The ongoing crisis between Ukraine and Russia has once again put into the limelight the strong Anglo-American alliance in foreign affairs. Both the United Kingdom and United States have been resolute in their efforts to avert a crisis by diplomatic dialogue and agreement. Their rhetoric has also been aligned in telling Putin to back down and warning of a “barrage of sanctions” for Russia’s invasion of Ukrainian sovereign territory. These threats have been backed up by the severe sanctions imposed against individuals linked to Putin’s regime.
The alignment of actions by the US and the UK against Russian aggression has given credence to two different views about the nature of the Anglo-American alliance. First, that Britain is a lapdog doing everything that the greater power America tells them to do. Secondly, that the alliance is simply a restatement of the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the United States because of shared values and principles. This dichotomous view of the Anglo-American alliance misses the Archimedean point; the Anglo-American alliance is contingent on shared domestic and foreign interests and the commonality of these interests is not eternal.
The Anglo-American alliance has a long history beginning with the ‘great reproachment’ (1895-1915), where both countries’ interests aligned leading to the alliance in the First World War. Despite the United States’ isolationism after the Great War, the Second World War brought the two countries together again in opposing Fascism and Communism leading to Winston Churchill’s in 1946 describing the alliance as the ‘special relationship.’
The ‘special relationship’ has seen the US and the UK standing side by side during the Cold War, Gulf War and the War on Terror. Hence, it shouldn’t be surprising that the US and UK have acted together and within the same foreign policy line during the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Furthermore, the level of intelligence, military and economic cooperation is unparalleled between major powers in the international sphere. The latest example of this cooperation is the security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States known as AUKUS in response to the growing power of China in South-East Asia.
This strong alliance between countries is also reflected in the strong relationship between US presidents and British prime ministers. The most notable example is the relationship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Leaders who shared the same political and philosophical outlooks and had a common disdain for communism. Similarly, the ‘bromance’ between Tony Blair and George W. Bush particularly in relation to the Iraq War is reflective of how strong an alliance can be when both leaders get along. Simply being political soulmates, however, is not a necessary prerequisite for a strong relationship.
This strong relationship between countries and leaders has also resulted in accusations that Britain is America’s lapdog adopting policy positions to please the United States. Since the UK has usually followed American foreign policy positions.This is, once again, an overly simplistic view of British Foreign Policy. We only need to look into the modern history of the Anglo-American alliance to see these two countries disagreeing when their national interests are at loggerheads . For example, British and American interests collided in the 1956 Suez crisis when President Eisenhower forced Britain to back down in its intervention in Egypt, Harold Wilson’s refusal to send British troops to Vietnam, David Cameron’s approach to China and the US invasion of Grenada. These examples aren’t reflective of Britain’s lapdog status or a special relationship, but of a realistic relationship between two powers.
The Anglo-American alliance is strong because both countries share many interests, namely, security and free trade. Crucially it is also a pragmatic alliance, where both countries will not entirely agree on everything since foreign policy is directed at maximising the interests of the state. This maximisation of interests leads both countries to take the path that best suits their interest. If the UK’s and US’s interests coalesce or not this merely reflects the volatile nature of foreign affairs.
The alliance should not be viewed as a special relationship nor as an alliance where the lesser power unquestioningly follows the greater power. Understanding this is vital to demonstrating the alliance’s significance to the preservation of peace, security and economic prosperity domestically and internationally. Hence, the strong ties between the US and the UK will continue to be pivotal to coordinating the west’s response to the ongoing war in Ukraine. In short, The United States and the United Kingdom are partners, but it’s time to have a more realistic view of their relationship instead of categorising it as either special or subservient.
Ojel Rodríguez Burgos is a Policy Fellow of The Pinsker Centre, a campus-based think tank which facilitates discussion on global affairs and free speech. The views in this article are the author’s own.
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The Rebirth of Europe: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
After The First World War, Germany, the main aggressor of the war in Central and Western Europe, was punished severely by the victors and isolated. To oversimplify tremendously, that pushed Germany into a period of chaos from which it did not begin to recover until a decade later. At that time, the Wall Street crash of 1929 was not far away – causing the great depression and drove Germany into the arms of the National Socialists.
