Brexit Britain And Trump America: A New "Special Relationship"?

Authored by Henrik Choy via NationalInterest.org,

Can common enemies and threats keep Britain and the United States together for decades to come?

British prime minister Theresa May’s narrow victory in the 2017 general election has earned her the reputation of a “dead woman walking,” given that her failure to win a Conservative majority in the House of Commons has drastically slimmed her chances of executing her party’s manifesto. Across the Atlantic, President Donald Trump is facing domestic and international problems of his own. Faced with polarization in both their parties and respective countries, Trump and May face uphill battles to achieve their political agendas. Appealing to the more nationalist and populist elements of society, Trump and May have entered uncharted territory by promising to tackle issues in ways that differ from their predecessors. For decades, Britain and the United States have been bound together in a unique relationship through their common vision of a world they wish to create, the external and internal threats they share, and the personal relationships their leaders have developed. Today, the changing mood in both Washington and London is forging an unusual new chapter in this long standing “special relationship.” Trump and May face an uncertain future, but they can still look back to see how their predecessors maintained the Anglo-American special relationship during the tumultuous and transformative years following World War II.

1941: A Grand Vision

Coined in 1946 by British prime minister Winston Churchill, the term “special relationship” between Britain and the United States describes a bond born out of common cause in defeating the fascist powers in World War II. Since then, it has endured strain and a cyclical reinvigoration of mutual understanding and commitment. While the origins of this relationship precedes World War II, it was solidified in 1941. That’s when Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt came up with eight principles that were to promote world peace and spread democracy worldwide: the Atlantic Charter. These principles, with a general emphasis on Wilsonian style self-determination and economic liberalization, would act as a foundation for the Anglo-American special relationship well into the twenty-first century. World War II left a power vacuum that the North American superpower quickly raced to fill at the encouragement of the exhausted Brits. Under the guidance of the Atlantic Charter, both Britain and the United States utilized their power and influence to create the United Nations and develop other international organizations based on the liberal Western democratic vision of the world. The Soviet Union and its allies challenged this vision, creating a common threat against which the United States and Britain could consolidate the anti-Communist bloc under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

In addition to pursuing a common cause, British and American leaders developed personal bonds that were crucial in the early days of the special relationship, as demonstrated by Churchill and Roosevelt. Away from the war maps and professional public atmosphere, the two men had their personal bonding moments, such as when the president accidentally walked into the prime minister’s room in Washington to find him naked shortly after showering. The joyful Brit assured the embarrassed Yank that he had nothing to hide.

The close-knit relationship was not always smooth, as disagreements erupted early over how to honor the principles of the Atlantic Charter. On one hand, Britain was very reluctant at first to grant independence to its colonies, while the United States appeared idealistically hypocritical with its increased military involvement in Vietnam throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The Suez Crisis of 1956 represented the low point in bilateral relations, when Prime Minister Anthony Eden’s decision to send troops to Egypt along with French and Israeli forces angered President Eisenhower. Unlike his predecessor, Eisenhower did not have the best relations with Churchill during World War II and was suspicious of British colonial interests after the conflict ended. The Suez Crisis demonstrated that the former general had had enough of dealing with British politicians, angry that his counterparts in Westminster had not given him prior notice of this military venture.

1980s: Cold War Hawks

By the early 1980s, new leadership on both sides of the Atlantic reinvigorated the special relationship in a way not seen since the end of World War II. President Ronald Reagan and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher both came to power with the intention of reintroducing the old school Anglo-American way of thinking, with an emphasis on free-market capitalism, less government intervention, and a hard-line foreign-policy stance against the Soviet Union and Communism. The two had each other’s back in times of international crisis, with the United States supporting Britain in its 1982 war over the Falkland Islands, and Britain allowing the United States to use its airbases during the latter’s bombing campaign against Libya in 1986. It was this ability to see eye-to-eye that made it easier for them to cooperate in the struggle against Communism and engage with Mikhail Gorbachev and his attempts to reduce tensions with the West. This would help bring down the Berlin Wall and, eventually, the whole Eastern bloc.

