Reality check: warmongering Britain and the U.S. are leading the world to the abyss
[Don't forget the role of the BBC]
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak went to Washington last week cap-in-hand hawking a nefarious deal. Post-Brexit Britain is seeking a much-coveted bilateral trade pact with the United States, and to avail of Uncle Sam’s favor the British are offering to step up its role as provocateur-in-chief in the proxy war against Russia.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Sunak hailed the usual platitudes about their nations’ “special relationship” during the British premier’s two-day trip to Washington. Sunak added a new unctuous epithet, referring to the U.S. and Britain as the world’s “indispensable alliance”.
Topping their agenda in the White House summit was the conflict in Ukraine, Russia, China and trade issues.
Biden and Sunak unveiled an “Atlantic Declaration” promising closer cooperation on economics, security, military and artificial intelligence between the United States and Britain.
But crucially missing from the U.S. side was any concrete commitment to a new bilateral trade deal. When Britain left the European Union in 2020, the historic departure from that trade bloc was calculatedly made with the aspiration of securing an alternative special trading arrangement with the United States.
The Conservative government made the securing of a U.S.-UK trade pact a commitment to British voters at the last general election in 2019. Nearly four years on, however, London is no closer to tying itself to the American raft after cutting itself loose from the EU. That drifting situation has caused unprecedented economic and political turmoil in Britain.
Sunak is the third British prime minister that Biden has had dealings with as president, reflecting the unstable politics in Britain provoked by its post-Brexit tribulations.
Securing a trade agreement with the United States is a priority need for London. As Washington under the Biden administration adopts more protectionist economic policies, Britain is keen to obtain concessions for accessing the American economy.
This fraught juncture is what makes London’s role as Washington’s global henchman more dangerous than usual. In order to win economic favors, Britain is more disposed than ever to escalate U.S. imperial hostilities toward Russia and China. Those hostilities are impelled by Washington’s own imperial decline as the once presumed “sole superpower” and “global hegemon”.
During his White House meeting, Sunak pointedly presented Britain and the United States as the two main military supporters of Ukraine in the war against Russia. He also said that Britain would be taking a lead role in cementing the new military alliance – AUKUS – between Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. That alliance, which involves supplying nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, is explicitly aimed at confronting China in the Asia-Pacific. In an affected attempt to sound profound, Sunak said that security of the Atlantic was “indivisible” from security in Asia-Pacific.
In the Ukraine conflict over the past 16 months, Britain has distinguished itself as NATO’s provocateur-in-chief. While in Washington, Sunak boasted about Britain supplying battlefield tanks, longer-range missiles and training Ukrainian pilots on the soon-to-be-delivered U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets.
The British PM also obsequiously set himself the task of driving other European members of the NATO alliance to increase their military support (that is, buying Pentagon’s weapons) for Ukraine. Much to Washington’s delight, no doubt.
The war in Ukraine is reaching a more dangerous stage of direct NATO confrontation with Russia. The “undeclared war” so far is liable to become an all-out conflict between nuclear-armed states.
While Sunak visited the White House – it was his fourth meeting with Biden in four months – the NATO-backed Kiev regime began its long-anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces. There were reports of NATO-supplied tanks being destroyed in the latest fighting.
Britain’s recently supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles – with a range of 300 km, the longest among all NATO missiles supplied so far – have been targeting Russian territory. Some of the British weapons have hit civilian centers causing deaths.
London has also supplied depleted uranium artillery shells to the Ukrainian military, which Moscow has furiously condemned as tantamount to “unleashing dirty bombs”.
Britain has sent the biggest number of special forces out of all the 31 NATO member states to assist Ukraine on the ground.
Post-Brexit Britain is in a quandary of its own making. It has lost influence in the EU, the world’s largest trading bloc, but London’s conceited dreams of “Global Britain” have not materialized. Far from it. Britain’s economy and society are collapsing under its own weight of poverty, inequality and corruption (like Sunak’s multi-billionaire wife who doesn’t pay her taxes in Britain.)
The United States, despite all the rhetoric about having a “special relationship”, has not thrown Britain a lifeline in the form of a bespoke bilateral trade deal. Cut adrift, London is a dangerous entity (more dangerous than usual, that is). Economic duress is liable to make Britain more solicitous of Uncle Sam in providing its imperial enforcer role.
Perfidious Albion has already been instrumental in orchestrating several provocations to Russia during the Ukraine conflict. For warmongers in Washington who want to push a confrontation with Russia and China, the needy British bulldog is in a suitably keen condition to act as an even more vicious attack dog.
Laughably, Biden referred to his meeting with Sunak as akin to the first encounter between Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in the White House to plan the D-Day invasion of Europe. The arrogance and delusional distortion of history are astounding.
“And I’m confident the United Kingdom and the United States will continue to lead the world toward greater peace, prosperity, and security for all,” Biden said.
~ Finian Cunningham is a former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages.
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