FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
U.K. Defense Secretary Williamson Seeks To Force U.S. Back into ‘Special Relationship’
Aug. 12 , 2018 (EIRNS)—British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson was in Washington, D.C. earlier this week, in a major foray to keep the U.S. handcuffed into the “special relationship” with the U.K., and on a collision course with Russia and China. The British have been engaged in damage control in this regard, especially after President Trump’s July 13 visit to the U.K. and his meetings with the Queen and Prime Minister Theresa May, in which Trump was dismissive of the British agenda.
Williamson delivered a major policy address on Aug. 7 at the Atlantic Council, and then went to the Pentagon to meet with U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis. The British Defense Ministry’s website reported that
“current threats to prosperity and safety, including Russia and the ongoing fight against Daesh [ISIS], were among the issues that were high on the agenda”
of their discussions. Little more is known about that meeting, or about Williamson’s other activities while in the U.S., but judging by the sharp escalation in attacks on Russia and China coming from Washington over recent days, it’s likely there was a lot going on behind the scenes.
A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in London responded on Aug. 10 to Williamson’s Atlantic Council speech, that
“an unusually belligerent rhetoric of Gavin Williamson sheds light on the true motives behind the forced increase in spending by NATO countries, expected to reach $1.26 trillion in 2018.”
In his Atlantic Council speech, Williamson attacked “terror-sponsoring Iran” and “rising China” and their “militarization of artificial features in the South China Sea.” But he reserved his nastiest attacks for Russia, which he characterized as
“an increasingly aggressive Russia using every weapon at its disposal to advance its interests. A Russia whose use of covert operations and cyber warfare, political subversion and increased military posturing is part of a wider pattern of malign behavior.”
He then referred to the unproven allegation about Russian involvement in the Novichok poisoning of former Russian GRU Col. Sergei Skripal and his dAughter Yulia, as Moscow’s “first use of chemical weapons in Europe.”
Otherwise, the bulk of his speech focused heavily, and at times defensively, on justifying the Special Relationship and how the U.K. will remain a reliable partner into the future: “The U.S. has never had nor will have a more reliable ally than Great Britain. Others may pretend, but you will find no greater ally than us.”
Williamson concluded with an ungrammatical growl and threat:
“But please never underestimate my nation, as we have changed the world time and time and time again and we will change the world in the future. For we are a nation when we realize it is in our interest or when it is right we as a nation always act.”