For Reagan and Thatcher, their ideological perspectives made them ideal partners but also created numerous disagreements. Reagan was initially reluctant to support Thatcher’s war against Argentina’s military junta in 1982, as Buenos Aires was a key anti-Communist ally. In 1986, Thatcher flew to Iceland to convince Reagan to forgo the Reykjavik Summit due to her fear of the security consequences of nuclear disarmament. Nevertheless, both leaders managed to contain any bilateral dispute that came in the way of the special relationship, which they both needed in order to sustain a hard-line approach against the Soviet Union. Their unwavering friendship hastened the end of the Cold War, bringing a new chapter for the special relationship and opening up new opportunities for their successors to implement the ideals of the Atlantic Charter.

1990s–2000s: New Idealists

The United States found itself being the world’s undisputed superpower in the early 1990s, with Western capitalism attempting to fill the vacuum left as a result of the collapse of the Eastern bloc. The “Washington Consensus,” a term coined by British economist John Williamson, was essentially an expansion of the Atlantic Charter’s principle of economic liberation. Interestingly enough, it was not the Thatcherites or the Reaganites who brought this new “consensus” into the twenty-first century, but the traditional left-leaning political parties and politicians who accelerated the transition towards globalized capitalism. President Bill Clinton’s “New Democrats” and Prime Minister Tony Blair’s “New Labour” party revealed their firm idealistic views for a new world order based on the Atlantic Charter, which meant encouraging developing countries to open up their markets to Western capital investments, as well as military interventions (very reluctantly in most cases) to stop the rising power of authoritarian leaders. The most notable foreign-policy issue of the Clinton-Blair years was the successful intervention in Kosovo in 1999. The joint Anglo-American decision to pressure Yugoslav president Milosevic to end hostilities proved to be the decisive move that tipped the balance against the use of mass violence to achieve political objectives in the Balkans. This active interventionist policy carried over when George W. Bush took over as president. Despite coming from different political backgrounds, the new president and Blair got along well and bolstered the special relationship as they joined together to fight the War on Terror in wake of the 9/11 attacks. Their unshakable belief in promoting democracy led to their fateful decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. As the conflicts dragged on with increasing loss of life and money, both leaders faced mounting political backlash for being overly ambitious and perhaps carried away in their idealistic military crusades. By 2008, the war-weary public gave their optimistic leaders the boot when the housing market crashed and a worldwide recession brought tensions to a boiling point. Bush and Blair left office with controversial scars on their political legacies and domestic populations that today are increasingly skeptical of the global neoliberal economic system and the interventionist military policies they pursued during their leaderships.

2010s: Reluctant Partners

By the time Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009 and David Cameron took his first steps to 10 Downing Street in 2010, the special relationship was at risk of being pulled apart by dissatisfied populations on both sides of the Atlantic. These new leaders took measures to resolve the problems that their predecessors left behind, although they had stark disagreements regarding the best methods to tackle them. Starting with the economy, the Obama administration implemented deficit spending to bail out the nation’s most troubled banks, acquire debt-ridden assets, and ultimately pull the nation out of recession. Across the Atlantic, Cameron pushed through a series of austerity measures that gradually reduced Britain’s deficits, but nonetheless caused major contractions in the economy. The arduous task of restoring public confidence in the global capitalist system was quickly followed by the problems related to the War on Terror and other matters of foreign policy. Cameron resembled his predecessor more than Obama resembled his, opting for direct intervention where there was trouble. The prime minister took the helm with French president Sarkozy in the overthrow of Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011, with reluctant support from the Obama administration. It was the crisis in Syria that brought the biggest challenge to both Obama and Cameron and ultimately the Anglo-American special relationship. In August 2013 both governments were ready to use military force in response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Their plans fell apart after a vote from both Parliament and Congress shut down the idea, a reminder that the public had not forgotten the long drawn-out wars from the Bush and Blair years.

Relations between Obama and Cameron did not improve much. The Brexit referendum in June 2016 and the election of president Donald Trump in November of that same year saw the end of their administrations and also the end of the world they both knew. As much as Obama and Cameron differed in the best course of action when responding to crises, they both shared the vision that their predecessors had and openly sought policies that promoted democratic values and globalized trade. Their legacies will be saturated with the failure to bring peace to the Middle East, unpopular economic policies that stirred populist sentiment, a divided Europe in wake of the Brexit referendum, the growing scarcity of jobs available for the working and middle classes, and ultimately the end of the Atlantic Charter establishment as we knew it.

