US Sulks Due to Potential Loss of British BFF

NPP Pressroom

The Mount Holyoke News
Carol Still
09/27/2010

By now we all know that the Conservative Party (read Republican) won big time in the United Kingdom's elections this past May, ending the Labour (read Democrat) Party's 13 years in power. We also know that the economy around the world is not doing so hot, and, given our knowledge of what Conservative/Republican parties like to do when they're in power (cut spending), what do you think that the Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, is doing now? Exactly. He's cutting spending. Across the board. But what concerns the United States the most at the moment isn't their egregious cuts to social spending or the loss of the warm fuzzy feeling in many Britons. It's the fact that the UK is cutting roughly 20% from its military budget, which works out to be around $11 billion. The move by Cameron is with the aim to reduce the UK's budget deficit, which at $240 billion, is one of the highest in Europe. To the UK, this means having a smaller, probably more effective army and naval force. But to the US, it means not having an at-ready ally, without the capability to "deploy and sustain substantial forces." The biggest area of concern is Afghanistan- the UK's force there would shrink from 10,000 to about 6,000. The US does have some valid concerns in this argument. Hopefully the remaining UK troops in Afghanistan wouldn't be spread too thin, and would still be able to respond to crises of any kind, military or humanitarian. But by questioning the validity of the cuts, the US is asking the UK to place the same emphasis on their military budget as the US does. The UK is already among the top 10 military spenders internationally. Reckon a guess at who's first? Yup, the US. And our budget is more than 10 times larger than that of the UK! We can't expect our allies to bleed out of their pocketbooks just to make it onto our 'dependable' list. But I say if you want to cut military to salvage social spending, go for it Cameron. To learn more about the trade-offs of military and social spending in the US, visit the National Priorities Project at nationalpriorities.org.