UK Government, linked to United States in its 'special relationship', is reluctant to criticize the Donald Trump administration. With one exception: Washington's attacks on the value of NATO soldiers - and, by extension, the UK - in the 'war on terrorism' launched by the US after the 9/11 attacks.
Former Prime Minister Keir Starmer described Donald Trump's statements in January as "insulting" when he said NATO troops had been "a little bit far from the front" in Afghanistan. Yesterday, it was the turn of his successor's government, Andy Burnham, to respond to US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's claims that "only one or two" NATO partners (excluding the US) "engaged in combat operations". A spokesperson for the Prime Minister's office called them "wrong", with a word that also carries moral criticism. "The facts speak for themselves when it comes to the UK and NATO's contribution to Afghanistan," Downing Street said.
Approximately a third of all non-Afghan military personnel who fell in Afghanistan were not American. Only 405 British - including soldiers and civilians attached to the Ministry of Defence of that country - died in combat, along with 158 Canadians, 90 French, 35 Germans, or 15 Spaniards, to name a few. None of these countries had been attacked by Afghan Taliban or Al Qaeda when the US launched the war in response to the attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
Hegseth made these statements at the University of Tennessee, where he joked that the acronym ISAF (NATO's mission acronym in that country) was mocked by US soldiers, interpreting it as "I Saw Americans Fight". The Defense Secretary apparently does not know that out of the 130,000 military personnel that ISAF had between 2010 and 2012, 78,000 were American. Furthermore, when he served in the war, he did so within ISAF. However, Hegseth also claimed to have been deployed to the country twice, despite only being deployed once.
The disagreement over Afghanistan adds to recent statements by Donald Trump showing sympathy for the reunification of Ireland - which would imply the separation of Northern Ireland from the UK - successful US pressures on London to reverse the agreement to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius, and the US Department of Defense withholding the latest report on the production and modernization of the F-35 fighter jet.