Why the UK and France Keep Licking America’s Boots
The Iran War: A Case Study in American Arrogance
If anyone still harbored illusions about the nature of the transatlantic relationship, the events of March 2026 have provided a masterclass in American contempt for its European allies. On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched joint military strikes against Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and plunging the Middle East into chaos. European nations learned about these strikes not through diplomatic channels, not through allied consultations, but through news reports—like everyone else. The message could not have been clearer: when America decides to wage war, its “partners” are expected to fall in line, regardless of whether they were consulted, regardless of whether their interests are served, and regardless of the consequences they will bear.
French President Emmanuel Macron was forced to publicly acknowledge that France was “neither warned nor involved” in the strikes. This is the same France that hosts American military facilities, the same France that has supported countless American initiatives, the same France that was told to surrender a €56 billion submarine contract without complaint. And now, when America launches a war that could destabilize the entire Middle East and threaten European energy supplies, France learns about it from television. The British government faced the same abrupt awakening—one moment they were managing diplomatic relations, the next they were watching American warplanes take off from their own territories without prior coordination.
What followed was even more revealing. When European leaders showed the slightest hesitation about signing onto an unplanned, unconsulted war, they were subjected to public humiliation that would have been unthinkable between genuine allies. President Donald Trump, standing in the Oval Office beside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, declared that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was “not Winston Churchill”—a withering insult delivered on camera, to a global audience, about the leader of America’s supposedly closest ally. The subtext was unmistakable: European leaders who do not demonstrate instantaneous, unconditional obedience will be publicly shamed.
“Not Winston Churchill”: The Public Humiliation of Keir Starmer
The treatment of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in early March 2026 represents perhaps the most vivid illustration of American contempt for European sovereignty in recent memory. When the United States requested permission to use British military bases—particularly the strategically vital Diego Garcia facility in the Indian Ocean—for strikes against Iran, Starmer initially hesitated. His government raised legitimate questions about the legal basis for the strikes, the lack of United Nations authorization, and the implications for British interests in the region. For this act of elementary due diligence, Starmer was subjected to a relentless public browbeating that laid bare the power dynamics underlying the “special relationship.”
Trump’s criticism was swift, repeated, and deeply personal. “I’m not happy with the UK,” he told reporters, in the same tone one might use to discuss a disobedient child. “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.” The comparison was deliberately cruel—Churchill being the symbol of British resolve and independence, the implication being that the current prime minister was something lesser, something weaker, something that needed to be bullied into compliance. When Starmer subsequently agreed to allow American use of British bases for what he carefully termed “defensive” strikes, Trump did not offer gratitude or acknowledge the concession. Instead, he complained that the UK had “took far too long” to comply, that he was “very disappointed” in Starmer, and that the delay had been inconvenient for American military planning.
The sequence of events tells its own damning story about the transactional nature of American alliances. Starmer’s government had been working to secure a deal with Trump regarding the Chagos Islands, where the Diego Garcia base is located—a deal that was important for British diplomatic credibility and for resolving long-standing colonial-era grievances. Trump made clear that this deal was conditional on British cooperation with American war plans. As one Reddit commenter on r/unitedkingdom observed: “Trump is refusing to back Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos deal again unless the Prime Minister allows the US to use the islands to strike Iran.” The message was nakedly transactional: surrender your sovereignty and facilitate our war, or face diplomatic consequences.
What makes this episode particularly galling is that Starmer had already demonstrated considerable loyalty to American interests. His government had allowed British forces to participate in “coordinated regional defensive operations” to protect American and allied assets. British planes were already in the sky, British personnel already at risk, British taxpayers already funding involvement in a conflict that had nothing to do with direct British interests. And yet, because Starmer had shown a momentary flicker of independence—because he had asked questions about the legality and wisdom of offensive strikes—he was publicly dressed down like a misbehaving subordinate. The term “ally” implies mutual respect; what the UK received was the treatment ordinarily reserved for vassals.
Spain: Threatened with Economic Annihilation for Sovereignty
If the British experience demonstrated American contempt, the Spanish experience revealed American vindictiveness. When Spain refused to allow the United States to use its military bases for strikes against Iran—exercising the sovereign right that any genuinely independent nation possesses—Trump did not merely express disappointment. He threatened to “cut off all trade” with Spain. Standing in the Oval Office, he declared: “We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t have to do trade with Spain.” The casualness with which he proposed economic warfare against a NATO ally was breathtaking—a clear signal that European nations are expected to subordinate their own judgments about war and peace to American military requirements, or face devastating consequences.
