BombTaxi,
You neatly outline the vital strategic conundrum that successive British Governments, and the hierarchy within the MOD, have failed to resolve - do we pursue the higher-tech, linguistic and historical ties with the US (ie spend more on defence) or do we side more with the European NATO nations and accept that we'll be little more than a Belgium with a navy.
I think recent developments in Afghanistan are closing the technological gap between US-only and NATO operations which, combined with reducing defence budgets, pretty much forces the UK towards interoperability with European nations. That said, I don't see the UK pulling back from its traditional role of providing a veneer of coalition acceptability for US foreign policy actions, and we're certainly a long way from the position of France. However, it's going to be an interesting decade for those who track the evolution of UK defence strategy.