The “special relationship”, the time-honored emotional bond between the US and Britain that has sustained through war and peace, is in trouble. The ties of history, culture and language that have bridged an ocean and bound the two countries politically for generations are fraying as perhaps never before – strained relentlessly by Donald Trump, who has gleefully sacrificed traditional alliances and diplomatic niceties on the altar of his “America first” agenda. Against that troubled backdrop, David McCloskey, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst turned spy writer and podcast host, has sketched out how things could get darker still.
His case – laid out in a new novel – has been reinforced by the serendipity of real events. The past month alone has seen the US president openly consider abandoning Washington’s de facto support for Britain in its dispute with Argentina over the Falklands Islands, and vocally welcome the idea of a united Ireland. Last weekend, the Trump administration hurriedly withdrew 12 B-1 bombers from a British airbase, RAF Fairford, following intelligence reports that they could be targeted in an Iranian drone attack.
The move, presaged by jeering attacks on Britain from some of Trump’s most ardent supporters, reinforced a growing sense of the US pulling back from a strategic partnership that, at times, has been intimate. Nothing denotes the special in the relationship between the US and Britain as the sharing of intelligence. In London Station, his new novel, McCloskey somewhat ghoulishly explores where it could all go wrong, depicting a calamitous collapse in cooperation as the CIA comes under the guidance of a new Trump-like director who scorns MI6, the British intelligence agency, as “freeloaders” and “pickpockets”.
McCloskey’s imagined scenario seemed plausible even before recent developments, as two allies that faced the cold war and other conflicts in lockstep drifted apart on a number of fronts, including Russia’s war with Ukraine and Trump’s decision to attack Iran, signaling a geopolitical trend that he calls “fairly alarming”. Probably,” suggested McCloskey, recalling the occasion when Trump reportedly passed on Israeli intelligence to the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during his first presidency. Worried British intelligence officers McCloskey has consulted had posited such a scenario “as a reasonable hypothetical”, he said, quickly adding that he could not confirm if any intelligence had actually been withheld.
What he could verify was tension, resentment on the British side at being the junior partner, and – curiously – mutual feelings of intimidation, with US agents being deferential to the UK side’s native abilities. Yet there was this sense of like, ‘What can I do? We’re very reliant on this partner.’” CIA officers had their own problems.
US agents, virtually without exception, saw merit in the alliance. The “five-eyes” cooperation agreement – providing signals intelligence-sharing between the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – remains intact, and is likely to survive for the foreseeable future. The US-UK relationship still has “depth and flexibility”, in McCloskey’s view, giving it the potential to evolve and survive, regardless of future leadership in either country.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
