The special relationship wasn’t damaged over Syria – nothing could be further from the truth

Much has been made in certain areas of the press, that Ed Miliband’s decision not to support the case for military intervention in Syria has irreversibly damaged the special relationship between the US and UK. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Every four months some four hundred plus of the United States best and brightest college graduates step off buses at the Qantico Marine Corps Base in northern Virginia to begin their Officer Candidate School training.  These men and women will embark on a mentally and physically rigorous programme of assessment and training to prepare them to lead one of the most modern and highly regarded Corps of military personnel in the world.  From each class of inductees comes not only the leaders of some of the most universally-respected combat-infantry platoons who serve in Afghanistan and elsewhere, but the future leaders of the nation’s military. Every single Marine Officer over the past four decades shares two common bonds – they have graduated from Quantico and the British have played a key role in their training.

This is because since the summer of 1972, when those keen and bright officer candidates step off their bus, their Physical Training programme has been in the hands of a senior NCO from the Royal Marines.  For more than four decades the Royal Marines have provided a very specific and crucial component to their counterparts in the United States. The US Marine Corps – unlike our Royal Marines – doesn’t have a specific career discipline in Physical Training (PT) and so from the initial three mile run in 24 minutes or less, right through their training, Royal Marines have supported, coached and assessed every future leader.

When the Commons Defence Committee visited Quantico and other US military bases earlier this year I was struck by just how integrated our two nations Armed Forces are.  Whether it be in the senior staff structure of the Pentagon, Marine Bases such as Quantico, the Command Centre of US Operations in Afghanistan, or even flying off the deck of a US Carrier in an F-18, British officers and enlisted personnel are playing key roles. Equally, in British military units at home and around the globe, our closest allies are serving with distinction.  US and UK officers attend each other’s Staff Courses at our military academies and we are developing new equipment such as the F-35 as full partners. Of course this joint working is nothing new, historical records show that 22 officers and men served under Lord Nelson on HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.

The Special Relationship is not about how early in the day the British Prime Minister gets a phone call from the White House, or whether the President can be bothered to remember the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.  The relationship is founded on absolute interoperability of British and American forces.  Or to put it in the words of one very senior military US General who the Defence Committee met; “There is a very, very short list of countries under whose command I’d be prepared to trust my men’s lives with, and the UK is on it.”  There is deep integration of our Armed Forces, along with our Foreign and Intelligence services, and whilst it is easy for commentators to write up any divergence of US/UK relations as the end of the special relationship, this is a deep bond between our countries, not a marriage of convenience.

Ed Miliband knows this of course, and that’s why all the talk of the ending of the Special Relationship after Parliament voted against military action in Syria is nonsense. Furthermore, this difficult choice is recognised by the US too.  It is certain that the US would have wanted the UK to be a partner in any military operation, but our ongoing partnership isn’t going to collapse because we disagree on one single course of action.  The relationship is special not because of the concept that our political leaders will blindly follow each other’s lead all the time, but because our Armed Forces train and serve together over the long term, and that is something to be proud of.