Unsentimental Symbiosis

With startling frankness, the official British Information Services underscored a basic fact of power politics--the symbiotic interdependence of the U.S. and Britain. Said B.I.S.: Britain is three things to the U.S.: 1) a customer; 2) a base for military operations against Europe; 3) a powerful military ally.

"That no other country fills this bill is obvious from the facts and the history of the last few years," said B.I.S. "As a customer, Britain bought American exports totaling $521,000,000 in 1938. In prewar years she was consistently the biggest foreign customer of the U.S. . . . Britain is, in fact, so big a customer that economists agree that her purchases or lack of them are enough to tip the balance between prosperity and slump in America.

"As a military base, Britain is the only piece of land in friendly hands, big enough, and within reach of the continent of Europe (and also able or willing to provide the necessary facilities), on which a large American force can assemble for launching an attack. Britain is thus America's eastern frontier and first line of defense.

"As a powerful military ally, Britain is the only country which, at the same time, is easily reachable from the U.S. and has industrial plants and techniques (and therefore war potential) comparable, for its size, to America's own. It is also the only country with a world-encircling system of bases and defense outposts."

Identical Self-Interest. Since Britain has to import almost all its raw materials, it has to export to pay for them. If Britain Were conceivably to change its economy and reduce its population to about ten million, it would need only small industries and a small overseas trade.

But "such a Britain," said B.I.S., "would be useless to the U.S., both commercially and militarily. If it had existed in 1940, the Germans would have overrun it as easily as they overran Denmark. . . . Thus the only way for Britain to be of value to the U.S. is for her to continue with her large population and her great, enterprising industrial economy. And the only way she can maintain these is for her to have immense export markets for her goods, services and investments, as well as the means of access to them--shipping and airlines. . . .

"It is to the interest of both Britain and the U.S. that Britain should be a prosperous, well-populated industrial nation serving extensive export markets. British and American national self-interests are thus identical and complementary. Here is the really solid and unsentimental basis for continued cooperation between the two countries after the war."

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