neither silly nor self-hating, but the inverse. We should have no permanent friends, only permanent interests. As for being overwhelmed by immigrants from the Mideast and North Africa, we bombed them into the better democratic world they flee, while the 50% or more of our own people who are conscious or unconscious Marxists or Protestant socialists are suffused with foolish sympathy, grounded in moral superiority that at times crosses into self-loathing. Certainly stupid. The Lithuanian philosopher Algirdas Degutis described it best as “Absolute intolerance meets suicidal hospitality.”

Simon Neale
Simon Neale
9 months ago

Ah, colonisation by America!
It’s not the most pressing form of colonisation we are currently facing.

0 0
0 0
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Neale

You don’t seem to know the meaning of ‘colonisation’ .

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
9 months ago
Reply to  0 0

You don’t seem to know much.

nigel roberts
nigel roberts
9 months ago
Reply to  0 0

And you don’t seem to have woken up to the reality of the demographic transformation of Britain.

Simon Boudewijn
Simon Boudewijn
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Neale

Alex Roussinos periodically suffers a kind of Dark Night of the Soul when he sees his lot as hopeless, and by projection is bringing it onto Great Britain as well. And it is hopeless, but not for the reasons he says….

”. That the Special Relationship is an entirely parasocial one is a truth American securocrats are generally too polite to mention, and too hard for their British equivalents to bear.”
See – but he neglects the full truth… which is by USA he means ‘Washington within the Beltway. He means the American ‘Uniparty’ – and neglects to realize the USA Elites who own the American Uniparty are the same cabal as the British Elites who own the British Uniparty.

The world is Global Elites, a Corpotracy and Financialocracy. The 7 most powerful finance and tech companies own the world for the better part, the West for sure. He is watching the puppet show and not realizing that behind the curtain the same puppeteer is making the British, American, Western, Developing World puppets dance.

Yes, the British puppet is given a side-kick role, but it is British/USA/Global Elites writing the script. Behind the curtain it is our Lizard Masters working the sticks with the strings making us all hop about and speaking our dialogue, haha…

P.S. Alex – all Greeks are named after Alexander the Great, and two Greek Political Analysts, Alex Christofour and Alexander Mercourious do a program called ‘The Duran’, an amazing coverage of the world’s Politics. Watch it on ‘Rumble’ ( the free speech, add free youtube, or on youtube with advertising)

Mrs R
Mrs R
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Neale

I disagree. Without American cultural imperialism ( latest mutation being Woke) we would not be in the mess we find ourselves today.

Andrew Vanbarner
Andrew Vanbarner
8 months ago
Reply to  Mrs R

We didn’t invent postmodernism, nor socialism, which are woke’s direct ancestors.
And neither Marx, Mao, or Marcuse – the prophets of modern day wokieness – were Americans.
The majority of middle class Americans dislike these ideologies immensely once they see their true nature. America in general, outside of collegiate elites, is a center-right nation, not a center-left one. Though it does appear now that lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Kevin McBarron
Kevin McBarron
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Neale

Our Cultural colonisation is long completed

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Neale

wow 84 up votes for that turgid piece of demagoguery?

Peter B
Peter B
9 months ago

Largely rubbish. Sadly so typical of this writer’s output.
If the UK is such a devoted slave of the USA, how was it that Harold Wilson managed not to sign up for Vietnam ?
Equally, our interventions in Iraq II (Blair) and Afganistan were entirely voluntary and unforced errors made by Blair.
The Royal Navy is not configured for operation in Asia. We may have 2 mid size aircraft carriers (only one reliably operational), but we certainly do not have the supporting fleet to actually deploy and protect them against China with any likelihood of surviving very long.
Finally, the US is neither an empire in any normal sense of that word nor in the rapid decline fantasists like this writer imagine. Quite why someone would assume that a quite unproven Chinese military would be stronger than the US is beyond me.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

‘We’ were rather busy during Vietnam with Borneo, Aden, Oman and Ireland. Judging by our recent performance in both Iraq and Afghanistan the US were well rid of us! Why do you think they called us “The Borrowers “?
Not sure I agree with your description of “ neither an empire in the normal sense of the word”, but completely agree that it is definitely NOT in “rapid decline”. Thank God!

Last edited 9 months ago by Charles Stanhope
Simon Neale
Simon Neale
9 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

We may have 2 mid size aircraft carriers (only one reliably operational)

In fact, both are. Only two hours ago the Prince of Wales arrived at Portsmouth, and I have video of her passing, and of the Q.E. turning around – presumably giving up her berth to the POW. They were both at sea until a couple of weeks ago.

0 0
0 0
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Neale

Operational means equipped with mission capable aircraft.

Simon Neale
Simon Neale
9 months ago
Reply to  0 0

Yes, they both have F35s and helicopters.

David L
David L
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Neale

A meagre handful

Andrew Wise
Andrew Wise
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Neale

Lol
they were always a fantasy project to keep Gordon Browns constituents employed
you need a massive fleet of other vessels to protect and support a carrier, which we simply do not have.

Simon Neale
Simon Neale
9 months ago
Reply to  Andrew Wise

You might not like the idea of having aircraft carriers, or you might want to have a pop at Gordon Brown. Both are fine by me. But the surface vessels we have are certainly adequate for deploying carriers. The carriers’ early warning systems are in themselves far more capable than destroyer and frigate pickets were 40 years ago.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  Simon Neale

Do they have any F-35’s on them is the question.

POSTED @ 19:51.

Last edited 9 months ago by Charles Stanhope
Simon Neale
Simon Neale
9 months ago

They have had, because you can google pictures of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdfSSsdu3wA
As for now, the MoD like to keep things like that a bit quiet. So your question is unanswerable by anyone here, including you.

