In a July 1 policy piece on how to handle the “next American revolution” now underway, Laurel Rapp, Director of the U.S. and North American Program of Chatham House (as the Royal Institute of International Affairs is known), recounts an “amusing local story” about Chatham House: “King George III spent many hours poring over military plans in a basement near Buckingham Palace, scheming how best to suppress troublesome revolutionaries. That basement, the rumor goes, was located in what is now Chatham House.”
Chatham House continues as the center of British scheming against the United States.
Rapp’s premise is that “Europeans” recognize that “irrespective of who next presides over the Congress or sits behind the White House’s Resolute Desk, the U.S. is fundamentally altering its role in the world.” The task, then, is to keep the U.S. tied into the Anglo-American Trans-Atlantic alliance. She proposes that be done by divvying up responsibilities: Europe takes the lead against Russia, the U.S. against China. As she puts it:
“The US provides Europe with a nuclear umbrella, integration in US capital markets and preferential access to American technology. Europe grants the US access to its capital, offers secure supply chains for key technology inputs and extends the reach of its sanctions. As Europe takes on fuller ownership of its own neighborhood, especially across its eastern flank, the US will be freed up to look east.”