After The Second World War, the Allies did not repeat that mistake. The United States’ Marshall Plan sent vast amounts of cash from the US into Europe, to recover and rebuild. Then came the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and further developments into the union that it became. Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany at least) bloomed into the economic powerhouse at the centre of European politics that it is today. It is one of the dominant forces in the EU, leading that bloc as a second-tier world power. This is quite an accomplishment, coming from the ashes of two world wars. The economic benefits have been felt by the entire world, and the security that prosperity brought has increased cooperation and good relations across Europe.
The lesson of history therefore is to punish individuals, as the allies did in the Nuremberg trials, not entire nations.
I believe that the Putin regime has set itself on the path to political destruction, and that might take a decade to play out, though I think his regime will collapse far sooner than that. The die is cast, and the beginning of the end for Putin’s Kleptocracy has come.
I do not claim to know how this will come to pass, or what form of government will follow, but the answer from history is to pull in our former enemies, to tie them closely to us economically, and to forgive the mistakes of former regimes – allowing them to repent, rather than be punished.
In the case of Russia, the opportunity has arisen now for us to do what the West very sadly failed to do after the dissolution of the Soviet Union – to bring it into the West, to integrate Russia into our system, to give her both formal alliance and informal respect, that that great nation has always deserved – but which we rightly never gave to a gangster such as Putin.
We in the West should offer the Russian nation all the wealth that it desires and deserves, and which has been stolen from them for 20 years by oligarchs and brutes in their government. By offering them their rightful place in the world, as a second-tier nation and economic power such as Germany, they will have the ability to fulfil the aspiration that Putin (and Trump) often parroted, but never would allow: to be great again.
By doing this, Putin’s old lie of being held back by the West will be destroyed – Russia will return to be a core part of a Christian Europe, and of the West. Though Russia is more than Western, it is Asian too, and should be free to play a strong part in Asian governance/politics, and therefore world politics, as it geographically and culturally strides the world.
The Russian economy will have been desolated in a year’s time, under the current sanctions. Over the summer the Russian oil and gas on which Europe depends far too heavily, and from which Russian receives a vast proportion of its income, will be in far lower demand, and the Russian coffers will empty further. And even more, I’m certain that few creditors will be willing to take on Putin’s war debt.
The Rouble has hugely depreciated in value and an inflation spiral is highly likely. The cost of living crisis in the UK will seem insignificant compared to that of Russia, and this is on top of a 10% drop in living standards since 2014, due to the sanctions which followed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Already, the war chest in reserves that Putin smartly built up has been taken away from him by sanctions imposed on the Russian Central Bank. The base interest rate has risen to 20%, making mortgages and loans far less affordable, and many banks and businesses are being crippled by their exclusion from the SWIFT payment system.
Unemployment will only rise, Oligarchs will increasingly bemoan their loss of wealth, and their exclusion from using London and other European capitals as retail playgrounds and education farms for their children. Those 18 to 26-year-olds who have been conscripted, their parents, and the soldiers who genuinely thought they were on training exercises will all increasingly seek recompense for how they have been treated.
The Putin regime will fall in due course. The West must seize the moment and take the opportunity to free the Russian people by bringing them into Western institutions, treating them as European allies and as a competitor, and no longer as an enemy.
Russia is currently a pariah state because of Putin, and Belarus the same because of Lukashenko, but it must not always be so. Of course, democracy must only come to those countries through revolutions, and must never be imposed upon a nation if it is to be seen as legitimate. But when democracy comes to Russia and Belarus finally, we must pull them in tightly.
Would we rather have a Putin, or an Orban? Putin is an enemy to the West, and Orban difficulty tendencies, but he is limited by EU membership and his nation’s own sentiment. Orban makes EU wide agreements difficult and disagrees with some of its values. Putin would rather the EU were destroyed. I am reminded of the inside versus outside of the tent analogy.
The way to integrate both Belarus and Russia is to bring them into the European and Western system with an economic agreement with the EU, and a partnership or treaty between Russia and NATO. Having democracy, liberty, security, and prosperity will allow the Russian economy and government to iterate, to adjust, and to be brought back properly into Europe culturally.
The point is this; when Putin falls, what then becomes the goal for the West? I believe the objectives should be as follows: To restore the nation and government of Russia to freedom and democracy, to recover her economy to prosperity, and to bring Russia into the fold and identify the true enemy of the West: China.