Andrew Vanbarner
Andrew Vanbarner
8 months ago
Reply to  Simon Neale

Just for the record, I’m unsure if both of China’s carriers are fully operational. I have my doubts.
At any rate, the US Navy has been partnering with the recently capable Indian Navy, on whom we’d rely in a Pacific Ocean conflict with the PRC. We still have largely excellent relations with India, thankfully.
Insofar as the Gulf Wars are concerned, British expertise proved very valuable to US forces during the insurgencies, for intelligence, political, and security operations.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
9 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

I do not always agree with Mr Roussinos but I cannot see anything objectionable in this article.
Our refusal to get involved in Vietnam was the only occasion where we have declined to throw our lot in with the US and it may have something to do with the wake up call that was Suez.
Our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be characterised as entirely voluntary and unforced errors by Blair. It was a very calculated decision based on where he thought this best interest lay, it was just he wrongly calculated that we had more to gain by showing fealty the US.
The US most certainly does have an empire. The British showed that you did not have to conquer a country to bring it into you sphere, just buy off it elites. As the saying goes, if you do not have an empire you must be in one.
Some of the comment on this page have pointed to the real colonization issue an I do not disagree. But where do you think the impetus comes from. It is after all the USA that peddles multi-culturalism, EDI, CRT, trans-rights, and BLM. One of the gains for Europe I thought might result from Brexit was that the UK’s departure would serve to sever the source of these toxins

Mrs R
Mrs R
9 months ago

Well said.

Last edited 9 months ago by Mrs R
Simon Boudewijn
Simon Boudewijn
9 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

USA may not be a Empire as such, but it is very much a Hegemon, and so semantics are all which you argue.

”Quite why someone would assume that a quite unproven Chinese military would be stronger than the US is beyond me.”

The day of the Battleship ended with the Aircraft Carrier.

The day of the Aircraft carrier ended with satellites tracking every fleet, submarines, hyper-sonic missiles, and drone swarms. But then the thing is China is so easily ended by the same tools. Blockading the Straits of Malacca. (although this is a huge reason joining up with Russia works for them – hydrocarbons, food and minerals to get around sea blockade)

”Equally, our interventions in Iraq II (Blair) and Afganistan were entirely voluntary and unforced errors made by Blair.”

Caesar could make this kind of decision. Blair was merely a puppet of what ever sort of power which holds the wicked and dementiaed Biden in thrall.

Exactly like the Ukraine. Russia had a 99.99999% certainty of defeating Ukraine – do you think it was a personal decision by Boris to block the peace deal Erdogan prepared and Putin and Zalenski signed? That is was a ‘unforced error’?

No, all the madness, the $8 Trillion and millions of deaths and destruction of the region the Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan caused were not Blair and Bush just deciding to do that.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
9 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

The author’s argument is hardly a new thing….

Alex Carnegie
Alex Carnegie
9 months ago

Much of this analysis is self evidently true and yet …

What has been the alternative in the last sixty years? Did France do better by sulking, abandoning the NATO military structure and pursuing its own post-imperial mirage by running an informal and corrupt empire in West Africa? 

The idea of a EU Army as an alternative to NATO in defending Europe’s interests has been and continues to be risible. Germany is the only conceivable leader yet is too focused on short term economic advantage and haunted by ghosts from the past to provide coherent leadership or credible deterrence. 

The European countries have all been beneficiaries of the Pax Americana since 1945. Was it better to accept this with grace or resentment? The “American Empire” has been more amiable, less intrusive and economically advantageous than almost all its predecessors let alone its rivals. While this is only a relative judgement, it does suggest one should tone down the “post colonial” rhetoric.

Equally, it is an overstatement to say that Britain has been entirely without influence. There is a masochistic streak of national self abnegation in British commentary which is as unrealistic as the complacent jingoistic imperialism that preceded it. To compare the influence of London on Washington with that of the Nizam of Hyderabad on British policy a hundred years ago is simply inaccurate.

Washington is a jostling federation of competing agencies and agendas. As such, it is peculiarly open to foreign influence by lesser powers as Israel has demonstrated with great skill repeatedly. Britain has quietly done the same if not quite so effectively. The tail has occasionally wagged the dog. Sometimes beneficially for both; sometimes not. Perhaps one should think of Britain in this context as being the equivalent of a 51st State or, more appropriately, as another of the competing Washington agencies – more influential than the State Department if less than the Pentagon? Playing a role inside the American system may be a come down from past glories and constrain our freedom to act independently but it has delivered results much of the time since 1945.

A recent example that occurred during the first few days of the Ukrainian war makes the point. British intelligence not only detected and correctly analysed the invasion (cf. Israel’s failure to anticipate either the 1973 Egyptian attack or the recent Hamas one) but disarmed some of Putin usual asymmetrical tactics by forecasting publicly what was about to happen. Then – when the US was wobbling and considering acceptance of a fait accompli and Germany was in embarrassed denial – Boris provided both verbal and direct assistance to Kiev and helped rally the West including Washington to the cause. Absent these two British initiatives the outcome might have been very different. From the point of view of British national interests, this influence has been highly advantageous.

Another longer term example has been on environmental issues. The UK single handed drove through the response to the Ozone layer problem. It has also been one of the main leaders on Climate Change – an issue the US long tried to ignore.

Obviously, on many other occasions, the British have had little impact on either American decisions or events – as the article delights in pointing out.

Where I think the essay has most bite is its suggestion that there is a major risk we could soon be in Trumpian post NATO future. In a sense, so long as America remains committed to NATO, it does not matter much whether we play our part with grace or resentment (like France) – or contribute our share of the forces required or act as a freeloader (like Germany) – since the American umbrella protects all alike. In a post NATO world, however, all defence and diplomatic choices would become immensely significant. This suggests we should conduct our diplomacy, develop our strategy and resource and structure our forces with this scenario at the forefront of our minds. This implies major changes.

Last edited 9 months ago by Alex Carnegie
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  Alex Carnegie

The whole of Europe including our good selves are what the Romans would have called ‘dediticii’, within the the Pax Americana. As conquerors go they have, as you rightly say been very generous and perhaps a little too benign.
When and if the US abandons NATO we in the UK will be in the same position that ‘Britannia’ was in circa 409/10 AD* when the Romans unilaterally withdrew from the Province. We all know what happened next!

Incidentally I think you rather unfairly castigate the French. You are probably too young to remember what France was like say in the 1950’s. Men forever urinating on the side of the road, unwashed women everywhere, appalling lavatories, undrinkable water even in the grandest hotels, lethal roads that annually killed twice as many as we could manage. Now all gone! Sacré bleu! Even the men have ceased urinating In public! Alongside this miracle is the way France has produced a superb Nuclear Industry, including its own Bomb, that puts our pathetic effort to shame. Likewise the TGV makes our dreadful railways look ridiculous, even before the fiasco of HS2. As to “running an informal and corrupt empire in West Africa” so what? Are ‘we’ entirely blameless in this regard? I think not.

Odd that you should highlight the Ozone story. I must say I haven’t heard that word for years, but in retrospect in was obviously the progenitor of all this ‘Climate Hysteria’. I for one am horrified by how many Britons are wittering on about this nonsense and take NO pride whatsoever in our pointless machinations on this subject.

