We haven’t the guts for a Special Relationship

This tank stands in South Devon as a memorial to US servicemen killed as a result of a British mistake

AT EITHER end of Slapton Sands, a three-mile stretch of sandbank on the south Devon coastline, there can be found two memorials to the Second World War. The first, placed by the Americans, gives thanks to the 3,000 people of South Hams who left their homes in 1943 to allow the staging of D-Day landing exercises in the area.

The sandbank divides the Atlantic from Slapton Ley, a one-and-a-half-long freshwater lake. Allied intelligence suggested that the Germans might flood an area behind Utah Beach in Normandy and so the area proved ideal for simulating the terrain.

However, something went horribly wrong with Exercise Tiger. The landing craft, packed with US troops and sailors, were supposed to be protected by two Royal Navy ships, but one had checked in to Plymouth for minor repairs, and the Admiralty had neglected to inform their opposite numbers. German E-boats seized the opportunity, destroying one of the craft, sinking another and damaging a third, which managed to make it to shore. In all, 638 servicemen were killed – many drowning in the sea while awaiting rescue.

Once on shore, a further 308 men dyed in friendly fire, as HMS Hawkins shelled the beach with live ammunition. In all, nearly 1,000 casualties were some way ahead of the 200 that died in the actual Utah Beach landing. The disaster was hushed up, with the justification that it could affect morale and affect the real plans for D-Day, “conveniently forgotten” for years, until local resident Ken Small raised a Sherman tank sunk by the E-Boats and used it to create a memorial to the fallen.

Such a blunder – caused, ironically, by faulty kit, in this case radio problems – would give any army pause for thought, to consider whether its allies are actually any good. And we’ve given the Americans plenty of opportunity for that down the years.

Writing in the Sunday Times at the weekend, Max Hastings argued that the Special Relationship is nothing but a myth, citing a raft of examples of mutual antipathy on either side of the Atlantic. The British were resentful of America’s late involvement in both wars, after it had sucked UK war reserves dry first – often by demanding cash only for arms payments. Not that all the Americans wanted to supply us in the first place. Allen Ellender, the Louisiana senator, pointing to our perceived ineptitude and spendthrift ways, commented: “There was little point in supplying the British with war material since they inevitably lose it all”.

Traditional ruling class snobbery here – Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy of India, witheringly labelled Americans a “pack of pole-squatting pervenus” – was more than matched by the US military, with Foreign Office minister Richard Law remarking that that its top brass “were about as friendly to the British as they would be to the German general staff if they sat round the table with them”.

Similar views continue to this day. The average Briton still regards his or her American counterpart as obese, bigoted towards minorities, uncaring towards the less fortunate, and ignorant of what goes on beyond its shores. The average American regards people here as poor cousins that they too easily condescend to, and our society as still hamstrung by effete, distracted and twittish toffs.

We resent being dragged into “their” wars, and that we have lost friendships around the globe – particularly as a consequence of our association with the Bush regime. We cite one-way extradition treaties and their failure to answer adequately for friendly fire incidents as evidence that we are regarded as little more than a vassal state. They don’t care for the Square Mile having overtaken Wall Street as the pre-eminent financial centre in the world, nor having to bail us out, first in Basra and now – so it increasingly looks – in Helmand.

All of these prejudices are either wrong, misplaced or irrelevant – save the last two. If the al-Megrahi affair was the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of a shift in attitude towards the British and the Special Relationship by many Americans, then our strategic shortcomings provided the rest of the Bactrian baggage. The US military has been at pains to point out the commitment of our soldiers, making lavish use of the “exemplary” descriptive. But, as time goes on, it is becoming more and more critical of British generals, and of the politicians that guide them.