Russia has meddled, been aggressive, thuggish, kleptocratic and antidemocratic for 20 years now, but China is different.
Make no mistake, President Xi wants to impose his values, and his rule, on the world. He and the Chinese Communist Party are prepared to do this over 50 and 100 years, though it looks like it might not take that long. The CCP does not seek confrontation, but it is growing rapidly in the shadows, and is now the second largest economy in the world and seriously challenging the US as the world power.
Frankly, the West needs Russia on our team if we are to stand up to Xi. That is the real challenge of this century, more than climate change, more than COVID-19, and certainly more than a terrible, horrific war of aggression by Putin into Ukraine.
The West should sagely consider this: Putin’s days are numbered. How do we in the West recover Russia into the European family of nations where it belongs, and properly confront the Chinese, with Russia on our side? If we have no answer to that, then we are lost.
Photo Credit
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Britain could be left holding the bag over Ukraine
The new Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, in his first newspaper interview since taking up the position, called for British weapons manufacturers to set up shop in Ukraine and revealed discussions with Zelensky about the Royal Navy getting more involved in the Black Sea.
The biggest potential escalation was his suggestion that British military instructors be moved into Ukraine.
“I was talking today about eventually getting the training brought closer and actually into Ukraine as well.”
As of yet, the UK and allies have avoided a formal military presence in the conflict due to the risk of direct conflict with Russia, so these were major policy changes being floated.
The same day, former Russian President and now deputy chairman of the country’s influential Security Council, Dmitri Medvedev, posted on Telegram that such moves bring World War Three closer.
‘[This will] turn their instructors into a legal target for our armed forces… understanding perfectly well that they will be ruthlessly destroyed. And not as mercenaries, but namely as British NATO specialists.’
Just over two hours later, the Prime Minister had pushed back at the Defence Secretary’s comments telling reporters on the first day of his party conference there were no immediate plans for this:
“What the defence secretary was saying was that it might well be possible one day in the future for us to do some of that training in Ukraine. But that’s something for the long term, not the here and now. There are no British soldiers that will be sent to fight in the current conflict.”
Leaving aside Mr Shapps’ questionable ministerial record and lack of obvious suitability for his brief, this incident (which was conveniently brushed under the carpet of the Tory conference) raises some serious questions about decision making at the MoD.
Was this interview cleared with No. 10 and if so, are they now backtracking? Or did the Defence Secretary go off script and unsuccessfully try to use his own initiative?
Or was this government floating an idea and testing the waters? If so, they got their answer quick.
The sight of British soldiers returning in body bags in an election year might not be a big vote winner.
Government’s decision to ramp up support for Ukraine and double down on its all-or-nothing position comes as cracks in the alliance grow wider by the day.
As all this was unfolding, Slovakia was electing its next parliament, with an anti-Ukraine party winning the election. The country has already halted military aid to Kiev, joining the Hungarians.
Just two weeks ago, one of Ukraine’s strongest allies, compared it to ‘a drowning man’.
A dispute over grain exports got so bad that the Polish president said:
‘The drowning man is really clinging to anything available and it is somehow what the situation between Poland and Ukraine is like today… it is clinging to anything available. Can we hold grudges against them? Of course, we can. Do we have to act in a way to protect ourselves from being hurt by a drowning one, of course, we have to act in a way to protect ourselves from being harmed by the drowning one, because once the drowning man hurts us, it will not get help from us.’
This was quickly followed by the Polish prime minister announcing: “We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons.”
Next week will see Poland have its own elections, and like Slovakia, an anti-Ukraine party is doing very well in the polls, with hopes to be kingmaker.
The United States is not immune from political division over the conflict, with various presidential candidates from Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy to Robert F Kennedy Jr calling for its end.
Domestic political pressure and war fatigue aren’t the only factors creating friction between Western capitals. After 20 months of being told victory is round the corner, reality is starting to bite.
This week NATO’s most senior military official told the Warsaw Security forum the West is running out of ammunition for Ukraine. Admiral Rob Bauer said: “The bottom of the barrel is now visible.”
UK Defence Minister James Heappey also added that the West’s stockpiles were ‘looking a bit thin’.
