Here is something that is completely hypothetical and not entirely thought out on my part. It is an random idea that is floating around in my head based mostly on observation. But since it is the new year, perhaps we can brain tease this for a bit.
I am catching up on my Economist reading and I just hit an article on US-UK cooperation on the development of fighter jets. For those who aren't familiar, we are working with the Brits to develop a joint strike fighter (JSF). The program is much bigger than just the US and the UK, involving 8 other countries. However, the main focus at the moment is the JSF. The Brits are developing the jet, but they need US secret computer codes for plane operations and firing capabilities. Up until now, the US has been unwilling to hand over those types of codes. But that has changed since Dec 12, when the Pentagon agreed to the request technology transfers.
This may well set a precedent for the future with much more cooperation with the UK on military hardware as well as war fighting like we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have long had deep cooperation in terms of intelligence; we are the "cousins" you know. There is speculation that the British diaspora is probably the third largest in the world, with the US being one of the top destinations for wayward Brits. More of our media is coming for the UK (BBC America is fast growing in the US, especially on PBS stations). With our linguistic and well as historic ties, you start to paint an interesting picture of the "special relationship" that goes beyond what most of us realize.
Since the US has the upper hand most of the time and since the UK is knocking itself out to maintain its "special relationship", I wonder, if in some twisted irony, are we slowing integrating to the point where the UK is like a 52nd state (after Israel of course)? Maybe one day, we'll be able to live and work freely in each other's countries, travel across the pond without a passport, vote in each other's elections, fly each other's flags???? Or, perhaps we will have a specially commonwealth relationship or, has the French call them, our own "Territoire d'autre mer".
Saturday, December 30, 2006
The 52nd State
Posted by USWest at 9:36 AM
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18 comments:
Interesting, USWest. During my stay last summer in Australia--which is also helping with the JSF--their newspapers also fretted about whether Australia was becoming America's "51st State." They disliked U.S. influence over their foreign policy, but were proud of their special relationship with us. Several mentioned that Australia alone (not even U.K.) had fought alongside the U.S. in every war this century.
Even the Aussies generally seemed to agree, however, that Britain had--as a whole--a closer relationship to Washington. A joke I heard a few times (that I will happily repeat again) was that John Howard was so far up George Bush's ass that he could see Tony Blair.
And then there's Canada. One T-shirt I saw in a store depicted a map of Canada perched atop the U.S. with the label, "Canada: America's Hat." Until very recently, in fact, Canadians could enter the U.S. for a year at a time without showing either a passport or visa. The border used to mean so little. Maybe we will get back to those neighborly (neighbourly) ways someday.
One more anecdote. When I was visiting the Australian Dept. of Defence in Adelaide, the subject of the five-nation technology exchange program came up, and my host said wryly that, as it involved the U.S., it was really more like an eight-nation program... because it involved the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force (and they were more antagonistic toward each other than any others at the table). Perhaps such squabbling amongst ourselves is what will inhibit us from unifying with our other cousins anytime soon...?
We shouldn't confuse cooperation and similarity of interest with domination. It is far from clear that the UK or Australia or Canada do much they wouldn't otherwise do because of US pressure.
It is far more clear that all the economies of the wealthy countries (OECD members generally) benefit from the global situation supported by US policy.
Of course this doesn't mean that everyone in any of the countries agree. And certainly a large number of Australians, Brits, and Canadians express opposition to one, a few or many of the US policies we so often discuss on this blog. But this does not distinguish them from Americans themselves. Indeed, the Canadians recently elected a government widely expected to be even more pro-American than the previous one. The British reelected Blair despite his participation in the war in Iraq. Same for the Australians and Howard.
There are obvious policy differences too. Domestic regulations and welfare structures vary quite a bit.
All that said, there is a trend towards policy convergence in regulatory arrangements around the world. And this phenomenon goes far beyond the superficial things we call "culture." German and Italian regulatory approaches are more like that adopted in the US than the British approach is ever likely to be.