POSTED@ 11.34 GMT.

(*To use Christian chronology when in fact it should be 1162/3 AUC.)

Last edited 9 months ago by Charles Stanhope
Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
9 months ago

“Even the men have ceased urinating In public! ”
British do it all the time…
And let’s not be too dramatic. Nuclear Weapons aside Russian military is useless. Against the migrant hordes NATO/USA is going to do to nothing…
If you have a civil war tomorrow in France I can see free people (be Europeans or Americans) participating…but do not expect US military to fight the camel herders in France.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
9 months ago
Reply to  Alex Carnegie

“Washington …..is peculiarly open to foreign influence by lesser powers as Israel has demonstrated with great skill repeatedly.”
you miss here is how powerful the Jewish lobby has and continues to be in bending America foreign policy to suit the interests of Israel.
You might think that since a very large percentage of the US population originate form these island we should be in a better position, but not a bit of it. In fact America seems to harbour a very large number of descendants of British origin who dislike this country, many of them plastic paddies of negligible or no Irish ancestry.

Last edited 9 months ago by Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago

Remember that before we ‘acquired’ Australia as a dumping ground for our criminal class, the American Colonies were our preferred choice.
Astonishing even today some ‘bear a grudge’! How ungrateful can you get?

POSTED @ 16:32 GMT.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
9 months ago

You mean the Mafia in the US was made up of ‘law abiding’ Italian Immigrants? 😉

Rocky Martiano
Rocky Martiano
9 months ago
Reply to  Alex Carnegie

“From the point of view of British national interests, this influence has been highly advantageous” How exactly do the total destruction of rump Ukraine, the depletion of our own defence materiel to support a clearly unwinnable conflict, and the billions in aid to Ukraine from our creaking national budget benefit British national interests?
When Boris toddled off to Kiev to order Zelensky to keep fighting to the last Ukrainian. he certainly did not take that initiative without clearing it first with Washington. The result has been an unmitigated disaster for both parties.

Alex Carnegie
Alex Carnegie
9 months ago
Reply to  Rocky Martiano

I agree it would have been better if the Ukrainians had listened to General Milley not Boris and sought peace while their counter offensive was still a threat and not after it had proved a failure. It now looks like a Korean War style stalemate so one hopes that it will end in a cease fire and not the outright defeat you appear to fear.

Nevertheless, it was still in our national interests to rally the west and draw a line rather than “prudently” abandon Ukraine to its fate. It will make both Russia and China think twice about any similar adventures. “Containment” requires credible deterrence.

It also increased European awareness of the importance of Britain in security matters. This reframing of the issues may have allowed the Windsor accords.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
9 months ago
Reply to  Alex Carnegie

Our interests, as opposed to America’s would have been to accept Russia into NATO. Anyone who thinks that ludicrous then has to explain why accepting Ukraine in EU/NATO, when it’s more corrupt than Russia, more politically extreme and harbouring real Nazis (witness the Canadian Parliaments applauding of one) is deemed reasonable.

Alex Carnegie
Alex Carnegie
9 months ago
Reply to  Bill Bailey

To an extent, I agree with you. Post Putin, I would not be surprised if there was an eventual diplomatic rapprochement between the West and Russia not least because China is as big a long term threat to Russia as America.

Once peace has prevailed, it will also be interesting to see how Ukrainian patriotism evolves. Will a powerful sense of national identity have been forged by the current war? or will the old split between an anti-Russian Western Ukraine and a Russian speaking Eastern Ukraine re-emerge? I do not know but I suspect that some of the willingness to fight Putin’s army springs more from objections to Putin’s authoritarianism than to specific enthusiasm for the Kiev government.

Last edited 9 months ago by Alex Carnegie
Simon Boudewijn
Simon Boudewijn
9 months ago
Reply to  Alex Carnegie

”The European countries have all been beneficiaries of the Pax Americana since 1945.”

”Boris provided both verbal and direct assistance to Kiev and helped rally the West including Washington to the cause. Absent these two British initiatives the outcome might have been very different. From the point of view of British national interests, this influence has been highly advantageous.”

No. The NATO has been a problem, not an answer. It should have wound down 40 years ago – the expanding was insane. NATO is a drag, not an answer.

As far as the Ukraine War – that was the most evil and despicable and wrong war ever. It really began in 2008, but say 2014 with the CIA, MI5 Maidan revolution, then the funding to make the huge Ukrainian Army wile the people lived in unspeakable corrupt and poor conditions. (per person DGP, 2020, USA, $70,000, UK, $45,000 Ukraine $4,500. That level of corruption – essentially most corrupt place on earth (Clinton, Obama, and Biden’s piggy bank, global money laundry) was what we fostered.

So we built the Ukrainian army with one purpose – to destabalize Russia, then forced Putin to invade with our NATO membership deal, This war was 100% engineered by the USA and UK.

$200,000,000,000 two hundred Billion spent, 400,000 (reliably per Scott Ritter, Macgregor, and even sometimes Mercourious, and others) dead Ukrainian combattants, the amputation lines to a hundred thousand – the nation destroyed, the Ukrain population was 42 Million, now 18 million – and very few are ever returning (refugees and the Donbas separated)

That evil war caused by the West destroyed Ukraine and its people – caused such corruption through all Western Politics with that money – 10% to everyone, that our governments are now like Ukraine – bought and sold.

Russia and China are now partners BRICS+ now 17 countries and growing. The $ as Reserve is winding down. The using economic Sanctions killed that.

Biden destroying (as he had promised) the Nordstream pipeline has also destroyed Germany who is de-industrializing, and in recession – as will all Europe be, and UK, if real numbers were used. USA making Billions selling LNG to Europe –

The Ukraine War was the most evil war imaginable. Boris and Biden as destructive and corrupt as any leader ever – to have caused and then financed this wicked war.

Last edited 9 months ago by Simon Boudewijn
Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
9 months ago

Well said, I agree

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
9 months ago
Reply to  Alex Carnegie

All true…
the only other option would be a Federal Europe…but that wasn’t politically acceptable to the British (and other Europeans).
Theoretically a more engaged UK could have pushed for more integrated military and foreign policy.
Pointless now anyway…

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
9 months ago
Reply to  Alex Carnegie

Climate Change? My God the UK is complicit and the main actor in the destruction of modern industrial society on the basis of flawed computer models? That is more depressing than the debacle of lockdown and the claims made by this article. They could put solar panels all over the 2 aircraft carriers and they’d still need fossil fuel!

