On congratulating the United States of America on the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we should never forget the foundations on which that great nation is built and the need to restore them and strengthen the irrevocable ties that bind Britain and America, in spite of occasional hiccups.

The great British 18th century thinkers that observed events in America and provided the philosophical basis for modern Conservatism were clear that the American colonies should be “let go” and foresaw the rapid rise in population and prosperity of the future United States.

Adam Smith, whose works influenced the thinking of the authors of the Declaration of Independence, thought that defence of the colonies was a massive financial burden and preferred that Britain should have a profitable, duty-free trade agreement with a friendly sovereign neighbour.

In his 1775 “Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies,” Edmund Burke saw that “the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation, which still I hope respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles.”

President Trump echoed these sentiments when he welcomed His Majesty King Charles III to the White House in March 2026, adding that “we share that same root. We speak the same language. We hold the same values. And together, our warriors have defended the same extraordinary civilization under twin banners of red, white and blue.”

Throughout history our Western civilisations have faced terrible threats and challenges and in the end, with God’s grace, right has prevailed.

Once more we live in difficult and threatening times and our peoples are despondent and open to easy, wrong-headed influence. And our leaders often lack wisdom. It is ever more vital to the cause of freedom and liberty that Britain and America stand strongly together with mutual affection, understanding and respect.

Geoffrey Van Orden CBE is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

Having lived amongst a People who, to this day, can only dream of independence; having fought alongside the same People who have, for generations, been fighting for their independence – that experience has shaped my appreciation for our own independence. Having had the duty to prepare myself and my teams to fight the Red Army; having deployed in the middle of the night, every month, for 36 months, with no notice, just upon hearing a codeword spoken in the dark through the telephone beside my bed, and having conducted countless recons along the East German Border – that experience, and others while serving this great Nation in her noble profession of arms, has shaped my appreciation for our own independence….and what it took to earn it.

To say we owe great thanks to those brave American revolutionaries who stood up to for freedom 250 years ago is a tremendous understatement. They literally (with not much more than small arms and citizen-soldiers) beat the world’s greatest power, Great Britain. Our cost: the best records available account for 8,624 were killed in action, another 10,000 died of wounds, and another 8,500 died as POWs of the British. That’s over 27,000 Americans who gave their lives for our freedom. But let’s put that in the perspective of the time….our entire American population in the colonies was just 2.5M, so, 27,000 war-dead is over 1% of the entire population. And given that half of the population was female, the colonies lost a full 2% of their men….and, if we consider not all of the male population were young enough or fit-for-military-duty, then the colonies lost and even HIGHER percentage of their able-bodied men. That’s staggering and fascinating. You’ll never convince me that Americans won’t tolerate casualties in war. We do! We just don’t tolerate them for objectives of little value.

But most revolutions are a bloodlust. They seek only to destroy the existing order, and with little vision for what comes next. The French Revolution is a perfect example. French citizens seized and ransacked the Bastille on July 14th, 1789, and heads literally rolled or were stuck on pikes. Mobs burned the streets, executed clergy and noblemen. Church property was nationalized. Feudal land ownership abolished. The collapse of the Monarchy. Little to unify the various camps competing for power. Militias and subsequent rebellions and insurrections, and of course, Robespierre and the Reign of Terror. Ten years of this. Ten years of upheaval before the French Revolution ended.

But not so for us. Oh no. Our brilliant forefathers, men of real wisdom, before the first shots were fired, gathered to determine whether or not they even had GROUNDS to revolt against the Crown. They deliberated and debated. They then reached a consensus and put ink to paper, signed it, and published it as our Declaration of Independence. While doing so, they fully expected to have to fight for the rights, and truths and principles they had just put onto paper and expected to be guided by them in combat. And, of course, they expected, that upon victory, upon winning their independence, they would enshrine these principles and rights, among others into a Constitution upon which to build a nation. And what a great nation she’s become.

We discussed all the above and more on the show this week. My guest was my first boss in Iraq, MG John McLaren. He personally helped develop each one of our teams, and he did so while quoting Lawrence of Arabia, and Bernard Lewis, and once on the battlefield I realized his advice was prescient and spot-on. I’m grateful for his leadership. Click on the link to hear the discussion: https://frontlinesoffreedom.com/show-967/