Sure there are many people of British decent in the USA. But there are probably at least as many Germans. I've heard stories that at least two US states nearly declared German as their official languages. My father's family has been in this country for over 100 years and none of my cousins on that side have any British ancestors - I have some but few if any of them are actually English.
// posted by RBR
To be honest, I can't see the UK ever really becoming 'the 52nd (or whatever number!) state', simply because the average Brit is too stubborn to let that happen - I have no better explanation other than just that general feeling.
Thing is, Britain has a *very* long history, during which we've been conquered/invaded and stuff of course (mostly over the period one to two millenia ago), but during which (and much more recently, within the last couple of centuries) we were also the head of a massive empire, exploring the world, leading an industrial revolution etc. All of which is rather entrenched in our culture still - it's a sort of attitude of 'we're British and great and shan't be answering to anyone else thank you very much' kind of view.
In fact, in some ways, this discussion reminds me of the 'shall we join the euro' discussions - the answer tends to be a resounding no, with the reasoning being emotive rather than economical - 'but we've got to keep the pound!'.
I also sometimes wonder (since this is one of those posts) whether the reason for Bush's all conquering attitude (or so it seems at times, maybe he's just trying to get three in a row so he can start building houses & hotels ;-p) is to do with the fact that the US hasn't actually had an empire yet? If you look around the world, most of the other major countries who have similar technological status to the US (albeit less money probably) have had empires - we have, the Italians did (Romans of course), there was the Persian empire, even the French had one (although ours was better of course ;-p) - it seems that all these other cultures are older, they've got the history, it's almost as if they've grown out of their wanting an empire days...
// posted by Pombat
Just to clarify on the JSF argument, the JSF is being built by Lockheed Martin. The major stakeholders are USAF, USN and USMC. The UK is the only tier one partner, having committed over a billion US dollars, and thus getting BAE involved in the subcontracting. One recent concern was the "cost cutting" plan to exclude the development of a second engine being made by Rolls Royce. It would have cut costs but the engine was more powerful and more reliable.
The recent fight over access to the avionics code is fairly simple: the US wants to be able to control what capabilities it gives each country. The Brits want to be able to perform their own flight testing, because they will use this fighter in different ways to the Americans (as will the Australians). The reason for this is simple: USAF has the F-22 which will be the leading edge fighter, with the JSF following up as a bomb-truck. Other countries do not have the F-22. The Brits want the capability to run their own tests and integrate their own weapons as they have done for years.
If the Americans hadn't given the codes to the Brits they may have pulled out and the program would have collapsed. As it is USAF have dropped their numbers -- they'd pull out completely if they could get more F-22s -- and USN have put off saying how many of the carrier variants they will buy. The speculation is that they just want more Super Hornets. Welcome to the politics of the last fighter plane!
// posted by Numbat o Love
Pombat, while the US hasn't had an "empire" in the traditional sense, it has had a history of colonization in its own right. Cuba was pretty much ours as was the Philippines, and several Latin American countries. While we didn't excersise direct control by appointing American governors and such as the other Empires did, we might as well have.
But your point is well taken that the US us operating somewhat like a wayward 20 something who is having some fun running the fraternity and makes sure the pledges pay their dues (apt analogy considering our party president). I, personally, am glad that we have these partnerships . . . us Anglo Saxons have to stick together.
I don't think cooperation means domination. But there comes a point where the connections are so prolific and so deep that you have to stop and ask youself what's up. I am all for cooperation, always have been, and think we will eventually get to a point where we do operate more as a human race rather than an bunch of fragmented nations. The problems we are facing are so global in scope that there is no way around it.
