buruma178_Kent Nishimura Los Angeles Times via Getty Images_special relationship

似是而非的特殊关系

Sep 22, 2021 Ian Buruma

纽约—1944 年6月诺曼底登陆前两天，戴高乐要求在盟军解放法国后获得管理权。憎恶戴高乐的小罗斯福不准备同意。相当欣赏戴高乐的宏伟幻想的丘吉尔站在罗斯福一边。他告诉自由法国领导人戴高乐，如果他必须在戴高乐和罗斯福之间做出选择，他永远会选择罗斯福。

丘吉尔的态度完全可以理解。欧洲被纳粹德国占领。自由法国在很大程度上是一种象征性的力量。而英国是三大盟国之一。然而，随后英国为选择依附美国（除了一两个例外，包括 1956 年的苏伊士运河危机和 1990 年代的巴尔干战争）付出了沉重的代价。

1950 年代，为战争胜利而欣喜若狂的英国拒绝了塑造欧洲机构的所有机会，而当英国首相麦克米伦在 1960 年代初期得出结论，认为英国只能在欧洲经济共同体内才能保持一个严肃的国家（serious country）时，戴高乐挡住了他的道路。1963年和1967年，戴高乐将军两次否决了英国加入欧共体。

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j. von Hettlingen Oct 2, 2021

Ian Buruma says the recent submarine row between France and Australia, which has joined a new defence pact (AUKUS) with the UK and the US, has raised questions about Britain’s interests in the Indo-Pactific region. Meanwhile, France has overseas territories there, with 1.5 million people and 8.000 troops. Although it looks as if Boris Johnson wants to burnish Britain’s self-image of “global Britain” after Brexit, there is also this “wartime nostalgia” that plays “an important part in Britain’s instinctive fondness for the special relationship” with the US. This has the strong Anglo-American ties and the personal rapport between Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) to thank for.
According to Churchill, World War II breathed new life into its “special relationship” with the US. The author believes France’s resistance leader against Nazi Germany, Charles de Gaulle, might have been the reason. Two days before the Normandy landings in June 1944, de Gaulle “demanded the right to govern France after it was liberated by the Allies.” FDR, who “detested de Gaulle, had no intention of agreeing to this… Churchill, who rather admired de Gaulle’s illusions of grandeur, sided with Roosevelt. He told the Free French leader that if he had to choose between de Gaulle and Roosevelt, he would always choose Roosevelt.”
This may explain why Britian chose to stick to the US “come what may.” The author says, “with one or two exceptions, including the Suez crisis in 1956 and the Balkan war in the 1990s,” the choice “came with a heavy price. Flush with wartime victory, Britain turned down every opportunity to shape European institutions in the 1950s, and when Prime Minister Harold Macmillan concluded in the early 1960s that Britain could remain a serious country only within the European Economic Community, de Gaulle stood in his way. British membership of the EEC was vetoed by the general in 1963, and again in 1967.” He feared Britain would act as America’s agent inside the bloc.
De Gaulle died in 1970. Three years later Britain finally joined the EEC, “but even so, British prime ministers, except for Edward Heath in the 1970s, hung on to their so-called (especially by the British) ‘special relationship’ with the US. This was largely a matter of shared nuclear secrets, intelligence, and military cooperation. Britain hoped that the special relationship would allow it to remain a formidable global player, even long after its empire was lost.”
Well-placed geographically and politically between America and Europe, Britain has long seen itself as a crucial bridge across the Atlantic. The US looked to Britain when it needed to influence European decision-making. The EU turned to Britain when it hoped to influence the US. After Brexit the US under Biden might have to switch roles and act as an intermediary between Britain and the estranged EU, engaging London with Brussels, Berlin and Paris, to maintain coherence in the Transatlantic alliance.
As the US seeks to step up its military presence in the Indo-Pacific region to “confront China’s expanding power,” Boris Johnson has decided to jump on the bandwagon. The author regrets that Britain’s military power is “insignificant compared to what Churchill could command in 1944. Wartime nostalgia has drawn Britain into several foolish American wars, which other European countries were wise to avoid,” wary of jeopardising trade relations with Beijing.
The author highlights the dilemma between the two opposing views. On the one hand the UK and the US do not want to repeat Prime MInister Neville Chamberlain’s mistake - his “cowardly” appeasement with Hitler in 1938. As a result the two countries had often jumped out of the frying pan into the fire, getting themselves entangled in unnecessary wars - like the ones in Afghanistan and Iraq - in the decades after World War II.
On the other hand some European leaders - led by Emmanuel Macron - seek greater “strategic autonomy” for the bloc. Europe should “beef up its own military force and wean itself from dependence on the US. The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell announced that Europe, too, would help to limit China’s power. The bloc would seek a trade deal with Taiwan while still engaging with China.”
The problem is that the EU has “no common foreign policy and sufficient armed forces of its own.” A real strategic autonomy would require “full cooperation of Britain, and far greater military participation by Germany.” Two obstacles need to be overcome: Germany must ditch its “historical baggage” as a warmonger, and Britain its “fixation on its special relationship” with the US.
The author believes “the fate of the Indo-Pacific region, and perhaps many places beyond, will remain in the hands of the increasingly aggressive authoritarians in Beijing and whoever happens to be sitting in the White House. Either way, neither Britain nor Australia, much less France and the EU, will have much to say in the matter.” There is fear that the region may be sliding into an accelerating arms race as countries react to China's military expansion, and tensions around North Korea's nuclear ambitions linger.
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Celt Darnell Sep 25, 2021

