Tom Stevenson

Charles III’s state visit to the US occasioned a good deal of commentary either celebrating the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US or lamenting its deficiencies. The Financial Times editorial board clung to the deep ‘military, intelligence and security co-operation’ even if the political relationship has seen better days. The Telegraph saw regal diplomacy as evidence of a bond forged on a more rarefied plane than that of ‘petty politics’. In the Times, William Hague argued for accepting a gradual loss of intimacy but warned against becoming ‘pointlessly anti-American’. Abstract notions aside, the fact of practical British support for American empire remains an underexamined peculiarity of British foreign policy.

No discussion in British defence and security circles gets very far without someone mentioning the post-Cold War ‘peace dividend’. The idea that the collapse of the Soviet Union bequeathed to Western Europe safe conditions that allowed for lower military spending and higher social spending has become commonplace.

The Syrian government’s effort to take full control of the north-east clearly has the approval of the United States. After meeting with al-Sharaa and the Syrian Democratic Forces commander, Mazloum Abdi, the US special envoy to Syria (and ambassador to Turkey), Tom Barrack, said the SDF had outlived its usefulness. Its future, he said, ‘lies in the post-Assad transition under the new government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa’.