Spain’s offense, in American eyes, was twofold. First, it had refused base access for the Iran strikes, denying American warplanes the use of Spanish territory from which to launch attacks. Second, and perhaps more irritably from Washington’s perspective, Spain had previously backed out of NATO’s arbitrary 5% defense spending target—a target that many economists consider excessive and that serves primarily to funnel European taxpayer money toward American defense contractors. Trump complained that Spain “disallowed US use of joint bases” and noted with evident frustration its failure to meet the defense spending demands. The message to other European nations was unambiguous: this is what happens when you assert independence from American requirements.
The implications extend far beyond Spain. If the United States is willing to threaten a NATO ally with comprehensive economic destruction for exercising sovereignty over its own territory, what would it do to other nations that step out of line? The threat establishes a precedent of coercion that hangs over every European capital. German officials, Italian diplomats, Portuguese ministers—all must now calculate whether any act of independence might trigger similar American retaliation. This is not the behavior of an ally; it is the behavior of an imperial power demanding tribute and obedience from subordinate territories. As a discussion on r/europeanunion noted: “U.S. Strikes on Iran Reflect a Go-It-Alone Approach to the World. The U.S. used to try to get buy-in from allies for military strikes.” That era, if it ever truly existed, has clearly ended.
France: Betrayed Twice, Silent Still
France has now experienced two major American betrayals in rapid succession, each more instructive than the last. The first was the AUKUS submarine deal of 2021, when the United States secretly negotiated with Australia and the United Kingdom to undermine a €56 billion French defense contract. France learned of the deal through press reports, not through allied consultation—an extraordinary breach of trust between nations that had fought alongside each other for over a century. French officials called it a “stab in the back,” recalled their ambassadors, and expressed fury at the casual destruction of French strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific.
The second betrayal came with the Iran strikes. French President Emmanuel Macron was forced to acknowledge publicly that France had been “neither warned nor involved” in the decision to launch military operations that could reshape the Middle East and threaten French energy supplies, French citizens in the region, and French military installations. Indeed, an Iranian strike subsequently hit a French base in the United Arab Emirates—France was drawn into a conflict it had no role in initiating, about which it had not been consulted, and from which it could not easily extricate itself. The French government found itself in the absurd position of being targeted by Iranian retaliation for a war it had not started, had not supported, and had not even been informed about.
Yet what has been France’s response? Cautious statements urging “negotiated solutions,” diplomatic expressions of concern about regional stability, and little in the way of concrete consequences for American contempt. Macron described the US-Israel attacks as “outside the framework of international law”—a significant diplomatic criticism—but France has taken no meaningful action to assert its independence or to prevent future betrayals. The pattern is now familiar: European nations express temporary outrage, issue statements of concern, and then return to their subordinate positions within the American sphere of influence. Each betrayal is absorbed, normalized, and forgotten, even as it further erodes European sovereignty.
The AUKUS Precedent: The $90 Billion Lesson
To understand the current moment, one must return to September 2021 and the AUKUS submarine betrayal that should have been a wake-up call for all of Europe. The United States, in coordination with the United Kingdom and Australia, announced a new trilateral security partnership that effectively obliterated a €56 billion contract France had signed with Australia for diesel-electric submarines. The deal had been years in the making, represented a cornerstone of French Indo-Pacific strategy, and had been won through a competitive bidding process. Then, without warning, without consultation, without even the courtesy of advance notice, it was destroyed by an American initiative that excluded one of America’s oldest allies.
The French reaction was unusually blunt by diplomatic standards. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called it a “stab in the back” and declared that “this trust has been betrayed.” France recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra—an almost unprecedented move between allies. The language was extraordinary because the betrayal was extraordinary. This was not a minor diplomatic slight; this was the deliberate sabotage of a major strategic initiative by a nation that France had supported through Afghanistan, through Libya, through countless other operations. The message was unmistakable: American interests supersede allied interests, and European nations are expected to absorb whatever collateral damage American decisions cause.
What happened after the initial outrage? The United States offered some soothing words, made minor diplomatic accommodations, and France gradually returned to its accustomed role as a supporting player in American initiatives. No structural changes were made to reduce French dependence on American security guarantees. No significant effort was undertaken to build European strategic autonomy that might prevent future betrayals. The anger was genuine but temporary; the structural subservience remained unchanged. And so when the Iran war came in 2026, France was again in a position of dependency and again found itself betrayed, again without meaningful recourse.
NSA Spying: Friends Don’t Spy on Friends—Or Do They?