Re: "Flush with wartime victory, Britain turned down every opportunity to shape European institutions in the 1950s..."

Not this old chestnut. Seriously, do some reading into the origins of the European Convention on Human Rights; the European Court of Human Rights; The Council of Europe; and the OECD (originally the OEEC). Britain was a key player in the creation of all these European Institutions, this is an undeniable historical fact. The idea that Britain stood aloof from Europe in the 1950s whether due to being "flush with wartime victory" or for any other reason is frankly nonsense. It is a complete myth.

Even with respect to the EEC, the claim that Britain turned down the opportunity to shape that is, at best, a half-truth. The EEC's founder, Jean Monnet, recognizing the UK's belief in national sovereignty, did not want the British involved in the process of creating the EEC until he had the institution he desired up and running. Thus, he ensured that the British government was only informed about the Schumann Declaration the day before on the Whitsun Bank Holiday when the cabinet was away from London. This was done deliberately by Monnet because Britain could never accept Schumann's plan as it was and would have tried to negotiate a more acceptable arrangement. Britain didn't hold itself aloof from the creation of the EEC -- it was deliberately excluded.

Clement Attlee's decision not to sign up to an institution, the foundations of which were formed by our deliberate exclusion, was fundamentally the correct one. Britain should never have entered the EEC. The decision made by the British people on 23 June 2016 simply vindicated the great man's wisdom.

As for the idea we should not give a damn about what happens to Australia...that just demonstrates how foreign Ian Buruma is.
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Leila Pammy Sep 23, 2021

Not quite, Ian. Harold Wilson incurred the seething anger of LBJ because, unlike the Australians (interestingly!) who fell in line with the Americans, he made Britain sit out the Vietnam War both in terms of men & materiel and in spirit.
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Bernhard Kopp Sep 23, 2021

The Indo-Pacific Region, and the security strategy vis-a-vis China, seems first and foremost the responsibility of the countries in the region. Understandably, they all want the US to be a part of it. Neither France, nor the UK, nor anybody from Continental Europe, has a sufficient stake, nor sufficient weight, to be relevant. The former French ambassador to the US said the other day that the French content in the submarine deal was approximately $ 8 out of some $ 50 billion, which puts the economic interest into perspective. Europe, here including the UK, has so many unclear strategic positions in EMEA, and so much to do in terms of military competences and capacities, that it should focus on the geopolitical home region.

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