My point about the population was simply to point out that from the British perspective (which was also an Economist article), they are seeing greater emmigration of their nationals. No one will dislodge the paramount position of the good Germans. I mean, afterall, me, myself and I carry that ancestory with a few others. ;-)
Actually, since you mentioned it, here is the US census info on Germans or those that claim that ancestory in American. About 15% of the population claims German ancestry. here are the British Facts. Less than 1% claim British. But if you are looking at the UK as a whole and you figure in the Welsh and the Scotts (which I know is liable to get me clogged to death), you get something like 3% over all.
// posted by USWest
Will the Brits, Canadians, and Americans ever travel freely and work freely? Remember, we had a chance. The Brits blew it in 1776. I'm not sure the Americans have such unique affection for the British and Canadians that we would rejoin a sort of commonwealth. I doubt it, in fact.
// posted by LTG
Numbat said, "Welcome to the politics of the last fighter plane!"
Is it really likely to be the last? Why is that? That's a fascinating notion. Unfortunately I have not followed Air Force stuff nearly as closely as I should have.
To the extent that integration is happening its happening through private sector and the demands that private integration is putting on the regulatory structures.
There's no formal move towards a "world government" or anything like that but there is a tendency towards similar regulatory policies in all capitalist countries. It's all very subtle and understated. Not at all the kind of overt integration that the EU engages in.
// posted by RBR
The reason for the demise of the fighter plane is threefold:
1. Fighters are hugely expensive to build and not really that useful. They are good for getting control of airspace, but not once you have it. And you cannot afford to put a fighter in a fight it may have a chance of losing: either in losing the pilot or in losing the plane. Well, normal countries can't.
2. Control of airspace against other fighters is something only states can get involved in and that seems less and less likely. The rest of the time you are looking at simply crushing Surface to Air Missiles, which may not need a fighter.
3. In an asymmetrical conflict, which is what is happening rather than state-on-state interactions, what you want is the ability to spot something is happening on the ground and react to it quickly. Any slow moving platform is better for striking ground targets than a fighter. Some of the oldest aircraft in the USAF inventory are doing most of the work in Iraq. Fighters cannot loiter for long, and hence can't see much. Uninhabited Air Vehicles (UAVs) for example can. In the Lebanon conflict more hours were flown by UAVs than by fighters.
I'll have ten bucks on UAVs being developed that can carry small munitions and stay in the air for a week at a time. Say a black program from the Skunkworks...? And ten bucks that USAF are trying to ignore their own collapse.
// posted by Numbat o Love
Numbat raises interesting points. Why bother with the high cost/high tech war toys when future wars are going to increasingly involve non-state actors?
Of course in the unlikely event of an evenly matched state-on-state war (i.e. NOT of the variety seen in the two US vs Iraq wars), you want to maximize your probability of winning it because the stakes are that much higher. The question is, "how much is that conditional probability worth in dollars and cents (US or Australian)?"
After reading Numbat's comment, I'm left thinking (again) that these defense projects are often as much about pork-barrel politics and subsidies to favored companies.
// posted by RBR
Defence projects being involved in politics? Surely not!... ;-p
I totally agree with Numbat's view on UAVs - there's going to be quite a few interesting issues with them, for example I hear that the first UAV-committed fratricide has now happened, in the Lebanon conflict in fact (can't find the link to the article right now, but it fired upon a group of soldiers, wounding a few, I don't think there was a fatality), and it does open up a bit of a can of worms as far as who would be taking responsibility for each one (I can't see armed UAVs ever being fully autonomous, there'll have to be a real live person making the fire decision somewhere in there), and who would now count as a combatant - if you're sat in an office in the States say, but controlling a UAV that's flying around a warzone wherever, does that mean that the other side can fire upon the States, or just your office, or what? Not that these kind of questions seem to matter to the type of forces that the Allies have been facing recently of course.
Anyway, those issues aside, UAVs are cheap, quicker & easier to get flying than a fighter jet, much more disposable (you lose a jet, you've quite possibly lost an expensive-to-train pilot too, and gotten all sorts of media attention; you lose a UAV, you just launch another one, and give the operator another coffee), and can be used in many different ways, with less worries about faults (I heard one idea, where the UAV would be fitted with, say three 'explosive packages', with the ability to fire two of them. The third one it would use by simply flying into its target).
