The Limits of British Influence

To be fair to Gary Gibbon, he’s not the only member of the lobby to have lost the plot when it comes to David Cameron, Libya and Washington. Ben Brogan has a sadly-fatuous piece today asking “Does Anyone in Washington Listen to David Cameron?” He writes:

Robert Gates was far from flattering when he dismissed the PM’s initial no-fly suggestion as ‘loose talk’. The Coalition made a virtue of putting the US-UK relationship on a more low-key footing. There was to be none of the cosyness of Blair-Bush or the neediness of Brown-Obama. But Britain’s post-war strategic interest relied in part on its position as the one ally with the clout to influence the White House. At some point Mr Cameron will have to explain if that has changed.

Then there’s this question of “clout”. It’s simply not and never has been the case that the United Kingdom is “the one ally with the clout to influence the White House”. Israel and Saudi Arabia might each have something to say about that. More to the point, American Presidents tend to listen to allies once decisions have been made; they don’t let allies pressure or bounce Washington into making those decisions in the first place. That is, allies have some leverage on tactical questions but not on strategic ones.

Sure, Margaret Thatcher once warned George HW Bush that “this is no time to go wobbly” and sure, Tony Blair played a leading role in the Kosovan conflict and helped persuade a semi-reluctant White House to give the UN a chance to back action against Saddam Hussein but in each of these instances the Americans had taken the initial decisions for themselves: Saddam would have to be kicked out of Kuwait, something – as many voices in Congress made clear – had to be done about Serbia and Saddam would, once again, need to be dealt with. On each occasion British influence, such as it was, lay in the “how” not the “what”.

This is not and should not be surprising. If the Americans want to do something no amount of British advice to the contrary will dissuade them. The reverse is also true. If memory serves, the British were not kept in the loop about Ronald Reagan’s plans to invade a country – Grenada – whose head of state was, and remains, Queen Elizabeth. Nor was John Major’s government able to prevent Washington granting Gerry Adams a visa permitting him to enter the United States. And the limits of British influence in Iraq, once the invasion had taken place, were plain to see.

Why should we expect matters to be any different now? If the Americans decide – as seems unlikely – that “something must be done” about Libya then David Cameron may have some influence. But commentators should not wish themselves into thinking that the British Prime Minister can persuade Washington to commit its own troops to a conflict of uncertain worth or necessity. (This can work the other way round too: despite the guarantees offered by the American defence umbrella, Harold Wilson was able to resist sending British troops to Vietnam.)

Again, these things are bigger than futile and utterly unrealistic blathering about the “Special Relationship”. Not everything is a question of Prime Ministerial Muscle and it does a disservice to Cameron, the American president and indeed the gravity of the problems leaders face to consider these matters in such juvenile terms. 

[Hat-tip: Aaron Ellis]