Britain: Great Power?
I obtained today some interesting material from the Atomic Heritage Foundation, which is not a nuclear-armed version of the Conservative think-tank, but a charitable body dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Manhattan Project for the nation. Actually, make that two nations. The material makes it clear that the Project was an Anglo-American one from the get-go, having been inspired by two memos from the UK and with sustained British involvement, most notably from nobel laureate Sir James Chadwick, discoverer of the Neutron. I never fail to be amazed by the extent of Anglo-American co-operation during WWII, and this should be a lesson to those Brits who fundamentally distrust the USA, that so vital an endeavor was willingly shared.
Anyway, this all brings me on to two excellent articles on the theme of Britain and its relations with the US. Frequent correspondent Lexington Green has a lengthy, but compelling post on why Britain is a genuine world power. He argues that it is not so much Blair's doing, as Christopher Caldwell argued yesterday, but that Blair is one of the few to realize it. I have to say that I think John Major was leading us down a course where things could have gone from bad to worse and it is to Blair's credit that he reversed that, at least partially. I am also worried about the cultural rot in the UK, which could lead to the whole lot collapsing despite its evident strength at the moment, which lex describes so admirably.
Meanwhile, in the Washington Times, my friends Nile Gardiner and John Hulsman explain for the American audience why Britain will fight in Iraq. It's a simple but again compelling recitation of the facts in the case. Again, this is how Heritage thinks. It's how conservative Washington thinks. That's the reality of the matter.