Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | US puts its faith in Dad's Army Britain: The British military has long had a Colonel Blimp image - typified by the TV show Dad's Army - according to a frank assessment by the US government of its staunchest ally.
It has also been a quick route to becoming a toff or escaping the "desolation of a grim council flat" and the dole queue, according to the confidential document, circulated to American top brass. [...]
The assessment, written just before the the Gulf war, aimed to give senior US officials an insight into the standing and customs of the British military. The analysis, obtained by the Guardian as George Bush and Tony Blair prepare for another war against Iraq, predicted that the British would continue to produce "high-quality" military leaders to work alongside American commanders "for some time to come".
You know ... this is the sort of thing that just makes you scratch your head about the Guardian.
It's not that the US doesn't have a good opinion of the British Army, of course. Indeed, I should think the official opinion was that it was very good indeed; otherwise, we would be ignoring them just as we're effectively ignoring the rest of NATO. (Granted, that has much to do with varying political opinions on the conduct of the war on terrorism, such as it is, and the apparently looming attack on Iraq, as well as military capabilities. That said, if we really thought that anyone in NATO would be of major utility in either, we would probably be devoting quite a lot of time and effort into persuading them to come to our side. The only other NATO military really worth noting would be France -- and Russia as a NATO observer, I suppose, although their military is both deteriorating and rather busy in Chechnya, so they couldn't commit any significant resources in any event -- and France and the US have been politically at odds for decades, really. But I digress.) THAT said ... why on earth would a ten-year old document be news? Surely before our government decided to place such heavy reliance on British political and military support, that report was updated with more recent information. (They probably went and read Janes Defence Weekly. But again, I digress.) Relying on a 10-year-old document for information about a current situation would be foolish in the extreme, and whatever you might say about them, I sincerely doubt an administration this hawkish would allow themselves to be taken by surprise by misestimating an ally's capacity. (If nothing else, the section reading "The US analyst believed that the "long and unbroken connection" between the royal family and the military also helped to foster the public's high regard for the services," would need some severe updating, since the British public's regard for its monarchy is about as low as it can get at the moment.
That said, it's probably the kindest thing the Guardian has said about the US in years. And at that, they seem to take great joy in being mildly snooty about their own military.
Posted by iain at December 31, 2002 12:15 PMComments