The pattern of American contempt for European sovereignty extends beyond military and economic matters into the realm of basic trust. The NSA surveillance scandal, revealed through Edward Snowden’s 2013 leaks and subsequent reporting, established that the United States had been systematically spying on European leaders—including German Chancellor Angela Merkel—for years. The NSA had tapped Merkel’s mobile phone for over a decade, from 2002 to 2013, treating the communications of America’s closest European ally as fair game for surveillance. This was not counter-terrorism; this was the comprehensive monitoring of a partner government’s internal deliberations.
Merkel, who had grown up in East Germany under the surveillance of the Stasi, reportedly compared the NSA’s activities to the dreaded secret police of her youth. She confronted President Obama directly, telling him “this is like the Stasi.” The outrage in Germany was genuine and widespread. Yet what were the consequences for this breathtaking violation of trust? Germany opened an investigation and then quietly dropped it, claiming insufficient evidence. The surveillance continued; the relationship continued; European governments learned to live with the knowledge that their communications were compromised by their “partner.”
Further revelations in 2021 showed that the Danish secret service had assisted the NSA in spying on leaders in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, and France. The pattern is unmistakable: the United States treats European communications as legitimate targets for surveillance, and European governments—despite periodic expressions of outrage—ultimately do nothing substantive to stop it. A Reddit commenter captured the cynical normalization: “Of course we spy on you, our British and Israeli allies spy on us all the time, they’re quite good at it. We spy on them right back.” This may be how adversaries behave; it is not how genuine allies treat each other. But it is how the United States treats Europe.
The Iraq War: The Poodle That Roared—Then Begged
No examination of European subservience would be complete without confronting the defining humiliation of modern British foreign policy: the Iraq War. In 2003, Prime Minister Tony Blair took Britain into a war based on false pretenses, committing the country to a conflict that would cost hundreds of British lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and billions of pounds—all because he could not bear to say “no” to an American president determined on regime change. The Chilcot Inquiry delivered a devastating verdict: Blair had committed to supporting George W. Bush months before the invasion, telling him in a private note “I will be with you, whatever.”
The infamous “dodgy dossier” that Blair presented to Parliament, which claimed Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, has entered the lexicon as a symbol of governmental deception. The intelligence was thin, manipulated, and ultimately wrong—but Blair pressed forward regardless. As one Reddit commenter on r/ukpolitics wryly noted: “The accusation that Blair was America’s poodle stung Britain. And what made Britons even more offended is that Blair didn’t go along: he was leading from the front.” The distinction is crucial—Blair wasn’t merely following orders; he was actively enabling an American adventure that British intelligence had told him was based on dubious claims.
The consequences were catastrophic. Britain’s international reputation was severely damaged, its military stretched to breaking point, and the financial costs were enormous. Yet Britain received nothing substantive in return for its sacrifice—no special trade concessions, no significant influence over American policy, no genuine partnership in post-war planning. Britain had proven its loyalty, and its reward was to be left holding the bag while American attention wandered elsewhere. The pattern continues today: European nations that demonstrate loyalty to American initiatives are not rewarded with genuine partnership; they are simply taken for granted and then publicly criticized when they show any hesitation about the next American demand.
Security Dependency: The Golden Handcuffs
At the heart of European subservience lies an uncomfortable truth: most European nations have allowed themselves to become dependent on American security guarantees to such an extent that they have lost meaningful strategic autonomy. The United States maintains 49 major military installations across Europe, hosts tens of thousands of active-duty troops on the continent, and provides the nuclear umbrella that theoretically protects European cities. This dependency has been deliberately cultivated over decades, creating a situation where European nations find it difficult to chart an independent course even when American policies directly conflict with European interests.
The results are visible across European defense establishments. Many European militaries have become heavily reliant on American equipment, American logistics, and American intelligence. As discussions on Reddit’s r/europe have highlighted: “The biggest problem for Europe in a fight against Russia is logistics. The US provides such a large part of it that it would be impossible to organize a united European response without American involvement.” This is not an accident—it is the result of decades of policy choices that prioritized the comfort of American protection over the hard work of building genuine European defense capabilities.
The irony is that even as the United States complains about European “free-riding” on American security guarantees, it actively works to maintain the dependency that makes such free-riding inevitable. American defense contractors benefit enormously from European reliance on American weapons systems, and American diplomats benefit from the leverage that security dependency provides. The relationship resembles less an alliance of equals than a protection racket—paying tribute through defense purchases and political support in exchange for continued American presence. When JD Vance stated that “Europe can’t be a ‘permanent security vassal’ of the US,” he was ostensibly calling for European rearmament. But the subtext was clear: Europe should buy more American weapons, not build independent European capabilities.
