Britain and America

Thanksgiving Week

In this of all weeks, I think it is worth spending some time giving thanks for the good things Britain and America have done for the world and each other.  Mark Steyn used his Orange County Register column this week to remind us just what America has done for the world:

Americans should be thankful they have one of the last functioning nation-states. Europeans, because they've been so inept at exercising it, no longer believe in national sovereignty, whereas it would never occur to Americans not to. This profoundly different attitude to the nation-state underpins, in turn, Euro-American attitudes to transnational institutions such as the United Nations.

But on this Thanksgiving the rest of the world ought to give thanks to American national sovereignty, too. When something terrible and destructive happens – a tsunami hits Indonesia, an earthquake devastates Pakistan – the United States can project itself anywhere on the planet within hours and start saving lives, setting up hospitals and restoring the water supply.

Aside from Britain and France, the Europeans cannot project power in any meaningful way anywhere. When they sign on to an enterprise they claim to believe in – shoring up Afghanistan's fledgling post-Taliban democracy – most of them send token forces under constrained rules of engagement that prevent them doing anything more than manning the photocopier back at the base.

If America were to follow the Europeans and maintain only shriveled attenuated residual military capacity, the world would very quickly be nastier and bloodier, and far more unstable. It's not just Americans and Iraqis and Afghans who owe a debt of thanks to the U.S. soldier but all the Europeans grown plump and prosperous in a globalized economy guaranteed by the most benign hegemon in history.

Mark is, as so often, right.  America protects and helps, but does not rule, to its own cost, a cost that is generally paid without much complaint.  This is a truth that needs to be acknowledged this week wherever people are taking time out of their days to give thanks.

Meanwhile, Americans should always acknowledge - as so many of them do - that their constitutional settlement is itself an inheritance of an English tradition that was solidified only after the spilling of much blood.  The value our two cultures place on liberty is rare enough in the history of the world; that we have spread the benefits of liberty is all the more consequential for that fact.  The continued strength of the transatlantic alliance is the current manifestation of that shared inheritance, and is something we should give thanks for.

As an aside, British conservatives often deplore the import of American holidays and customs, and quite rightly in most cases (Halloween supplanting Guy Fawkes Day has dealt a blow to a traditional method of reminding young people of the importance of Parliament).  Yet I cannot help but feel that in the secular society Britain has become a formal recognition of gratitude would be welcome.  Individual Britons could do well to spend some time this week thanking and receiving thanks from their American cousins.

-- Iain Murray

Combating anti-Americanism

Happy 4th July to our US readers!

This seems a good day to launch a new BritainAndAmerica.com initiative.

For reasons outlined today by Lord Saatchi and that are all too obvious from opinion polls, America is not as loved as this website would like it to be.  Maurice Saatchi has suggested his own solution to anti-Americanism.  In an occasional series we would like to do the same on this site.

We invite readers of this blog to help write short essays on ways of combating anti-Americanism.

Here a few random thoughts on the type of articles that could be written:

• When Americans defend America it can appear self-interested.  Non-Americans who respect the USA need to come together to run campaigns and build institutions that ensure a pro-American voice is heard within the media and in other opinion-forming circles.
• There needs to be more exploration of the alternatives to US leadership.  What would the world look like if China was the hegemonic power or if the United Nations made all major geopolitical decisions?
• America needs to be more generous to the developing world - opening its markets and increasing its development spending.
• American interventions need to be clearly humanitarian - as well as intervening for reasons of security there should also be action against the kind of slaughter we saw in Rwanda and now in Darfur.
• A new President will arrest anti-Americanism by presenting a new image to the world.
• Hollywood should choose to return to making Capra-esque films that portray a more positive image of America.
• America needs to invest in much better public diplomacy and improve the quality of its Ambassadors.  It also needs to engage more seriously with the BBC and other global media giants that sometimes, wittingly or unwittingly, feed anti-Americanism.

If you are interested in writing one of these pieces - or in suggesting a different way of addressing anti-Americanism - please email us.  We would also be interested in any ideas for more films like our own 'A world without America'.