What America does for us

Andrew Gilligan assesses the benefits to Britain of subservience to Washington 0 ne throwaway line in Sir Peter Stothard's recent account of Tony Blair, war leader, rather blows the gaff on the true nature of the special relationship between the United States and Britain. It's in the entry for 20 March, the first day of the bombing. On this day we find a prime minister who has suffered the largest backbench rebellion in history, three ministerial resignations and the loss of enormous political capital, all at least in part to support US policy and maintain his status as America's number one friend. This has, of course, won the Prime Minister real gratitude in Washington, and lots of dinner-party invitations. But it doesn't seem to have made Mr Blair quite important enough to the Americans for them to tell him when the war was actually going to start.

Congressional leaders were told. The US networks were told. Even some countries in the Gulf were told. But, as Sir Peter confirms, 'George Bush began the bombing of Baghdad rather earlier than his best ally expected.' The newly formed Blair war Cabinet heard the news 'in bed, watching football or enjoying the sleep of the just'.

Perhaps this was just an oversight. But how, then, to explain the public statement of Donald Rumsfeld. a week earlier, that Britain's military role in Iraq was 'unclear' and that America could do 'work-arounds' without Her Majesty's boys? Not too helpful, when you're fighting for every backbench vote. for Rummy to imply that your very effort is unnecessary. You have to ask: if this is how the Americans treat Mr Blair when he's risking everything to help them, what on earth is it like normally? Could it perhaps be that the special relationship is quite a lot more special to us than to Washington? And now we no longer need America to protect us from the Russians, what is it that we get out of it, anyway?

One of the main answers, I think, is reflected glory. Britain may not be as important as she once was, but she looks more important by association with the power and glamour of the United States. Mr Blair, like all prime ministers, enjoys the world-leader role — and the voters like it too, in moderation. Camp David, the Lincoln Bedroom, the balcony of Congress with all the members cheering you — they're all, frankly, rather five-star lodgings for the busy states

man. So much better than Brussels — which is, let's be honest, a bit of a Novotel.

The Prime Minister may enjoy his role in the real-life West Wing, but there is, of course, a price to pay. During the Iraq crisis, Mr Blair emerged as the Michael Cole to President Bush's Mohamed Fayed — the smooth, plausible PR man who tried his best but could never quite sell his rough-diamond client to a reluctant public. It was always slightly undignified for the Prime Minister to trot the globe in this role of persuader for another state. It became downright embarrassing when he got slapped around in press conferences by leaders with the shining democratic credentials of Vladimir Putin and Syria's Bashar al-Assad. They would never have dared do it to any representative of the real power, America, of course; but they could take out their frustrations on the surrogate.

Syria is a good example, actually, of how British efforts to strike an independent note in foreign policy can be derailed by the need to shadow the Americans. In December 2002 Mr Blair welcomed Assad to London, speaking of Syria's importance in building peace in the Middle East. Only four months later the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, is issuing the same President Assad with 'very serious warnings' and a 'call to account' about his support for terrorism in the Middle East. What's changed? Nothing, except that Washington has started a heavy-breathing campaign, and we feel obliged to chime in too.

There are substantial benefits to the relationship: above all, the sensationally good, fairly one-sided bargain which Britain enjoys in secret intelligence. Forget spies — the vast majority of intelligence is collected by electronic eavesdropping, a game only the Americans can really afford to play, and the American National Security Agency kindly shares most of its output with us. All the NSA gets in return is human intelligence from MI6 (coming back into fashion with the rise of al-Qa'eda), the analytical facilities of GCHQ, and British relay stations which collect data from its spy satellites when they're not in range of the US. General Bill Odom, a former director of the NSA, told my colleague Mark Urban that 'even though we get ripped off [by Britain], as long as we're in Europe we need the access, so we go along with it. We're better off with you putting in your little bit than if we threw you out.'

Most of Britain's intelligence effort is a system for repackaging 'product' supplied by the US. Much of the rest of it consists of frantic attempts to make ourselves useful to the Americans, in the hope that they will not come to resent the gross imbalance in the relationship. This can even extend to both GCHQ and MI6 giving American requests priority over British ones. All this is fine, if a little humiliating, so long as our interests are the same as Langley's. Where they are not, it can cause problems.