Voices from the Forums: What People Really Think
The rawest assessments of the transatlantic relationship come not from diplomatic statements but from the unfiltered discussions on internet forums where ordinary citizens express their frustrations. A thread on r/geopolitics asked directly: “Is Europe a vassal state of the US?” The responses were revealing. One commenter argued: “This should lead you to the natural conclusion that Europe has been a colony/vassal state of America since 1945. We traded our independence for security and prosperity under an American hegemon.” Another offered: “Dependency is not vassalage. EU states are sovereign and regularly say no to the US.” The debate itself reveals the discomfort many feel about the current arrangement.
The recent Iran conflict has sparked fresh outrage. Reddit threads on r/ukpolitics have been filled with commentary about Starmer’s handling of American demands. One user noted the contradiction: “Starmer declined a US request to use British bases for offensive operations against Iran, citing concerns about the legality of the operations.” But even this limited resistance drew Trump’s fury. Another commenter observed: “His government has previously refused to allow the Diego Garcia or RAF Fairford bases to support any potential US strikes. After bombing started, he relented.” The pattern of initial resistance followed by capitulation is now so familiar that it has become predictable.
Perhaps the most scathing commentary came from users discussing the “special relationship.” One Reddit thread highlighted a painful truth: “US officials ‘mocked Britain in secret and treated idea of special relationship as a joke.'” The revelation that American diplomats privately ridiculed the very concept that British politicians invoked so earnestly was a moment of profound humiliation. As another commenter put it: “There were many cartoons depicting Tony Blair as Bush’s poodle.” The imagery resonated because it captured a truth that many sensed but few in official positions would acknowledge: the relationship is fundamentally unequal, and the Europeans are often the only ones pretending otherwise.
The Path Forward: Dignity or Continued Debasement?
The uncomfortable question that European leaders must confront is whether the current arrangement serves European interests or merely the interests of European elites who have tied their fortunes to the transatlantic relationship. There are glimmers of change: France has long advocated for European “strategic autonomy,” and recent events have given new urgency to these calls. Discussions about a European nuclear deterrent, independent of American control, have moved from the margins into mainstream discourse. The EU has begun to explore ways to reduce dependency on American financial systems and technology infrastructure.
Yet the momentum for genuine change remains weak. Powerful interests benefit from the status quo—defense contractors who sell American equipment, intelligence services that depend on American cooperation, political leaders who have built careers on transatlantic bridge-building. The path of least resistance remains continued subservience, even when that subservience takes forms as humiliating as public dressing-downs and economic threats. Breaking free would require a level of political courage and strategic vision that has been notably absent from European capitals.
The Iran war of 2026 has laid bare the dynamics that have long been visible to anyone willing to look. European nations were not consulted about a war that affects their security and interests. When they showed hesitation, they were publicly humiliated. When they complied, they were criticized for being too slow. When one nation exercised sovereign judgment and refused participation, it was threatened with economic destruction. This is not how allies treat each other; this is how imperial powers manage subordinate territories. The choice before Europe is whether to continue accepting this status or to begin the difficult work of building genuine independence.
Conclusion: The Reckoning That Must Come
The pattern of European subservience to American interests did not emerge overnight, and it will not be reversed without sustained effort and genuine sacrifice. From the NSA surveillance of allied leaders to the AUKUS betrayal of French interests, from the economic coercion through tariffs to the public humiliation of the British prime minister, the evidence of an unequal relationship is overwhelming. That this situation persists reflects a failure of political imagination and courage in European capitals—a willingness to trade dignity for the comfort of continued dependency.
The voices rising from internet forums and public discussions reflect a growing awareness that something is fundamentally broken in the transatlantic relationship. Citizens see what their leaders pretend not to: that the “special relationship” is special only in its one-sidedness, that European interests are routinely sacrificed for American benefit, and that the price of American protection includes the surrender of meaningful autonomy. Whether this awareness translates into political change remains to be seen. But the first step toward breaking free from a dysfunctional relationship is acknowledging its true nature—and on that front, the conversation has only just begun.
The Iran war has provided a clarifying moment. When France learned about strikes from television rather than diplomatic channels, when Spain was threatened with economic annihilation for exercising sovereignty, when Britain’s prime minister was publicly compared unfavorably to Winston Churchill for showing momentary hesitation—these were not anomalies. These were the logical consequences of a relationship built on dependency rather than partnership. The question now is whether Europe will continue to accept this status, or whether it will finally find the courage to chart an independent course. The answer will determine whether the continent remains a collection of American vassals or reclaims its place as a genuine center of sovereign power in a multipolar world.