Athens, 24 January 2006
ELIAMEP organised a closed discussion with Dr Bruce Newsome, RAND Corporation on the “Future of British-American security relations”. Dr Bruce Newsome presented the results of a project on the future of the US-UK security relationship undertaken by the RAND Corporation and commissioned by the British government in 2003.
He presented the nine drivers that had been identified by the research team as the most determining levers of this relationship: geography, institutions, democracy, UK military, UK foreign policy, UK domestic politics, economics, historical experiences and culture. The significance of each of these variables was assessed in terms of their historical importance and their future significance. Conclusions were drawn as regards the extent of UK governmental influence over these drivers and thus over the future of US-UK relations. In addition, Dr. Newsome compared the relative importance and inter-operability of the British and US military resources with other European countries. It was noted that the quality of the British military remains exceptionally valuable to the US. However, this is likely to decrease over the coming decade due to the growing capacity of the military forces of the countries of Central Europe, thereby reducing US dependence on the UK.
Research by the RAND Corporation suggests that geography, democracy, common historical experiences and culture, may have been relevant to Anglo-American relations in the past and are certainly relevant in the current context, but are unlikely to bear much significance for the future. On the contrary, the UK military and UK foreign policy were identified as the most influential drivers of this relationship. It was also argued that British domestic politics (particularly after the Iraq war) may even constitute a potential impediment, thus challenging the future significance of the UK/US ‘special relationship’.