Cold War aside, the US's record in sharing and supporting Britain's most fundamental interests has been mixed, In Northern Ireland, Americans were vital in brokering the peace. But they were not always so helpful before, failing to stop IRA fundraising, refusing to extradite terrorist murderers. Britain waged a 'war on terror' before George Bush ever thought of the term, but it took 11 September to persuade the United States to come fully on board. In the Falklands, the US did weigh in on our side, but only after much persuading.

And there is a broader question, which like so many others about the secret world we can never answer. With the exception of intelligence on terrorist and criminal threats to the UK — which we'd probably get anyway — how much do we actually need all this secret information? Have we the capacity to act on it? Or is it really another kind of reflected glory, something which makes British officials and politicians feel important? The warm glow of being invited to the meetings, of feeling like an insider, even when you're not quite one, can be a powerful drug for anyone. Even sophisticated British diplomats and servicemen may not be immune.

The argument that pragmatic British officials use most about the special relationship is that it's simply a way of harnessing and improving on geopolitical reality. Even Britain's armed forces, the world's second or third most powerful, are nowadays unable to perform any sustained offensive operation without American help. The gap between American power and everyone else's is so great that all are bound to fall into line with the US eventually. Why should Britain not do it first, with good grace, and earn influ ence with the megapower? A little selfabasement, a little light bondage is a small enough price to pay, and there's no reason why our closeness to the US should harm our equally close relations with our European peers. What, in short, is the harm of the special relationship?

All these arguments were most persuasive — until, over Iraq, they suddenly collapsed. For all the imbalance of power, and for all the expectations in King Charles Street, France, Germany, China and Russia did not fall into line with the United States. And while Tony Blair may not wish to choose between his American and his European friends, the latter are starting to look as if they want to choose for him. His closeness to the Bush White House is starting to look potentially very harmful indeed.

As for influence, Mr Blair probably did have a good deal of it during the crisis, British officials credit him with pushing President Bush down the UN road. While his posture might have seemed demeaning, it was actually altruistic, The Prime Minister wanted the same as France and Germany — to preserve the multilateral world order and keep the US within it. But the UN road turned out to be a dead end, Mr Blair could not deliver the Security Council, his expectations were wrong, and his strategy failed. It was a calamitous defeat for him, thankfully obscured by the almost immediate start of war. It may even have caused more rancour, division and damage to the UN than if it had never been pursued at all. Some US conservatives see Mr Blair's efforts as proof of the futility of trying to work with multilateral institutions. The Prime Minister's clout at the White House may, if anything, now have been weakened.

Nobody should have any illusions — though they often do — about the general extent of Britain's influence in America. Ties of friendship and gratitude almost never outweigh national or domestic political interests. Beset by the constitutional division of power, any US president, even one of Mr Bush's success and prestige, is a deeply constrained figure. He must constantly tend his domestic base in order to achieve very much at all. Britain exerted influence over Iraq because Mr Blair's backing was useful to the President domestically, helping him to win bipartisan support for his war policy. But in more normal times Tony Blair can't win you votes in Congress, and he definitely can't win you votes in Des Moines. The Middle East road-map is important to Mr Blair. President Bush is doing his best to help. But when it comes to the crunch, the President is more likely to listen to the 80odd senators who have expressed doubts rather than to his friend Tony.

The special relationship's greatest strength, however, is that it has a life inde pendent of politics, because its bedrock is cultural and economic ties. Almost every educated British person can name more American states than, say, German ones. Business ties are close, and the way we do business is similar. Englishness and Scottishness both have a certain niche appeal in the US. But the tragic truth for Brits who absorb American movies, and software, and slang, and half-imagine that we are as important to them as they are to us, is that the cultural traffic is mainly one-way. To the average American, Blighty looms small. Pick up any serious US newspaper, in non-war times, and you'll find at most one article about us; and it may be on Morris dancing or tea.

We can't yet know whether Iraq really will drive Europe and America further apart permanently. There are contradictory signs. As Berlin tries to rebuild diplomatic bridges with Washington, it also supports an EU constitution and a common foreign policy. What is clear, though, is that Mr Blair's unstinting support for the United States is costing him significantly more than it used to, both with our key European allies and with a significant part of the British electorate. It may be that the benefits justify that cost. But now would be a good time to perform an honest audit.

Andrew Gilligan is defence and diplomatic correspondent of BBC Radio Four's Today programme.