William Shaw
William Shaw
9 months ago

The defence of continental Europe and other areas of the world is not Britain’s problem and we are fools to try to undertake it.
We need a strong navy to protect the waters around our shores and a strong airforce to protect our airspace. A land army is tertiary at best.
While we expend our resources defending EU countries the EU schemes and plots our subjugation and our civil service and elites support them.

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
9 months ago
Reply to  William Shaw

Indeed – I also got the impression (not overtly expressed) that the author would be happy if we’re subjugated to the policies of the Brussels Reich.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
9 months ago
Reply to  Ian Barton

The giveaway is “Britain’s plummeting GDP” which is just utter nonsense, and Roussinos either knows this and seeks to dissemble or doesn’t know this and therefore should absent himself from writing articles.
In fact, although we probably could and should be doing better, our GDP has either flatlined or shown marginal increases over quite a long period of time. “Plummeting” it is not, and not in relation to other European countries (for instance).

Simon Boudewijn
Simon Boudewijn
9 months ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

The reason it is not plummeting is artificial. Greater debt and deficit spending are all added into it.

GDP increases are because debt increases and rising prices and savings being spent because people cannot afford their bills. Trade deficits are supposed to be subtracted in balance of payments for GDP, but that is worked around.

If any of you have been shopping and say GDP is doing OK you must have not been paying attention. Real-estate values declining, soon to crash (youtube Moving Home With Charlie for that in huge detail) and Unemployment is likely to begin rocketing up. What is it Britain actually does to make a living? Finance, but that is dispersing, that is going to AI things and offshore.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
9 months ago

Germany hasn’t even got finance to fall back on. UK moved above France in terms of manufacturing since Brexit. BUT Net Zero insanity will destroy our economy and condemn millions to starvation. Though there’ll be riots before that happens.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
9 months ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Keep to Net Zero and it will plummet

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
9 months ago
Reply to  William Shaw

Utterly risible comment.

Martin Layfield
Martin Layfield
9 months ago

I think the most pernicious American influence over Britain is increasingly cultural (although undoubtedly linked to American economic and military power). The woke cultural insanity that has bloomed in America seems to without fail quickly end on our shores and adopted almost wholesale by a British ruling class obsessed with American politics and models. Even the soi-disant ‘anti-Americans’ like Jeremy Corbyn sound like American leftists these days.

Of course, I think this is worsened by Britain increasingly having a weak and unconfident national culture for the most part. America has considerable economic and military clout over Japan, for example, yet the Japanese, with their proud particularist culture generally seem more resistant to degenerate American cultural trends than Anglo countries.

D Glover
D Glover
9 months ago

I’m looking at the last half-dozen CDs I bought.
Crooked Still; Mighty Poplar; Bella White; Town Mountain; Three Tall Pines; Billy Strings.
All American, and they didn’t have to force me to buy these things. I bought them because Brit bands don’t play this well.

Martin Layfield
Martin Layfield
9 months ago
Reply to  D Glover

Doesn’t this just back up what I said about contemporary British culture being weak and unconfident?

Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
9 months ago

But don’t you think cultural influences go back and forth? We in America remain besotted with the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Moody Blues, etc…so perhaps Britain isn’t hitting it out of the park musically at the moment, but I’d still walk a mile for a British film or movie than most American ones nowadays…The British excel in ‘character development’ in narratives..

Last edited 9 months ago by Cathy Carron
Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
9 months ago
Reply to  Cathy Carron

I was beginning to wonder if I was odd, I prefer Korean output to US output, and most of the British stuff I enjoy is NOT modern. Here in the UK we are ruled by woke morons.

Peter Principle
Peter Principle
9 months ago

Good article (as always): thanks! Reconfiguring the Royal Navy to focus on “securing” the North Atlantic seaways sounds a bit ambitious. We can’t even “secure” the English Channel against rubber dinghies.
The article does not mention the UK’s “independent” nuclear deterrent (for components of which the UK is totally dependent on the USA). That wicked old lefty, Tony Benn, once challenged the Brits to specify a scenario in which the UK would use its nuclear weapons when the USA did not want it to.
Oh, and I liked the photo of Bush and Blair. It reminded me of their “Yo Blair” conversation that they did not realise was recorded. The transcript tells you more about the US-UK relationship than a bookshelf full of think tank reports.

Last edited 9 months ago by Peter Principle
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago

That “wicked old lefty’ was also very informative about how the Dimona Nuclear Plant in the Negev Desert was ‘fuelled up’ from Dounreay.

POSTED @ 12.29 GMT.

Last edited 9 months ago by Charles Stanhope
Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
9 months ago

As long as we didn’t fuel up the Iranians I don’t care.

Simon Denis
Simon Denis
9 months ago

Surely the real colonisation of Europe is not American but Third world. Is it ghettoes of Americans surrounding and overwhelming one formerly European city after another? Is it Americans who live for twenty years among us and then attack our few remaining children? Was it American “grooming gangs” up and down the spine of Britain who subjected under age girls to atrocity levels of abuse? Is it Americans who greet any criticism with cries of “phobia” or “racism” and immediately recourse to the left wing legal matrix to enforce their stifling of free speech?
This foolish, blinkered little article, in blaming silly old Uncle Sam for the vicious future which the left has prepared for us, is just part of the problem. We have to confront the fact that the left has taken over the western world by a mix of fashion and stealth; that it runs that world by a number of means, the most successful of which is to puppet master soi-disant “liberals” into allowing replacement level immigration by stigmatising opposition as “xenophobic” – how they love their pseudo medical terminology; and that the current collapse of consensus; the current withering away of true cultural vitality; the surge in mental illness, suicide and loneliness are all – all – the inevitable perhaps deliberate result of this self-hating raft of policies.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
9 months ago

The real meaning of the Special Relationship is how the colonial relationship has been neatly flipped.
Friendship it is not.
America does not have friends, it has interests.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

However it is particularly vulnerable to vociferous lobby groups such the Irish or the Jews, and thus is perceived NOT to be “playing with a straight bat” as we used to say.

POSTED @ 12:38 GMT.