Today: A New Type of Special Relationship?

Where does that leave the special relationship today? To start off, neither the Atlantic Charter nor any of its post–1941 evolutions appear to be the guiding principle for today’s Anglo-American special relationship. President Trump and Prime Minister May share a vision of the world that departs from the neoliberal policies of their predecessors and focuses more on protecting jobs at home and the public from terrorism. Both leaders are suspicious of twenty-first century globalization, and they hope to challenge this trend by implementing policies that reflect the interests of the nationalist and populist sectors.

Economically, Trump and May have already begun pursuing such policies, with the former having withdrawn the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and renegotiating the U.S. position in the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the latter having activated Article 50 in March of this year. We will most likely see a general shift in preference towards bilateral free-trade agreements and away from multilateral ones. This will allow them to pick and choose which nations they would like to trade freely with and also provide more leverage in negotiating trade terms. Both leaders, however, may find it difficult to maintain such policies. May’s weakened position following the 2017 general election and the creation of a coalition government with the Democratic Unionist Party may pressure her to compromise on the “hard Brexit” that she originally sought, potentially leaving the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland as an EU-style free-trade zone. Should this happen, an ideal response would be for both nations to prioritize a U.S.-UK free trade deal. This has already been put on the table, as both leaders have expressed great interest during the recent G20 Summit in Hamburg. Such a deal could potentially open up new bilateral deals with other nations worldwide, with an emphasis on the Commonwealth of Nations, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as with wealthy developing economies throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Common enemies and threats have kept Britain and the United States together for decades. Today’s leaders agree that global terrorism is a major threat that has to be dealt with. Trump and May have pledged to continue the War on Terror in response to the recent terror attacks that hit Britain. Although Trump himself did not explicitly endorse NATO initially, he has since backtracked from his previous remarks during the joint press conference with the Romanian president in June, ensuring that the United States will continue to be a major player in military global affairs. Even before changing his opinion, Trump has demonstrated his willingness to use force after his decision to strike a Syrian airbase in April of this year. While May has promised to increase defense spending, she has a long way to build up her credibility due to the major defense cuts she oversaw as Home Secretary under Cameron’s administration. Considering both nations have shaky relations with the EU, they may have little choice than to rely more on members of the Five Eyes intelligence pact for information, binding the major English-speaking nations closer than ever before.

Trump and May appear to have started off well in a long-term partnership, given that they are both struggling to deal with domestic problems and shaky international reputations. Their suspicions of modern globalization, in particular towards free trade and immigration, will cement their personal bond. But that does not mean they will entirely escape the looming possibility that their shared vision of a post–Atlantic Charter era may follow up with disagreements. Disputes regarding intelligence sharing after the Manchester attacks in May of this year have opened up potential weak spots in the struggle against terrorism, and the pursuit of bilateral trade agreements may not be enough to sustain economic growth in the long run. Trump and May’s vision to roll back post-war Atlantic Charter ideals may become compromised should their execution strategies conflict with one another.

For the moment however, the current leaders of the Anglo-American partners seem content with one another and will put their differences aside to tackle bigger problems that lie ahead. May’s stiff manner may clash with Trump’s blunt character, but their common interests and the threats they face will more than overcome the obstacles in developing a resurgent special relationship. Their desire to create new economic models, fight global terrorism, and promote democratic values without excessive military intervention will ensure the transatlantic alliance does not falter. If Trump and May are serious about transforming the world, then perhaps it is time for them to fully understand the significance of the special relationship and to realize the potential impacts they could have on a global scale.

When Will The Left Come For You?

Via JC Collins of Philosophy of Metrics.com,

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—
And there was no one left to speak for me.

– From the Postwar War Anti-Nazi Lectures of Protestant Pastor Martin Niemöller.

From a philosophical perspective I dislike breaking topics down into left and right ideologies. It minimizes and degenerates meaningful conversation into well rehearsed diametrical talking points which do little but entrench and promote ongoing political and social conflict. There have been some articles published which both use and explore these opposing positions, but the focus remains on the semi-engineered outcomes which are expected from such a left vs right political and socioeconomic paradigm.