LTG: I must admit that my understanding of the American Revolution is rather sketchy - our shamefully narrow school history syllabus concentrated mainly on around 2,000 years of British and European history, with only the odd mention of characters such as Columbus and Cook - but am I right in thinking that the American revolt started soon after the French military threat, and thus the need for British defence, ended?
[puts poking stick away]
USWest: I like your fratboy analogy - that's exactly what I was getting at - just seems to me that every country has a bit of that in it's history (hell, we weren't exactly responsible when we discovered we could happily rampage around the world, declaring bits to be ours because we had a flag and a gun, basically stealing native lands, destroying millenia old cultures, selling people into slavery...), a sort of coming of age type thing, and the US is there about now. I've also wondered if Australia would (assuming they had much more finance at their disposal) ever get to that point, but I've come to the conclusion they'd probably just establish government subsidies on beer :-)
// posted by Pombat
Oh, and I've just been reminded of this link that a friend sent me when he heard my emigration plans - Brits abroad - it's a BBC (but of course!) site showing where the 5-6million Brits who've chosen to leave Britain now call home.
Incidentally, the total population of Australia is just over 20M (according to the CIA world factbook), meaning that over 5% of the population down here are originally British...
// posted by Pombat
On the UAVs, the conspiracy theorists will say that it was a UAV that hit the Pentagon in 2001, not an aircraft. It is a compelling argument when you look at the footage taken from a nearby surveillance camera. But then you have to ask yourself what happened to all the people on the plane that was supposed to have crashed and the whole "theory" starts to unravel. Of course, I am still trying to figure out what happened to all the plane wreckage that never seemed appeared at the Pentagon. Surely it didn’t disintegrate on impact. At least we would have seen a tail or something. But that is another story. The question all of this brings to mind is an ethical one. Would we be more willing to use war as a means if we can reduce OUR costs both in terms of human life and money? Beware of how far we sail, for that is where the monsters lie.
One of the other things that the Israelis are said to be doing is playing with small aircraft, the size of small birds that are radio operated. The intent is to use them for discrete surveillance. I am not sure if there has been much success.
Revolution and French involvement: The French and the Brits were always fighting a war somewhere at that time. And with the American Revolution, the French had an ideal opportunity to fight a war with the Brits way from home.
They had lost their own colonies to the British in 1763. The British, in an attempt to be fair, established the Quebec Act that kept French Civil Code in place in the former French Colonies and allowed for free practice of Catholicism, but that made all criminal law British. This irritated the mostly Protestant American colonies, especially when the Act was extended to the former French colonies between the Ohio and the Mississippi, placing that area under the control of the governor of Quebec. This act is listed as one of the many straws that contributed to the breaking of the camel's back.
When the American revolution started, the French saw an opportunity to gain back their American lands. The Americans really needed French help and had actually made a direct appeal for it.
In 1780, some 5,500 French Troops arrived. George Washington wanted to coordinate with the French to move the British out of New York. By Mid 1781, a fleet of French ship was heading toward Virginia. That fleet fought the British off the coast of Virginia and prevented Cornwallis from escaping by sea. This required Cornwallis to quarter in New York in an attempt to regroup. This cumulated in the battle of Yorktown, last real decisive battle of the Revolution. Some 18,000 French sailors, the forces of George Washington, and the French troops under Lt. Gen. Rochambaeu all coordinated to encircle Cornwallis and his men.
Without their help, the Revolution probably would not have been successful, either that or it would have gone on much longer. As it was, the Revolution wasn't won until 1783. The French had a well-trained, well-equipped army with ships. We had insurgent forces with home field advantage, bravery, good leadership, and a strong motivation to succeed. When you combine that type of insurgency with a good regular army, you have a good chance of winning. Come to think of it, we should have remembered that lesson for Iraq.