Last edited 9 months ago by Charles Stanhope
Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
9 months ago

Ireland is in for some interesting times (in the Chinese sense of the word) soon.
Now the ‘occupying power’ is the EU and its migration/Net Zero requirements from Ireland. Ironically Sinn Fein/IRA are against the ‘nationalists’ in Dublin and for the colonisers.
So who gets to be funded by the US Irish ? I wait with interest to hear Sinn Fein explaining how they need the cash to put down the Nationalists in Dublin. 😉

Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
9 months ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Friendship is rare indeed; Most parties have just ‘interests’ which can be wrapped in a veneer of friendship.

nigel roberts
nigel roberts
9 months ago

“The sun is setting on the American Empire”

You’ve been saying that since the Vietnam war but it never seems to come to pass.

Simon Boudewijn
Simon Boudewijn
9 months ago
Reply to  nigel roberts

”The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ but in the end the wolf does come.

John Dellingby
John Dellingby
9 months ago

Is a war with China really “looming” as it were? I mean sure, it could happen and while very possible, I’m not sure it’s a certainty. Hopefully the mess Russia has got itself into in Ukraine will put China off any attempt to carry out a far more complex invasion of Taiwan.

In any case, I’m increasingly of the view that “America doesn’t have allies, but interests”. I think as far as we’re concerned, we need to take a similar stand. Maybe each time an American President blathers on about Northern Ireland, we close down one of their military bases here and build a housing estate on it. Vote winner all around and it might just make the very special relationship we have that little bit more normal.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
9 months ago
Reply to  John Dellingby

“Is a war with China really “looming” as it were?”

Everything indicates China will attempt to absorb Taiwan into greater China within the next half decade, likely sooner. At which point, what will the US and West do?
On the face of you would think it depends on who is in the Whitehouse at the time, but for myself I don’t believe that. I think we are spiralling towards a freezing cold war with China in the first instance regardless of who is in office – complete cutoff sanctions etc, with occasional hot war flashes without a nuclear exchange. This would suck in all the surrounding powers into one side or another, and I think India, Japan, S. Korea etc will side with the US while Russia and a host of smaller asian countries like Myanmar side with China. There is no chance of China winning such a war, but nor do I think it likely the US can win such a war, so we would get a stand-off lasting years, during which China falls ever further behind technologically speaking, until the situation resolves itself with an internal civil war in China. I also don’t think China would find taking Taiwan at all easy, unless they were willing to lob over nukes.

Iris C
Iris C
9 months ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

Why should America do anything? What happens in (or to) Taiwan has no bearing on American life.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
9 months ago
Reply to  Iris C

Chips

Micael Gustavsson
Micael Gustavsson
9 months ago
Reply to  Iris C

Of course it has. Are you a paid troll?

Andrew Buckley
Andrew Buckley
9 months ago
Reply to  Iris C

Chips!!

can't buy my vote
can't buy my vote
9 months ago
Reply to  Iris C

Taiwan is the world’s largest manufacturer of computer chips. They have a bearing on everyone’s life.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
9 months ago

A vast building program is under way in the US to undo the reliance on Taiwan chip manufacturing.

Samuel Ross
Samuel Ross
9 months ago
Reply to  Iris C

Fish and chips! Taiwans two big exports …. 😉

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
9 months ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

A fair analysis

Simon Boudewijn
Simon Boudewijn
9 months ago
Reply to  John Dellingby

Russia is coming out of this war much stronger. Russia not only wins the war and has a thriving economy and industry, but has changed the global balance of power with the new BRICS+ UAE, Iran, KSA, and about 8 others joined. Many more coming, They work on a nwe trade currency – Did you see the incredible reception UAE and Saudi gave Putin a few days ago when he visited? They made Biden’s guy wait overnight and then scolded him. They treated Putin like a long lost Brother and a global Leader.

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
9 months ago

Good to have this issue raised. With Starmer as committed as anyone to the transatlantic myth there is little chance of any change any time soon. As a thought experiment though it might be interesting to imagine what a foreign policy based on actual British national interest would look like.

nigel roberts
nigel roberts
9 months ago

You are John Pilger and I claim my ten pounds.

Andrew Buckley
Andrew Buckley
9 months ago

My thoughts are that the (clear) subservience to the USA is primarily financial.
After WW11 our (Britain’s) bankruptcy in all but name meant that from a dominant position that was partly maintained after the first financial shock of WW1 a place in the new world had to be found. The USA was the, obvious (??), focus.
And then the slow decline of a once global superpower could not be maintained as the UK is, simply, too small. In a globalised world the UK is (financially) little more than an extra state to sell things to.
Whether this is the rise of manufacturing dominance or the tech industries the UK is too small to compete. Similarly, with the exception of the Falklands, militarily the UK can only ever be a junior partner.
Probably the mistake made historically is around a failure to recognise and plan for such a reduced place in the world. For Britain’s leaders accepting this back in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s was too much larger step to take as most of them had been personally involved in the sacrifices of WW11.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  Andrew Buckley

“from a dominant position that was partly maintained after the first financial shock of WW1”
Really? My understanding is that when Lord Balfour went to New York to meet the first chairman of the Federal Reserve*, one Paul Warburg Esq, in late 1916 we were already on the cusp of bankruptcy. Fortunately Warburg & Co agreed to keep funding us and even to enter the War to achieve victory, but at a PRICE.

The subsequent Balfour Declaration, the Washington Disarmament Treaty and severing of the Anglo-Japanese Naval Treaty were just a part of that price, and we continued through the 20’s & 30’s in a rather embarrassingly semi solvent posture.

Come 1939 Chamberlains’s main fear was that we would go ‘bankrupt’ again, as we surely did by November 1940.
Without wishing to be disparaging does anyone now what WSC’s IQ was?

(*The New York bankers club.)

POSTED @ 12:53 GMT.

Last edited 9 months ago by Charles Stanhope
Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
9 months ago

Chamberlain was a realist. He fully understood that the British Empire could not win a short war or afford a long one.
His policy of appeasement was correct. The guarantee to Poland was made without the means to fulfill it and was therefore a mistake.

Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell
9 months ago

Do we need to break away from America’s cultural colonisation of our country? Absolutely. But the idea that we would be better off without Pax America, which as a resource poor, trading island nation we rely on, seems less obvious.

Yes, there have been too many cases of ideological over reach in recent American foreign policy but their primary policy, that friend or foe, it will not tolerate the disruption of global trade (not that it is adverse to disrupting it, itself when it suits it but hypocrisy is the right of the strong unfortunately) is ultimately in our benefit and to that extent I see no reason why we shouldn’t focus on the greatest threat to this hegemony, the growth of the Chinese navy and its territorial ambitions in the Pacific.