The term semi-engineered is used for the first time here and is reflective of an allowable and flexible margin related to an unpredictable human quality which exerts itself on all events and situations. The intent is to ensure that the actions and reactions of the electoral body remain predictable. The semi-engineered aspects take these human nature qualities into account and prepares strategies which flow to “natural” and “organic” outcomes. These join other terms such as “grassroots” to make up the talking points of the modern political lexicon.

The Western systems of governance and education hammer the left and right ideologies through the use of mainstream media and alternative media, while using the bricks and mortar institutions of wisdom and learning as a degenerative weapon meant to promote and perpetuate the continued fragmentation and division of the electoral demographic composition.

The argument can be made that this semi-engineering is a product of both extensive conspiratorial planning as well as the human predisposition to avoid change and stick with the known. Conspiratorial planning is not as difficult to define and accept as we have been conditioned to believe. The socioeconomic and geopolitical strategy of “divide and conquer” has been a part of the worlds history as much as anything else. It is more probable that conspiratorial groups of likeminded individuals have directed and shaped the course of human history than it is that all has simply been a result of chance or happenstance.

In the book The Anglo-American Establishment by Georgetown University Professor Carrol Quigley we find that such groups have been defined and have in fact shaped the Western world through its use of the British Empire and subsequently the American hegemonic empire.

Professor Quigley states the following in Chapter 9 titled The Creation of the Commonwealth:

“The evolution of the British Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations is to a very great extent a result of the activities of the Milner Group. To be sure, the ultimate goal of the Group was quite different from the present system, since they wanted a federation of the Empire, but this was a long-run goal, and en route they accepted the present system as a temporary way station. However, the strength of colonial and Dominion feeling, which made the ideal of federation admittedly remote at all times, has succeeded in making this way-station a permanent terminal and thus had eliminated, apparently forever, the hope for federation. With the exception of a few diehards, the Group has accepted the solution of imperial cooperation and “parallelism” as an alternative to federation.”

This paragraph defines for us the function of conspiratorial planning as well as its response to the unpredictable human quality, which in this case, supported Dominion over federation. The plan and strategy of the Group was adjusted and the engineering of the Western governance structures continued. These historical realities are indisputable and provide conclusive evidence of the existence of such conspiratorial groups and sub-groups.

Subsequent groups from that defined above, which have continued the engineering of Western civilization and governance frameworks, have further developed the political left and political right ideologies as fine tuned “weapons of the weak”, which are meant to further erode civil liberties and consolidate power. This is the same objective and scope of work which the Milner Group was tasked with in its attempts to implement a federation but settled on the Dominion for the integration of sovereign regions under the Commonwealth of Nations.

The left position has been established as existing in the progressive spectrum, while the right has been established as existing in the regressive spectrum. The natural and historical tendencies of the electoral population have been positioned on the traditional right. The political left has been attempting to push and pull the mass population and its demographic ideals towards the left spectrum. This is considered progressive and resistance to this program of engineering is labeled as regressive.

From this basic setup the political tension we are experiencing today has developed. Those wanting to remain in the past, or the place from which we have been pushed and pulled, or any attempt to go back to that place, is regressive, while everything which is transforming the past and pulling our civilization further from that past is progressive.

The consideration that everything progressive is not necessarily productive and aligned with the natural demands of homo-protoculture traditions is never considered. Everything left-progressive is positive and everything right-regressive is negative.

The case is now being made by the disorganized mass of the electoral demographic that the left has become regressive while the right is now expressing the qualities of a progressive society. The core argument that the left is now regressive is best expressed in the spread and abuse of political correctness and social justice.

The left-liberal ideology promotes so-called equality and human rights for all. On the face this would appear to be extremely reasonable and honourable. In the first years of this agenda no one could argue with its mandates and goals. It started with equal rights for women, which included voting and other legal alignments which had not before been in demand or expected.

Those few who disagreed with these social objectives were rightly labeled as “chauvinist pigs” and promoters of misogyny. It was the first real movement from the traditional spectrum of the right. It is only in hindsight that we can see this, a rational social movement, as the first step towards a “progressive tyranny” and at the time it was only looked upon and considered a change for the betterment of Western civilization.

The next phase of this progressive social justice built on the ending of slavery which re-manifested as the civil rights war. Like the origins of the feminist movement, the arguments were rational and no ethical and honourable citizen could disagree with equal rights for African-Americans.

