If Blair was a poodle, what breed is Cameron?

In one of the more droll cables released by Wikileaks and published by The Guardian newspaper, reveals how US diplomats are amused by Britain's 'paranoid' fears about so-called special relationship. While the cable release will undoubtedly make some Brits upset that their government is not as independent as the French government under Jacques Chirac or Germany under Gerhard Schröder, the cable also reveals the ever-continuing corrosive influence the American military industrial congressional complex plays in international relations.

Worried that the special relationship between the UK and the US may have been in danger because Barack Obama removed a bust of Winston Churchill given to George Bush by Tony Blair from the Oval Office, the incoming conservative British government tried to do everything in its power to placate the Americans. One of the things the incoming Tory government proposed to the Obama administration, was to reaffirm British support for the latest politically engineered and front-loaded American aircraft, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Political engineering is when a defense company like Lockheed which produces the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, will spread the production of the aircraft to as many congressional districts as possible. This will increase the weapons systems chance at being funded in the development stage and protect the program from any kind of future budget cuts or cancelling of the program.

In addition to political engineering, another bureaucratic gaming strategy used by defense companies like Lockheed and Boeing is frontloading. This tactic over promises what the weapons system will do and under estimates the economic burdens of the system. Over estimate the benefits and under estimate the burdens.

According to the Guardian:

Liam Fox, now the defense secretary, promised to buy American military equipment, while the current foreign secretary, William Hague, offered the ambassador a "pro-American" government. Hague also said the entire Conservative leadership were, like him, "staunchly Atlanticist" and "children of Thatcher".

Fox met the US ambassador, Louis Susman, a year ago. In a 10 December 2009 cable marked "confidential", Susman recorded: "Liam Fox affirmed his desire to work closely with the US if the Conservative party wins power … adding that 'we (Conservatives) intend to follow a much more pro-American profile in procurement'." He reportedly went on: "Increasing US-UK 'interoperability is the key' since the US and UK will continue to fight together in the future" and "expressed confidence regarding US leadership in Afghanistan and optimism about the way forward".

Britain's willingness to invest in expensive weaponry is a key part of the so-called special relationship. The UK's annual military budget is running at £37bn a year.

Fox's reference to more procurement from the US shows his zest for heavy spending on two future big-ticket items – the joint strike fighter [JSF], and the £20bn replacement for the Trident nuclear weapons system. The largely US-built JSF will be formidably expensive, and the original scheme was for Britain to buy up to 138 of them at £150m each, to go on giant aircraft carriers.

It is good to know that the British taxpayers will be soon supporting the corrupt and greedy American arms manufactures with the purchase of more F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. Here in America we do have socialism, it is socialism for the rich and corporate welfare for politically connected corporations. While unemployed Americans are denied unemployment assistance, wealthy Americans get tax breaks and politically connected companies over charge the American tax payer for unneeded weapon systems.

While the F-22 was the latest costly and over priced military aircraft to come out of the American military industrial congressional complex, the F-35 was originally proposed to the American people for a unit price of $ 184 million per aircraft, by 2008 the unit price for each F-35 has risen to over $ 335 million per aircraft.

It is comforting to know that the conservative Tory government of David Cameroon is willing to provide the corporate welfare to the American defense companies like Lockheed Martin have come to rely on for their corporate business growth model.