You don’t need to be a free market absolutist or globalist to still acknowledge that the ability to trade freely on a global level is one we shouldn’t abandon without a fight.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
9 months ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

We may be resource poor, but once upon a time we had very close relationships with one of the largest source of raw materials around – Australia, we also had good relations with an excellent farming resource, New Zealand, then throw in Canada who could provide both. The UK should have ‘had it made’ – but we opted for Europe.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
9 months ago

Fascinating article with more than a grain of truth. Explosive recommendations – a detachment from well over a century of technocratic consensus in UK governance and foreign policies – you will get this through only over the kicking and screaming bodies of the governing blob. I don’t necessarily agree with the full prescription, but the UK certainly has to make up it’s mind where it heads next – we are in limbo at the moment. Surprised France was not analysed in the article as a template – for both good and bad. Will post more discussion later.

Last edited 9 months ago by Prashant Kotak
David Barnett
David Barnett
9 months ago

Rather as “Hamlet” was judged to be a series of quotations strung together, this article could be similarly described, with “cliches” being substituted for quotations. As others have remarked, the colonialism many resent is that imposed on us by the Third World.

Last edited 9 months ago by David Barnett
Peter Principle
Peter Principle
9 months ago

The dire state of public finances for the foreseeable future could well be our saving grace from yet more expeditionary embarrassments. Although Afghanistan was always going to be a failure, I am not convinced that the same is true of Basra. I have wonder to what extent the UK troops were fighting with one hand tied behind their back. Even back then, the human rights lawyers seemed to have a disproportionate say in how the military could operate. How would Cherie Blair’s human rights colleagues have reacted if the British had done to Basra what the Americans did to Fallujah subsequently?

Last edited 9 months ago by Peter Principle
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago

However bad things were in Basra they were FAR worse in Northern Ireland with its awful ‘yellow card’ etc. Even now an 80 year former Para has been on trial in Belfast for nearly a year and nobody from the ‘establishment’ seems to want to stand up for him. Frankly it is a national disgrace.
Fortunately his former Commanding Officer, Derek Wilford OBE died the other day in exile in Belgium.*Thus he will be spared the sight of Soldier F being ‘crucified’ by the Northern Ireland Judiciary.

(*POSTED @ 12.23 GMT.)

(*Such was his disgust for this country that he opted, rather sadly, to be buried in Belgium.)

Last edited 9 months ago by Charles Stanhope
Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
9 months ago

An excellent article which accurately sets out the UK’s position.

As Tizard said after WW2, “we are no longer a Great Power. The circumstances in which we became one were unique and will not recur. We are a great Nation but if we persist in seeking to be a Great Power we will cease to be that”.

The USA will become isolationist within the next twenty or so years. The UK should prepare for that, as the article says.

nigel roberts
nigel roberts
9 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Isolationist within 20 years? Doesn’t sound very colonizing to me.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
9 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Will the US remain the United States seems to be a question worth asking. IF not will there be an American States War of Independence?

0 0
0 0
9 months ago

To be clear, Britain’s subordination to the US began before the idea of an American Empire took shape, left alone the means to work that out. The First World War decisively disrupted the Imperial trade network and the financial arrangements built around it. When the Entente Allies appealed to the US for support, that was primarily financed by loans raised by US government rather than subsidies “because the US had no Imperial interests.”

Congress preferred .protecting US producers to facilitating repayment via imports, ushering in a period of unstable economic rivalry. Britain’s increasing difficulty in repaying those loans forced London off gold in 1931 and the US did everything possible to prevent Sterling Area devaluation increasing its competitiveness. Britain’s debt to the US Government was re financed on increasingly severe terms before, during and after WWIi. In economic and financial terms, British Governments were subjected to Washington at an early date and began to pursue ways of civilising politicians and bureaucrats there to use American power in ways less harmful to Britain. However, the more the Americans learned, the more they took.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago
Reply to  0 0

Surely the “idea of an American empire” started well before the Great War, when ‘you’ grabbed the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam in the so called Spanish American War of 1898.

Ironically the zenith of our empire took place in the same year in the Sudan at the Battle of Omdurman.

POSTED FORLORNLY @ 21:07 GMT.

nigel roberts
nigel roberts
9 months ago
Reply to  0 0

“Britain’s debt to the US Government was re financed on increasingly severe terms before, during and after WWII” That is arrant nonsense.
Churchill described lend-lease as “the least sordid act in the history of international relations”. The USA lent to Britain at zero-percent interest for loans made during the war, and 2% for loans made after the war, repayable on a schedule of the debtor’s convenience.
Try walking into your local Barclays and see how much you can borrow on those terms.

AC Harper
AC Harper
9 months ago

There may be plenty to put right in the UK but this article appears to be accept a conspiracy theory as the truth. You need a method to distinguish between events being the result of a conspiracy or events being the result of like-minded people doing like-minded things.
So… World War II. Was it a UK and (eventually) a USA conspiracy or was there a common enemy?
So… the Cold War. Was it a USA and UK conspiracy or was there a common enemy?
So… Vietnam. If there was USA Imperial Patronage how come the UK didn’t join in?
It would be strange if two related cultures did not share some common views, especially about external threats, but I’m pretty sure that the UK leaders are only too aware of the poor value of the ‘Special Relationship’, other than as propaganda narrative.

Last edited 9 months ago by AC Harper
Terry Ward
Terry Ward
9 months ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Funny how no one in this universal pity-party ever mentions the 53 Iranian coup, which was, if I read correctly, the mothership of all the present Middle-East devilry.
Now whose idea was that I wonder…
But then i don’t like anybody very much.

Sayantani Gupta
Sayantani Gupta
9 months ago

Intriguing and interesting article. Just a quibble regarding the Indian princely states – the comparison while certainly provocative is perhaps not wholly apt- these entities did not even have nominal conceptual freedom to determine foreign policy or defence.
It was very much a subordinate status to the British Crown after 1858, and the local British Resident was all-in-all in nipping in the bud any shows of defiance by the local potentates.
It also helped that sizeable Army cantonments existed in all ” native states” to quickly quell any attempts at disobedience.
The Princely Armies were essentially vassal battalions who contented themselves with regalia, insignia and shows of pomp and revelry, helped also by the repeated Durbars where they were proudly displayed.
The suzerain of the Princely State was in effect a de jure and titular head only. Real power was vested with the Viceroy in Council and the apparatus in Whitehall who controlled the Viceroy.