It was in the 1970’s that we first began to experience the open social expressions of the marginal segment of the population which represented homosexuality. Television programming such as Three’s Company began to condition and engineer the acceptance of the electoral demographic “right”majority.

In the show Jack, played by the late John Ritter, pretended to be gay so he could live with two women in an apartment. The “homophobic” and “regressive” landlord Mr. Roper would only let Jack live there if he was gay and not straight, as his old school traditional ethics considered a man living in sin with two women as immoral. Hilarity ensued as Jack went through a series of challenges and obstacles to live a normal heterosexual life while maintaining the illusion of homosexuality to fool the simple and backwards Mr. Roper.

Evenings as a child was spent watching Three’s Company and the humour of John Ritter with my family and laughing. It was considered good quality time and I remember laying on the carpet in front of the television with feelings of guilt as I knew late homework waited elsewhere.

It is only now that I look back and see that the show was an early weapon used to marginalize a majority into accepting a social mandate which wasn’t very popular. Nobody wanted to be a fool like Mr. Roper, so we laughed and shut up about our own personal opinions and went about our business of school and work.

The progression of the regressive-left continued through the decades with similar tactics and methods of social engineering. Everything from movies, music, and additional television programming pushed the mass population further away from the traditional roots where Western civilization began. The pendulum swing has gone so far to the left that equal rights for all has now morphed into anti-Christian, anti-white, anti-traditional, anti-male, and anti-Capitalism.

For decades already movies have imagined every mastermind criminal as an evil Capitalist who wants to enslave and control the world. This social engineering is now so rampant that discussions supporting the Capitalist system turn into serious arguments with the liberal-left making accusations of identity politics for the purpose of demeaning and minimizing both the position and character of those promoting Capitalism.

The same methods and techniques are now used on anyone who disagrees with the left ideology and its stated goals and mandates. The mass immigration which has been happening for decades already has taken on a new sense of urgency and panic as migrants and refugees from Islamic nations flood into the West. The differences in culture and beliefs between the West and Islamic cultures is obvious to most but open discussions and analysis are not permitted.

It is beginning to appear that this so-called “Islamophobia”, which has built on the resentment surrounding the labels of Homophobia and Xenophobia, among others, is being established as a benchmark on hate and hate speech. Members of Academia, which have hijacked and used our Western educational institutions to promote the liberal-left agenda, are coming in force to condemn anyone who disagrees with mass Islamic migration and open borders.

It was evenly recently stated that a database, or register, of those charged with hate crimes should be kept so the rights of those individuals can be restricted. The comparison is made to the databases which keep track of sexual offenders. The difference between hate crimes, which often, like Islamophobia, is not clearly defined and can be used to demonize unwanted behaviour from the right, and the actions of sexual offenders such as pedophiles and rapists , are massive. To marginalize a majority as Islamophobic and hateful because it does not want to lose its cultural identity to the onslaught of a culture who, by its very expressed purpose, wants to spread and take over the host culture, is one of the greatest travesties of our modern world.

Creating and maintaining a database of such “offenders of the left” is a horrible suggestion and is reminiscent of the registries which Nazi Germany utilized to track and manage the “undesirables” such as Jews.

There is a concerted effort to criminalize the behaviour and opinions which the liberal-left find undesirable. This is a serious threat to our civilization and the methods by which we ensure the continuation of freedom of speech, electoral voting, and the perpetuation of cultural segregation and division.

A man who recently burned a copy of the Koran was charged with blasphemy. How is this even possible? Our governance system which has become dominated by the left, is using that very same system to restrict the rights of varying demographics. It is ironic that the liberal-left mandates, which were born in seeking equal rights for all, like women having the right to vote, is now attempting to restrict the rights of those who do not agree with its transformed goals and objectives.

First they came for the traditionalists. Few said anything. Then they came for the Christians. Still, few said anything. Eventually they started coming for the males. Nothing. After males they started coming for the whites. Even this couldn’t get everyone to stand united against the tyranny. Now they are using a regressive ideology to take rights away from anyone who disagrees. Finally, some are speaking louder and beginning to be heard. But is it too late? When will the left come for you? Will you now speak out?