White House no longer sees anything special in UK relations

Britain's nail-biting election, and the fragile coalition government it seems likely to produce, are confirming many of Washington's worst fears about the country's dwindling influence in the world.

Once the US' most reliable ally, the UK is now seen as a distant player in the crisis over the Ukraine and the euro, has introduced swingeing cuts to its military and recently rebuffed Washington by joining a China-led bank.

On top of that, the Obama administration is waking up to the prospect that the next government in London could be even more inward-looking as it grapples with Britain's membership of the European Union and strong support for Scottish independence.

US officials say they still value close intelligence and military ties with the UK, but at times sound almost dismissive about the current British government's reluctance to play a bigger role in the world.

"They are still one of our first phone calls but there are times when they just do not seem that engaged," says a senior administration official.

The fabled "special relationship" between Washington and London has always contained an element of hype that played to Britain's postcolonial quest for relevance. Successive US administrations have valued Britain's role as a bridge between North America and the EU, as a mediator within Nato and as a reliable supporter in times of crisis.

"Until recently, Britain was very much our most trusted, dependable and capable ally," says Nicholas Burns, a former US ambassador to Nato and third-ranking official at the state department, who worries that Britain might soon no longer play a "central role in global affairs".

"It is very striking the way that Angela Merkel has become the undisputed leader of Europe," he said.

British officials demur that Germany was always going to be the dominant voice in discussions over the euro - of which the UK is not a member - and even over Ukraine, given its greater proximity and ties with Russia.

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But American anxiety about British relevance is also based on the major reductions in the British military, which has seen the army cut from 102,000 to 82,000 and has left the navy without a functioning aircraft carrier.

Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, has called the defence cuts in the UK and other parts of Europe "very concerning", while General Ray Odierno, head of the US army, said last month that the smaller British force meant the Pentagon would have to make adjustments "to see that we can still work together".

The worry in Washington is that election results will only further British disengagement. President Barack Obama has a reasonably close and personal relationship with British prime minister David Cameron and would not relish having to establish a rapport with a new leader, especially given the predictions that the next British government might be shortlived.

It has not gone unnoticed in Washington that Labour leader Ed Miliband's recent foreign policy speech barely mentioned the US or that he has been making a virtue of his 2013 opposition to US air strikes in Syria. "Standing up to the leader of the free world shows a certain amount of toughness," he said last month.

<>However, Mr Cameron has promised a referendum on Britain's place in the EU - something the US sees as central to London's international influence - and the one certainty about the election results seems to be a new debate about Scotland's place within the UK.

Some analysts also believe Mr Cameron might have to make additional cuts to the military in order to meet his budget targets. Frank Hoffman, at the National Defense University in Washington, says he doubts that "the UK is turning inward in a strategic sense". But he also believes that further cuts would mean "Britain's claim as a major power will be more precarious than it has been in hundreds of years".

The frustrations in Washington with Mr Cameron's government burst into the open last month when a senior US official accused the UK of "constant accommodation" of China after London decided to join the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Mr Obama himself has also been accused of looking to disengage from parts of America's traditional role in the world and one former senior US official said that the president had not been helped by Mr Cameron's international reticence. He pointed to Margaret Thatcher's famous warning to George HW Bush after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 that he should not "go wobbly".

The former US official continued: "Obama has at times looked lost and it would have helped him to have a stronger British prime minister who could have given him some direction."

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