This might explain the eagerness to have British weapons manufacturers ramp up production by setting up factories in Ukraine, but it does not explain the stubborn continuation of a failed strategy.
A policy should be judged by its results and as of writing, Ukraine has lost hundreds of thousands of its young men, millions more have fled, its economy is decimated, and its state is on life-support.
Russia, meanwhile, has weathered the sanction-induced storm which turned out to be a strong breeze rather than the predicted tornado. Its economy has not only held up but is on track to grow.
NATO’s eastern flank, be it Turkey, Hungary, now Slovakia and potentially Poland, is already publicly disagreeing and diverging from the Washington-London line, and this is likely to continue.
And the Washington line, as we have only seen too well over the last decade, is liable to change rapidly depending on the outcome of the next election.
So, can Britain afford to continue its Johnsonian zeal for trying to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian, or is it time to take back control of our foreign policy and start thinking seriously about Europe’s long-term security architecture?
I would hope that the government concerned with ‘long-term decisions for a brighter future’ would be reassessing its policy.
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Every Field and Hedgerow?
For several years now, we’ve been told the British political class is solely concerned with the pursuit of wealth, choosing to prioritise GDP above every other consideration. We’ve been told immigration is in our nation’s interest because it grows the economy, the dissolution of the nuclear family is necessary to boost productivity, and MPs are itching to pave over Every Field and Hedgerow with soulless newbuilds, concrete monoliths, and glass skyscrapers.
It is true that mass immigration is an irremovable component of Britain’s post-war political orthodoxy, one which is continuously propagated by supposedly serious economists and journalists. Even people considered economic radicals by the political mainstream, such as former Prime Minister Liz Truss, wanted to significantly increase immigration during her historically short period in office, making her popularity with the Conservative grassroots, and even sections of the anti-Tory right, all the more bizarre.
Next to Net Zero – a loose amalgamation of targets and reforms to overhaul consumption habits to lower Britain’s carbon emissions, especially in large cities – the UK government’s flagship policy has been Levelling Up – a loose amalgamation of targets and reforms intended to grow the national economy, especially regional economies outside of London.
However, this perspective has experienced pushback in recent years. Specifically, it is increasingly argued the establishment’s support for immigration is moralistic as well as economic, with a hegemonic left-wing sensibility playing a more important role than any technocratic justification.
Likewise, there is truth to this perspective. After all, it is an observable fact that Britain’s economy is stagnant, and no less than 30 years of mass immigration hasn’t made a discernibly positive impact on our national economy, leading to the suppression of wage growth for those on lower incomes and giving monopolists a steady supply of cheap labour.
If Britain’s political class were narrowly obsessed with prosperity, wages wouldn’t be flatlining, productivity wouldn’t be at a standstill, and basic necessities wouldn’t be borderline unaffordable to many. Therefore, it is concluded by some that Britain’s political class is not obsessed with economic growth, but seemingly indifferent to it, with swathes of the establishment showing considerable sympathy for the aspirations of the Degrowth movement.
Herein lies a contradiction which I have yet to see addressed: if the political class cannot be characterised as growth-obsessed due to Britain’s worsening economic conditions, how can they be characterised as eco-paranoid zealots if our environment also continues to worsen?
Given a cursory glance, the British establishment is staunchly committed to the natural world. Environmental organisations can sue the government over its self-imposed obligation to achieve Net Zero by 2050, the planning system prevents power lines being built in an energy crisis, and ULEZ expansion has been implemented, despite its intense unpopularity with the affected communities; a move which has activated several little platoons of anti-surveillance activists, who are shown no quarter by the police, unlike the eco-activists who block roads and vandalise artistic masterpieces with impunity.
Based on these facts, one would assume Britain’s environment is in pretty good shape, that whatever problems we may be facing, Britain’s wildlife is more than protected from harm. However, we needn’t assume anything – the results of our leaders’ ‘efforts’ lie before us and they’re far from satisfactory.
Britain’s stringent, cack-handed regulation of development hasn’t resulted in a safer or richer environment. On the contrary, much of our wildlife remains on the brink of extinction, the quality of our water is some of the worst in Europe, various forms of animal cruelty go unpunished, and conservation organizations routinely deviate from their stated purpose.