Last edited 9 months ago by Sayantani Gupta
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago

Was the Nizam of Hyderabad the senior native princeling and thus entitled to a 21 gun salute?

POSTED @ 12.34 GMT.

Last edited 9 months ago by Charles Stanhope
Sayantani Gupta
Sayantani Gupta
9 months ago

Part of keeping the old man happy. He was also a miser who liked his silver train serving gizmo, and stacking up as much of treasures in his cellars as he could.

Last edited 9 months ago by Sayantani Gupta
Sayantani Gupta
Sayantani Gupta
9 months ago

Reply is being ” screened” in the usual manner.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago

Because this essay rather unusually is ‘in special measures’ ALL comments are screened! Including this one.

POSTED @ 17:19 GMT.

Last edited 9 months ago by Charles Stanhope
Sayantani Gupta
Sayantani Gupta
9 months ago

I shall have to ” pinch,” your time- stamping style, in the light of zealous censors!

John Riordan
John Riordan
9 months ago

Even assuming we could circumvent the institutional inertia in question and move over to a situation where Britain’s securocrats redefined foreign and military policy exclusively in British direct interests, we would find that the USA nonetheless satisfies the conditions for a key ally – as per Lord Palmerston’s observations on the subject.

Alliances are not friendships, they are the product of aligned strategic interest, that is all. Even if we accept the argument above that British strategists have forgotten this, any reckoning on the point will simply lead straight back to the fact that telling the world’s most powerful military that we don’t want to be friends any more would be about the daftest unforced error we could make.

I must also take issue with the claim above that the USA failed in Afghanistan. This is untrue, it actually succeeded. What changed is that the USA lost its appetite for the multigenerational project of making a free, prosperous country out of an Islamist disaster zone. There had not been a US armed forces combat casualty since 2013 at the point in 2022 when the withdrawal was bungled, and the fact that strategists were so wrong about the speed with which the Taliban was able to retake power, while embarrassing for those strategists, also showed that the USA had maintained peace and stability in the country for years even with a combat-ready enemy in place.

That said, I do agree with the above that the UK needs to review what it uses its military power for. It’s a huge mess at present and isn’t fit for purpose, mainly because the purpose is changing all the time in a fast-changing world.

Last edited 9 months ago by John Riordan
Kent Ausburn
Kent Ausburn
9 months ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Exactly right. The world is breaking into two major camps, one led by the US and other mostly democracies and the other mostly authoritarian states led by China. There will be few, if any, neutral states in the coming struggle. So, which side do most Brits feel most comfortable siding with? Other than for a few lunatic outliers, I don’t think there is much debate.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
9 months ago
Reply to  Kent Ausburn

By accepting the US stance on Russia, we basically screwed the game. Russia in NATO would have meant China would be a pet poodle. BUT no we backed an even more corrupt former Soviet Republic in wars over Soviet drawn borders in a post Soviet world. With the extra disadvantage that the Ukraine does actually harbour Nazis.

James Kirk
James Kirk
9 months ago

Many comparisons are drawn with Lord of the Rings and the long ago battle for the “World of Men” is now resurrected. Ukraine even calls the Russians orcs. Who now has the will or the capability to subdue us Hobbits? We surrendered commercially, why make enemies, especially those with unreasonable religious frevour? The Americans conquered us with Hollywood, Coca Cola and MacDonalds. Will those Elves diminish into the West? i doubt China will attack us, we’re a good customer, for now.
We have a silent culture, still 80% white hetero. All we need is to make our pleasant land unattractive to the inimical refugee. The Left are doing a great job already as are the blue american cities. The worm is turning in Europe and we still have a sting in our tail. All is not lost.

Samuel Ross
Samuel Ross
9 months ago

The author combines a curious clear-eyedness with a ‘my cup is half empty’ attitude. His facility in the English language adds the final polish. That said, like all Eeyores of previous times, he has never known a good thing to happen that does not have its sad side.

America will fall. England must shrink into its little realm in the north-eastern Atlantic. America will abandon Israel. America will abandon England. America will abandon Europe. Dark times are coming for us all!

Do you not know, dear friend, that as you predict the future to be, so will you make it? Be brave and tread forward boldly into a better future, yes, be ye the captain of your life.

I am hurt, but I am not slain

I’ll lay me down and bleed awhile

And then I’ll rise, and fight again!

 – – –

In the fell clutch of circumstance

 I have not winced nor cried aloud

Under the bludgeonings of chance

 My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

 Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

 Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

 How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

 I am the captain of my soul.

nigel roberts
nigel roberts
9 months ago
Reply to  Samuel Ross

Try telling that yo your local chapter of Hamas. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
9 months ago
Reply to  nigel roberts

They have already come to swathes of Africa ,the Caucasus, the Middle East, the Philippines and the Indian sub continent. They may even head for China but China, like Israel seem to have realised the danger.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago

How very depressing that this essay has been put into ‘Special Measures’ thus requiring every single comment to be censored BEFORE release.

POSTED @ 19:57 GMT.

Samuel Ross
Samuel Ross
9 months ago

If the citizen is sovereign and the voter king, then may our kings be ruled by wisdom.

Last edited 9 months ago by Samuel Ross
Iris C
Iris C
9 months ago

The difference between the end of the British Empire and the American Empire is that our colonies remained friends through the formation of the Commonwealth whereas the nations that supported America will throw off the mantel.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
9 months ago

Presumably the Censor ‘knocks off’ at 17.30 making any further discussion USELESS.

Alan Gore
Alan Gore
9 months ago

Our official reason for keeping the UK as our Colony of Cuteness has always been that as soon as we withdraw, North and South Britain would attack each other in wholesale slaughter. But as I understand it, Washington bureaucrats are drawing up an internal boundary north of London. As we withdraw, North Britain will become a nation in its own right, with its own nuclear arsenal and several post-industrial cities. North Britain would have its own language, consisting mostly of glottal stops, while South Britain would speak Hindi, as it mainly does now.

