The Foreign Service Journal, April 2017

26 APRIL 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL How Special a Relationship? We British like to think that we enjoy a unique “special rela- tionship” with the United States. In America that relationship is often thought to be rather less exclusive than the British would prefer, even when it is described as essential. But however it is characterized, there is no doubt that both countries look with favor on their closeness. Practical illustrations of this are to be found in the sharing of intelligence of the highest possible qual- ity and close cooperation over nuclear weapons. We are each other’s first ally of choice. History shows us that when there is a warm personal relation- ship between a president and a prime minister, the bilateral relationship is closest. Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harold Macmillan and John F. Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush and Tony Blair are all testimony to that—although many U.K. citizens thought the last of those pairings proved extremely disadvanta- geous when it led to their joint policy of military action against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. The bilateral relationship has not always been perfect. Brit- ish Prime Minister Harold Wilson refused to send any troops to support the United States in Vietnam despite the request by President Lyndon Johnson for just one company of the Black Watch and its pipe band. Prime Minister Thatcher's exchanges with President Reagan when the United States unilaterally and without warning invaded Grenada in 1983 were incendiary. As U.S. foreign policy emerges under President Trump, Lon- don and Brussels should take every opportunity to encourage him to recognize the need to maintain the United States’ com- mitment to a rules-based system and to a trans-Atlantic relation- ship in which Britain can play a prominent and effective role. At a time when there is more fragile uncertainty internationally than at any time since 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down, NATO and that relationship have never been more important on both sides of the Atlantic. Pres. Trump has a point when he says that the European members of NATO have not contributed sufficiently to the cost of their own defense. The target of 2 percent of annual gross domestic product (GDP), which the 2014 NATO summit in Wales set, is a bare minimum; yet three years on only a handful of NATO members have reached it. Indeed, some argue that even the countries which have reached that level have done so by virtue of creative accounting. In the case of the United Kingdom, London has met the goal, but many commentators warn that 2 percent of GDP is inadequate to meet both the country’s domes- tic and international responsibilities. The credibility of the alliance depends on its capability. And capability depends not only on how much is spent, but how it is spent. European members can make a much more effective contribution if they embrace the principles of force specializa- tion, common procurement and interoperability. Proposals for a so-called European army are not credible and would constitute unnecessary duplication. NATO Is Not Obsolete The judgment that NATO is obsolete does not reflect reality. When Russia deploys nuclear-capable missiles to Kaliningrad, it is not only the Baltic states that should feel concerned, but the whole of Europe. When Russian generals are reported to have endorsed the use of battlefield nuclear weapons, every NATO member should be concerned. Such developments are eerily reminiscent of the Cold War. They give rise to the risk of accident, misjudgment or provocation, real or imagined. The relationship between London and Washington is the central pillar of the principles of conventional and nuclear deter- rence set out in NATO’s strategic concept, and reaffirmed at the 2016 NATO summit in Warsaw. The obligations contained in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty are only credible if the United States and the United King- dom stand ready to fulfill them. Those Americans who question the strength of that obligation should recall that the only occa- sion on which it has been invoked was in 2001, when terrorists struck the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Equally, it is not credible to contemplate offering a sphere of influence in Europe to Russia. To do so would only assist Presi- dent Vladimir Putin in achieving his twin objectives of under- mining the European Union and destabilizing NATO. NATO is the essential glue in the trans-Atlantic alliance. NATO is the essential glue in the trans-Atlantic alliance.Without wholehearted commitment by all of its members, the alliance would be weakened severely, possibly fatally.