Considerable ire is directed towards the localist cadres and uppity bureaucrats who obstruct housing developments in the name of protecting hedgehogs, yet little-to-no attention is directed by right-leaning wonks and commentators towards the significant decline in Britain’s hedgehog population. Sad!
We can debate the sincerity of the NIMBYs’ convictions all day, what matters is the hedgehog population is declining and the sooner a solution to this environmental problem can be incorporated into a radical political agenda, the less we will have to pedantically scrutinize the intent of others. I needn’t labour to ‘prove’ that rewilding is a Blairite psy-op or a Gnostic conspiracy. If I accept the definitive principle is good, I am free to support it in to whatever form or extent I choose, and why shouldn’t we rewild Britain?
It is the height of Metropolitan liberal hypocrisy that Alastair Campbell can walk to and from his recording studio without being stalked by a hungry lion. Indeed, the life of every failed statesman-turned-podcaster is worthless compared to the life of a happily rewilded beaver.
This said, we mustn’t satisfy ourselves with half-measures. It goes without saying that rewilding beavers into unacceptably dingy water is like selling a rat-infested apartment to a young couple. Just as trains are viewed as a symbol of progress, water is a symbol of life itself, and any political movement which can portray itself as taking on corrupt monopolists and their spree of sewage dumping will be popularly received by literally every section of British society, especially when the damage of such dumping threatens to increase water prices in an already uncomfortable economy.
Contrary to what some claim, dumping raw sewage, molten slag and microplastics over a raft of otters without second thought doesn’t make you a progressive Victorian industrialist, it means you’re spiritually Azerbaijani. Bee bricks aren’t a well-informed method of helping bees, but the idea is more good-natured than relishing a sense of superiority derived from conscious indifference.
Since leaving the EU, Britain is no longer beholden to its rule of unanimity. As such, it is within Parliament’s immediate and sovereign power to crack down on live imports/exports, vivisection, and battery farming, yet it has not done so. The government banned American Bully XLs after a brief online campaign yet shelved legislation to prevent an obviously cruel and unnecessary practice, one which exists solely to benefit the bottom-line of multinational corporations, run by who think they can treat animals as inanimate property.
The idea Britons must subsist on cheap and nasty processed slop from overseas is a bare-faced lie. Politicians, wonks, and commentators are waking up to what we nationalists have been saying for years – outsourcing energy production is politically stupid. If they can understand that gutting your domestic capacity for energy production doesn’t necessarily make it cheaper or more secure, they should learn to accept the same logic applies to food production as well.
After all, food prices aren’t rising because of “Anglo sentimentalism” or anti-cruelty laws. On the contrary, food prices are rising despite Britain’s laissez-faire approach towards such practices. Indeed, if prices correlated at all with Britain’s love of animals, prices would be way higher than they are currently!
This is because “Anglo sentimentalism” is the most powerful force in the world. Britons collectively donate tens of millions to The Donkey Sanctuary on an annual basis, money which could fund a private military to topple the government, yet few in our circles see this as a power worth harnessing. Consequently, those who have managed to harness this power are using it to ride roughshod over everything the average patriotic Englishman holds dear.
The National Trust, which markets itself as a conservative membership-based organization dedicated to repairing manor houses and protecting historic woodlands, spends its time and resources promoting Gay Race Communism. There are efforts within the National Trust to steer the trust in a more conservative direction, and I’m sure a few of our guys could lend them a helping hand in one form or another. That’s certainly preferable to dismissing the mission of custodianship altogether.
When environmentalists say Britain is in crisis, they’re unironically correct. When the Anglo sees global pollution erasing Britain’s native species, he sees the erasure of himself. Just as his philosophy of life is held together by a pearl of poetry, his existence is held together by a drop of sentiment; one which tells him that to be has an inherent value. This sentiment has birthed his capacity for entrepreneurism and his love for emerald pastures; it has given him cause for confidence in his own self-worth and an eagerness to apply himself to something greater than the merely and immediately convenient, doing so without a hint of contradiction, despite those who accuse him of being an intrinsically anti-intellectual creature.
Our leaders may not be ruthless mammonists, but they’re not unyielding naturalists either, and their record is more than sufficient proof. Beneath their apparent gormlessness, their way of thinking about matters of great importance is foreign to the average Briton, and the sooner this fact is realised by would-be reformers of the British state, the better.