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
9 months ago

This article makes a lot of good points. He’s right to point out that American strategists and policy makers are putting America first. They’ve always done that to an extent, but Trump has them terrified of a populist uprising so the Biden administration has quietly continued the economic nationalism of his predecessor, and it’s likely to get much more dramatic as the conflict with China deepens. The US will make concessions to the allies that they actually need, like India, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Australia, etc. but will continue to expect the UK and the rest of Europe to toe the line because the relationship is so one sided at this point. Europe relies on the US for defense, raw materials, and energy, while the US basically has no critical need for anything Europe produces. Ukraine is arguably more strategically important to the US than the rest of Europe simply because of their gas reserves, agricultural output, and as one of the leaders in the production of the fertilizer used by American farms. I’ve no idea how to begin fixing this dynamic, but the author’s suggestion of a regionally focused UK committed to policing and controlling regional waters would actually have something to bring to the table at least.

Sayantani Gupta
Sayantani Gupta
9 months ago
Reply to  Steve Jolly

Deleted

Last edited 9 months ago by Sayantani Gupta
Citizen Diversity
Citizen Diversity
9 months ago

I thought this article was going to be about how to get rid of the Normans.

Matthew Jones
Matthew Jones
9 months ago

I only made it through the first few paragraphs before I had to give up on this ridiculous article. The UK Armed Forces are clearly not ceremonial, as is indirectly confirmed by the author himself when he refers to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Also, the UK rarely if ever considers the will of Washington when it comes to internal politics, and completely ignored America’s wishes in leaving the EU.
This article is a bad joke.

Juan Manuel Pérez Porrúa
Juan Manuel Pérez Porrúa
9 months ago

Before Cuba’s final liberation from the Spaniard’s yoke by the United States, there were many positions as to what the island’s relationship to the European metropole across the Atlantic and the economic elephant next door. This was inevitable, because being an island, just like the United Kingdom is right now and how it has been since the irreversible and necessary loss of its oversies empire, Cuba and the Cubans simply cannot survive in isolation from the rest of the world, unless they want the inhabitants of the island to starve.
There were the loyalists or unionists that supported remaining a part of Spain and even becoming so to speak just another Spanish province (Cuba like Canada was a preferred destination for Spanish American loyalists and conservatives after these various countries obtained their independence from Spain); there were those who favored autonomy and home rule, while remaining a part of Spain; there were those who supported the same thing or a similar protectorate status but connected to the United States (the actually reasonable position); those who supported becoming a US State (or Confederate State for the brief period that option was available to them).
And then there were the hardline Cuban Nationalists, the “Auténticos” or “true blue Cuban Nationalists” that wanted to be “independent” from both the United States and Spain. Their rabid nationalism often meant Cuban exceptionalism (political and diplomatic isolationism), Statist economic policies, a suicidal commercial protectionism (economic isolationism), anti-Americanism and anti-Hispanism. Eventually this extremist nationalism is the position that won in Cuba, in Marxist-Leninst drag, with the terrible Cuban Revolution. Now, the buildings in Cuba’s cities are falling apart, Cubans themselves are universally regarded as suspect agents of Communist subversion while they remain on the island starve and drop like flies by the absence of even basic necessities, or outright flee Cuba for survival.
I with the British people are sensible enough to renounce Auténtico British Nationalism, and all its works and empty promises. Before they needlessly destroy their own country.

Terry Ward
Terry Ward
9 months ago

Funny isn’t it, nobody moaning about Castro ever seems to mention Batista.
But then in the world of today, murderous dictatorial ghouls are cool as long as they ain’t commies..

Paul T
Paul T
9 months ago

Pretty sure that when I finish this article (…start it, actually) my response will be “offensive drivel as usual”. Lets see.

Ian Guthrie
Ian Guthrie
9 months ago

Stop using terms like imperial etc to
describe diplomatic relations between states.

Michael Wicksteed
Michael Wicksteed
9 months ago

Quite a brilliant – and concise – summing up, in my view.

Bill Tate
Bill Tate
9 months ago

Gee… “decolonise Britain” from imperial, empire-building America… oh no…not that. How about this? The entire EU and His Majesty’s Commonwealth assumes 100% responsibility for their own national security needs in their own backyard; including Europe’s surrounding maritime commons. Britain can define and execute her own national security priorities as it sees fit and perhaps they’ll be in some alignment with the U.S. strategic priorities. Are these terms acceptable?
Because to a meaningful share of the U.S. electorate, we would welcome the opportunity to return to others the responsibility of carrying the burden of their own national security needs and we can avoid spending 100’s of billions of $’s to play “global cop.” The U.S. will no longer have to run her fleet like a continuous sprint so as to maintain preserve an “extended presence” mission globally and ship’s crews could actually have the time to perform maintenance on their vessels and receive the training they desperately need. Of course this would entail U.S. voters in electing non-globalist, non-militaristic, non-interventionist, busy-bodies. Would those be acceptable terms to you? What you are likely discover if walking the streets of the U.S., areas not occupied our “elites” is that there are a lot of folks who are quite weary of sustaining the role of “Global tripwire”… We are happy to share that burden with other countries and that would entail defense outlays that exceed 2%.

Last edited 9 months ago by Bill Tate
UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
9 months ago

It’s not America Britain has to worry about. Give it a break.
And every nation in the world is living in some version of America. Voluntarily.

Last edited 9 months ago by UnHerd Reader
Ardath Blauvelt
Ardath Blauvelt
9 months ago

Is the author suggesting that the UK take on its own future, shorn of both the EU and the US? If so, then get on with it. 75 years after American blood and treasure saved Europe from German totalitarianism is a long time to continue to grouse about it. I’m an American Anglophile, but being blamed for success is getting old.

G M
G M
9 months ago

The USA is a strength for democratic free countries of the world.
The enemies of democracy would love to separate the supporters of democracy, and take them down one-by-one.

Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
9 months ago

Long overdue analysis. Britain is dissolving in Atlanticism and its elites have long sold their country out on this count.

Last edited 9 months ago by Andrew Boughton
Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
9 months ago

Self-loathing is never very attractive. I expect the writer will climb aboard the EU army fantasy wagon in time. The coy tilt of his head in the photo speaks volumes about him, BTW.

Last edited 9 months ago by Jerry Carroll
Burke S.
Burke S.
9 months ago

Here’s how it will happen:

The USA will stop patrolling the world’s oceans for everyone, and then island nations that can’t really feed themselves or supply themselves with their energy needs will revert to taking it from people who have these things.

Shrunken Genepool
Shrunken Genepool
9 months ago

Read the room you plonker

David Lindsay
David Lindsay
9 months ago

A very important article that has also prompted hilarious comments from the Pavlovian monomaniacs.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
9 months ago

All academic. Future wars will be fought and won via the airways.

Doug Mccaully
Doug Mccaully
9 months ago