// posted by USWest
UAVs are not really cheap. One summary (of many) is here.
Here is a table of approximate cost (varies by payload option) per plane of 4 unmanned and 4 manned systems ($US Millions):
Predator A: 5
Predator B: 7.5
Global Hawk RQ4-A: 32
Global Hawk RQ4-B: 56.5
F/A-18 Hornet: 35
F-22 Raptor (stealth fighter): 120
F-35 (JSF): 32-47
B-2 (stealth bomber): 150
Note: these are replacement or production costs--these figures do not include initial R&D acquisition costs. If the (fixed) initial R&D acquisition costs (and for UAVs, ground stations) are figured in (based on planned production runs), then the per-plane acquisition costs are far higher. Here are some estimates I found (could not find them all):
Predator B: 19
Global Hawk RQ4-B: 130
F-22 Raptor (stealth fighter): 360
B-2 (stealth bomber): 1157-2000
F-35 (JSF): ~100
Anyhow, my point is that UAVs are hardly a panacea. Though they certainly are pretty cool.
I'm telling you, if you haven't seen the movie "Pentagon Wars", rent it and watch it. That is what this whole UAV thing is. Boys like their toys.
// posted by USWest
Dr S is right that UAVs will hardly fill every role, but the costs is hardly comparing apples with oranges. For example Global Hawk is effectively a U2 replacement, with the ability to change internal sensor packages, and will most likely not carry weapons. Predator B -- which I think has been called the Reaper -- has hardened points for something like 8 weapons up to 500lbs, which makes it a pretty cheap alternative to JSF for Close Air Support.
The advantages though are really in the operational changes. Automation means you can fly four aircraft with one ground station. The US Army has already integrated automatic landing on it's UAVs, which is something USAF is resisting. And you can place one asset in theatre loitering for 24 hours as opposed to say 3 hours for a manned fighter. You rotate crews on the ground.
// posted by Numbat o Love
Just found this article on UAVs in USAF for those interested.
// posted by Numbat o Love
Great discussion on the UAVs etc! I'm interested but completely out of my depth on that subject so I'll just observe.
RE: the American Revolution and the reduced need for British "protection" from the French.
The French and Indian War(s) were characterized by two kinds of campaigns. Big European armies marching around the forrest besieging fortresses and fortified cities in the upper Hudson-Champlain-Quebec theater or looking for big enough open spaces to have a nice pitched battle and guerilla raids by North American militia and Native Americans who picked sides in the conflict. It wouldn't surprise me if European historical accounts focus exclusively on the big European armies.
But from the point of view of the North Americans that aspect of the war was a distraction but not a threat. The real threat to them were the raids. A large organized French army was hardly likely to massacre a town full of British subjects along the frontier. But a smallish band of Hourons or Abnaki and Quebecois militia would do just that.
And the raids were focussed on the other important aspect - which LTG alluded to: access to the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes. Those big European armies were completely hopeless in that theater. The famous British defeat in the campaign against what is now Pittsburg is a great example. A large traditionally organized European army marched through the forrest for hundres of miles cutting a road through the trees for their cannon and wagons. The British troops under General Braddock were in scarlet uniforms and marched very neatly. They were accompanied by a large body of Virginia and Pennsylvania colonial militia under the command of George Washington (who were used to the guerilla fighting). This British/Colonial force was attacked by a much smaller force of Quebecois militia, French troops fighting as guerillas and Native Americans. The French force was overwhelming. Bradock was killed and Washington organized a retreat and saved the lives of the surviving British and Colonial forces. An act which simultaneously solidified his military reputation among Americans and killed among the British.
I've also recently heard that estimates suggest that Americans at the time of the Revolution had higher standard of living than British in the "Mother Country." So the Revolution could have been a case of the wealthier region getting sick and tired of being milked by the less productive region that dominated the government.
// posted by RBR
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