It is a peculiar thing to witness a nation’s birthday party being gatecrashed by its own anxieties. As the United States hurtles toward its 250th anniversary, the general mood across the 49th parallel is less confetti and more clenched jaw. Canadians, those perpetually polite diagnosticians of American decay, are sharing their hopes and fears for the occasion with a candour that borders on the unseemly. Meanwhile, from across the Atlantic, the United Kingdom slinks forward with the lubricated grace of a Victorian fixer, smelling an opportunity to reforge the old Anglo-Saxon alliance. It is all terribly historical, and terribly amusing.
Let us first address the Canadian condition. To be Canada is to live in the shadow of a superpower that is simultaneously a sibling, a landlord and a cautionary tale. The approach of America’s 250th birthday has triggered a bout of national soul-searching that is as predictable as it is poignant. Canadians fear the obvious: the further erosion of the liberal international order, the rise of an America that is more Roman Empire in its decadent phase than beacon of democracy. They hope, however, that this milestone might serve as a mirror, forcing their southern neighbour to recollect its founding ideals. But this is wishful thinking of the highest order. The American project has always been about reinvention, and the current reinvention involves a retreat from globalism into a fortress of grievance. Canada, with its multiculturalist piety and climate change pieties, looks on with the anxiety of a man whose roommate has started hoarding weapons.
Enter Britain, stage left. The United Kingdom, still nursing its own post-imperial melancholy, sees in America’s quarter millennium a chance to reassert its relevance. The whispered word in Whitehall and the City is ‘alliance’ – not the ‘special relationship’ of yore, but something more transactional, more functional. The Americans are tired, and the British are pragmatic. There is a feeling that the United States, distracted by its own existential crisis, might be persuaded to hand over some of the architectural responsibilities of the West to its most loyal, if somewhat arthritic, ally. This is a dangerous game. To tie Britain’s fortunes to a nation celebrating its 250th birthday while suffering a nervous breakdown is what the Romans would have called a gambit that ends in tears.
But the opportunity is real. America’s birthday is also a moment of weakness. The country is riven by class, race and ideology. Its institutions are battered. Its global prestige is a shadow of its Cold War zenith. In such times, the British model of soft power, of legalism and banking, of cultural export and intelligence sharing, becomes attractive. The Americans need friends who do not require active warfare. The British need a purpose beyond the old Empire. It is a marriage of convenience, but convenience has bred stronger unions before.
Yet we must not let the rhetoric obscure the reality. The American 250th is not a celebration of triumphalism but of survival. The country has made it this far without tearing itself apart, which is no small feat for a republic. Canada’s fears are valid. Britain’s opportunism is understandable. But let us not pretend that any alliance will restore the Pax Americana. That era is over. What we are witnessing is the birth pangs of the next world order, messy and unpredictable. The Canadians will continue to fret. The British will continue to scheme. And the Americans will blow out their candles and wonder where the last 250 years went. It is, as always, a thoroughly human spectacle.
In the end, the 250th birthday of the United States is a reminder that empires do not die. They simply change costumes. The question is whether the new costume will be a toga, a business suit, or a straitjacket. The Canadians and the British are both betting on the business suit. But history, that cruel jester, may have other plans.
