UK-U.S. Special Relationship Over?

UK-U.S. Special Relationship Over?

Posted by: Judy Dempsey Wednesday, April 22, 2015 |

Every week, a selection of leading experts answer a new question from Judy Dempsey on the foreign and security policy challenges shaping Europe’s role in the world.

Fraser CameronDirector of the EU-Asia Center

The UK-U.S. relationship has been over for many years—at least since former U.S. president George H. W. Bush recognized Germany as the major U.S. ally in Europe in 1991. UK-U.S. relations reached their nadir over the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the mid-1990s, when a visiting UK defense minister could not raise a single U.S. congressman for a breakfast meeting on Capitol Hill.

The #UK-#US relationship has been over for many years. Tweet This

There was a brief revival in British-American ties under former UK prime minister Tony Blair, both with former U.S. president Bill Clinton and, strangely, with George W. Bush. But British public opinion was turned off by the Bush-Blair wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now, the UK military is simply not in a position to support any such enterprise in the future.
In foreign policy, Washington is critical of the UK’s constant accommodation of China, its threats to leave the EU, and its gradual decline into irrelevance. This leaves intelligence cooperation, where again, the UK tries to hang on to U.S. coattails. But this is insufficient for any bilateral special relationship.
The sooner the UK wakes up to the fact that the United States prefers a united European voice on foreign policy, the better.http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=59867&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonvKXNZKXonjHpfsX57uQsW6Sg38431UFwdcjKPmjr1YIGRcR0aPyQAgobGp5I5FEIQ7XYTLB2t60MWA%3D%3D