Britain has a friend in Mitt Romney, so David Cameron should get to know him Far from being a mere phrase in polite diplomatic speeches, the "special relationship" in the Falklands war was what Mr Lehman calls a "functional reality." The ties of history, culture, kit, intelligence, men and know-how were all there, all ready, all working. They won the day. The above is of great interest to historians, but it also matters now. Alliances between nations only really justify themselves when they are tested by events, and they tend to fail that test if they are not bound by deep ties of friendship and cooperation. This weekend, David Cameron is at Camp David for the G8 Summit. All the leaders present are, in various ways, allies, but, under the strains of current economic adversity, are they friends? Because of the folly of the eurozone, the other European leaders are weak - even weaker, despite Germany's wealth, than we are. And because we rightly declined to take part in the eurozone, they are furious with us. All Europeans have a common interest, of course, in our continent's prosperity and security, but beyond that generalisation lies a morass of impotence and ill feeling. Mr Cameron, whose advisers have too great a bias in favour of incumbents, made relations frostier still by backing Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential election. He refused to see Francois Hollande, who won. In Downing Street, it feels good to have a warm relationship with President Obama. It helps to get on well with the leader of the free world, and the Cameron modernisers" taste for political cross-dressing is satisfied by being seen with the Democrats. Besides, for many people, Mr Obama still carries a touch of Nelson Mandela magic, even though Harvard Law School provides a less glamorous "backstory" than Robben Island. He remains the best global political photo-opportunity. Mr Cameron should not go cold on Mr Obama. But it is worth bearing one or two things in mind. The first is that the president himself does not have much faith in his country's traditional alliances. One of his first executive acts was to remove the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. In Mr Obama's rather Third World view of life, imperialism is the great sin, and America inherited it from Britain. Churchill - half-British, half-American, wholly imperial - is bad news for people who feel that way. Mr Obama's foreign policy began as an apology tour. Since then, it has become less naive, but it still reflexively prefers those who don't like America to those who do. It does not pay much attention to threat and deterrence, which it believes can be superseded by international bodies. It sets little store by the habits of civilisation which keep our countries close. In Dreams From My Father, Mr Obama describes taking tea by the Thames, visiting the Jardins de Luxembourg, watching nightfall in Rome: "I felt as if I were living out someone else's romance." In the fourth year of his presidency, one still struggles to understand how - if at all - he wants to defend the West. An even more basic point is that he might not win. Our media is biased in favour of Mr Obama, so few British people have noticed that the president is not ahead in the opinion polls any more. On the key question about the direction in which the country is going, 59 per cent think it is on the wrong track. Partly this is to do with the famed American culture wars - the opposition to gay marriage, for example - but Mr Obama's bigger problem is the same as that of every Western leader today. He is in charge of an economy sunk in debt. Every other leader who has come up for re-election since 2008 has been thrown out. It could be him next. So it is at least prudent to contemplate the idea that Mitt Romney might be the next president of the United States. He does not scintillate, but he is respectable, well-funded and experienced. He does value alliances, especially the US/British relationship; he does maintain the simple belief, often mocked but always true, that America needs a bridge to Europe (and vice versa) and gets it best from Britain. His foreign policy is classic conservative - more Henry Kissinger than George W Bush. At present, the links between the Romney camp and Mr Cameron hardly exist. Someone should arrange a non-governmental invitation to him to visit this country soon. When he comes, Mr Cameron should contrive to meet him. But whoever is the next American president, the lessons from 30 years ago should make us in Britain think. John Lehman, who was educated at Cambridge, knows this country and loves it. He admires its contribution to what he calls "culture in the largest sense" - our gift for innovation, our long, stabilising influence in American and world affairs, our freedom of thought, our relative lack of bureaucracy (there are 790,000 civilians currently employed by the Pentagon!). He also admires our warrior spirit. That spirit is now being sapped by cuts, the fear of anything that might be seen as "elitist" and the return of the corrosive, self-fulfilling belief, which, pre-Thatcher, dominated - that we're washed up. Diplomatic power is but the shadow cast by military power. At the 11th hour, we made the two work together 30 years ago, and it gained us victory 8,000 miles away. John Lehman saw on his desk the intelligence reports of the stunned Soviet reaction to this successful projection of will. There is no Cold War now, but few could say that the world is less dangerous. Our will, however, is much weaker.