UK should understand who its friends in the US are

Charles Moore:

Thirty years ago this coming Monday, British troops began to land at San Carlos Bay in the Falkland Islands. Just over three weeks later, the Argentine forces surrendered to them. This weekend in Portsmouth, the Navy Museum is organising a commemorative conference, and a dinner on HMS Victory.

The keynote speech will come from John Lehman, who was the US navy secretary at the time. Today Mr Lehman is the most senior foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger to Barack Obama in this year’s presidential election.

Mr Lehman will explain how, contrary to current historical orthodoxy, the Americans helped Britain instinctively, secretly and right from the start of the Falklands war. He should know, because he did it.

Mr Lehman’s key point is that this help came from the bottom up. So great were what were called “the customary patterns of cooperation” between Britain and the US that they could provide the cover for a huge operation. Weeks before the US announced its public policy “tilt” to Britain on April 30, 1982, there was, as Mr Lehman puts it, “already water flowing through the pipes”. President Reagan felt benign towards Britain, and particularly towards Mrs Thatcher, his friend since both were in opposition, but it was not necessary for him to approve anything for help to start.

US and British personnel, already in place before the Falklands war, worked together at the headquarters at Northwood in Britain and at Norfolk, Virginia. Mr Lehman and his boss, the defence secretary Caspar Weinberger, made sure Britain was helped with fuel, logistics, intelligence, use of a base on Ascension Island and of a naval missile test range in Puerto Rico, and Stinger surface-to-air missiles. They achieved this without informing the more wobbly State Department, and often without making Britain pay. Later, the US supplied Sidewinder missiles and 200 Mk-46 torpedoes. Lehman was even authorised to prepare the helicopter carrier USS Iwo Jima in case one of the two British aircraft carriers should be lost.

Far from being a mere phrase in polite diplomatic speeches, the “special relationship” in the Falklands war was what Mr Lehman calls a “functional reality”. The ties of history, culture, kit, intelligence, men and know-how were all there, all ready, all working. They won the day.

... Mr Obama’s foreign policy began as an apology tour. Since then, it has become less naive, but it still reflexively prefers those who don’t like America to those who do. It does not pay much attention to threat and deterrence, which it believes can be superseded by international bodies. It sets little store by the habits of civilisation which keep our countries close. In Dreams From My Father, Mr Obama describes taking tea by the Thames, visiting the Jardins de Luxembourg, watching nightfall in Rome: “I felt as if I were living out someone else’s romance.” In the fourth year of his presidency, one still struggles to understand how – if at all – he wants to defend the West....Diplomatic power is but the shadow cast by military power. At the 11th hour, we made the two work together 30 years ago, and it gained us victory 8,000 miles away. John Lehman saw on his desk the intelligence reports of the stunned Soviet reaction to this successful projection of will. There is no Cold War now, but few could say that the world is less dangerous. Our will, however, is much weaker.

Moore think Cameron needs to find a way to meet with Romney.  He sees a potentially stronger relationship, i.e. a return to a special one.   Certainly Britain and the US need all the friends they can find these days.  The UK has had its strength sapped by excessive socialism for far too long.  Even after being rescued by thatcher and Reagan, much of the strength has been dissipated.  Weapon systems that were new then are old now with few replacements and ridiculous mountains of debt have been piled upon future generations while leaders in both countries squander money on "alternative energy."  Moore also thinks Romney has a good shot of winning.