It’s easy to push the generals’ shortcomings straight upstairs, as far as the Cabinet. But once it gets here, matters become a lot more coloured by shades of grey. Gordon Brown has been criticised for almost all of his premiership as some sort of moral coward. And, while there’s little doubt that few of his decisions are brave, it’s far more convincing to regard him as a conductor of modern opinion. He has wound up one war he almost certainly didn’t want, and now he’s found himself in his nightmare, seeking an extraction while the Afghanistan war worsens (and a report – allegedly supressed by the MoD – has warned of “strategic defeat” in the country).

This impetus for withdrawal comes ever more from the British people, disquited by the mounting numbers of military deaths. These calls have been been given greater urgency through the Government’s inability to convincingly articulate good reasons for remaining in Helmand. Yet, across the other side of the pond, the Obama administration faces the same dilemma – only with worse casualties. The US has lost 739 American troops since the invasion in 2001, and killed 51 in August alone. This compares with 212 British troops overall, and 22 dead in July, our worst month to date.

There is concern about the direction of the conflict in the US, but this is predominantly a Washington debate. Numbers of troops on the ground, or population figures, don’t count, because the US has still suffered over three times the casualties that the UK has. Nor does the number of dead soldiers in the Iraq conflict – 4,254, including two so far this month -have any importance in this debate, except in one way. It demonstrates that the Americans are prepared to allow more men to die to achieve its war aims than would be acceptable to the British public.

Where the Government has let down our allies is in commitment. Brown should have the courage to tell the White House that voters here find such casualty numbers unacceptable, and that we should be allowed to withdraw. Instead, as well as consigning our soldiers to a war they are not allowed to win in their own way (even the Queen is upset about this, so it has been reported), we are giving far less than a full pledge of support to the Americans. In effect, we are telling them one thing and doing another.

This may be the weasel’s way, but it is also a reflection of a society that no longer possesses the mettle for warfare. In no way can the Iraq and Afghanistan theatres be called total wars. We have not suffered rationing, or the destruction of whole towns of men. These conflicts are confined totally within MoD boundaries and budgets. Yet less and less people here want us to be a part of it. By contrast, almost half of Americans think the war is being won.

The Special Relationship, as it was coined by Winston Churchill, referred specifically to the united diplomatic and military front that the UK and the United States presented to the world. For some time now – perhaps even from the time the phrase came into being – that relationship has been defined by failure on our part, and corresponding disappointment on the part of the Americans. Quite simply, we don’t deserve it, because we don’t play by the rules of relationships.

Given the attitude of most Britons – regardless of whether you agree with this shift in opinion or not – it is time that we realigned our foreign policy far more closely with the strategic concerns and desires of our European neighbours, as they are now far closer to our own. This needn’t require a withdrawal from Nato, as France and Germany remain within the Transatlantic organisation without having to involve themselves fully in US-led conflicts.

Economically, little should change. Although Americans are half-heartedly resolving to boycott Scotland and all things Scottish, were they to see through such a threat, it would be but a drop in the ocean when compared with the billions of pounds and dollars that flow back and forth across the Atlantic, sometimes in a single day. It would be to America’s detriment if it were to look for other financial partners to trade with away from the Square Mile, and it’s a safe bet that its financiers won’t be that stupid.

It was at the advent of the 20th century, when the British empire began its long slide into the history books, that a gap in stature and power began to open up between the UK and the US. Two mostly European-based world wars effectively bankrupted the UK, to the point where it was bailed out. And even though Dean Acheson, Truman’s Secretary of State and so-called architect of the Cold War famously said: “Britain has lost an empire, but has not yet found a role”, a still thoroughly war-weary country followed the Americans into the Korean War. The outcry, were this country to repeat such a feat these days, can be easily imagined.

It may be contentious to suggest that the British public no longer has the stomach for large theatre, drawn-out warfare, simply because it falls in an opinion no man’s land. Doves will defensively ask if that is such a bad thing, while the hawks will point to our soldiers as evidence to the contrary. There are no clear answers here, but it could provide a good jumping off point for a debate on how our priorities should change along with our attitudes.