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Special relationship
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The phrase special relationship is often used to describe the exceptionally close political, diplomatic, cultural and historical relations between the United States and the United Kingdom, following its use in a 1946 speech by Winston Churchill. While both countries maintain close relationships with many others, the level of cooperation in military planning, execution of military operations, nuclear weapons technology and intelligence sharing with each other has been described as "unparalleled" among major powers.
existence of a special relationship between the two governments has been recognized since the nineteenth century, not least by rival powers.
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Encyclopedia
The phrase special relationship is often used to describe the exceptionally close political, diplomatic, cultural and historical relations between the United States and the United Kingdom, following its use in a 1946 speech by Winston Churchill. While both countries maintain close relationships with many others, the level of cooperation in military planning, execution of military operations, nuclear weapons technology and intelligence sharing with each other has been described as "unparalleled" among major powers.
History and overview
The existence of a special relationship between the two governments has been recognized since the nineteenth century, not least by rival powers. During World War II, as an observer noted, 'Great Britain and the United States integrated their military efforts to a degree unprecedented among major allies in the history of warfare.' The special relationship was given renewed impetus and publicity at the onset of the Cold War by Winston Churchill's 'Sinews of Peace Address' in Fulton, Missouri. Churchill's mother was American, and he felt keenly the links between the English-speaking peoples. He first used the term in 1945 to describe not the U.S-UK relationship alone but the UK relationship with both the United States and Canada. A year later he again used the phrase, this time to note the special relationship between the United States on the one hand, and the English-speaking countries of the British Commonwealth and Empire under the leadership of the United Kingdom on the other.
Notably, the relationship between the US and UK seems independent of the relative closeness of the countries' heads of state. During World War I, for example, President Woodrow Wilson and Prime Minister David Lloyd George had enjoyed nothing that could be described as a special relationship, although Lloyd George's wartime Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, got on well with Wilson during his time in the United States and helped convince a skeptical Wilson to enter the war.
Under Harold Wilson the United Kingdom, as co-chairman with the Soviet Union of the Geneva Conference, acted as a mediator in the Vietnam War and gave only qualified support to U.S. policy in Vietnam (at least officially - and it did not commit regular forces, only special forces instructors). Militarily this stance was however consistent with an earlier burden-sharing arrangement reached under Harold Macmillan whereby British forces had been concentrated against the Communist insurgency in Malaya. Australia and New Zealand were English-speaking allies of the United States within the British Commonwealth that did commit regular forces to fight in the Vietnam War.
The 'special relationship' was most recently demonstrated during UK's support for the U.S. led intervention in Iraq.
Military cooperation
The intense level of military co-operation began with the creation of the Combined Chiefs of Staff in December 1941, a military command with authority over all American and British operations. This cooperation has increased steadily since the early 1950s when military contacts were re-established.
Shared military bases
Since the Second World War and the subsequent Berlin Blockade, the United States has maintained substantial forces in Great Britain. In July 1948, the first American deployment began with the stationing of B-29 bombers. Currently, an important base is the radar facility RAF Fylingdales, part of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, although this base is operated under entirely British command and has only one USAF representative for largely administrative reasons. Several bases with a significant U.S. presence include RAF Menwith Hill (only a short distance from RAF Fylingdales), RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall.
During the Cold War critics of the special relationship jocularly referred to the United Kingdom as the "biggest aircraft carrier in the world."
Following the end of the Cold War, which was the main rationale for their presence, the number of U.S. facilities in the United Kingdom has been reduced in number in line with the U.S. military worldwide. Despite this, these bases have been used extensively in support of various peacekeeping and offensive operations of the 1990s and early 21st century.
The two nations also jointly operate a military facility on Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory and on Ascension Island, a dependency of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.
Nuclear weapons development
The Quebec Agreement of 1943 paved the way for the two countries to develop atomic weapons side by side, the United Kingdom handing over vital documents from its own Tube Alloys project and sending a delegation to assist in the work of the Manhattan Project. America kept the results of the work to itself due to the postwar McMahon Act, but after Britain developed its own thermonuclear weapons, the United States agreed to supply delivery systems, designs and nuclear material for British warheads through the 1958 U.S.-UK Mutual Defence Agreement.
Britain purchased first Polaris and then the Trident system which remains in use today. The 1958 agreement gave the UK access to the facilities at the Nevada Test Site and it would conduct a total of 25 underground tests there before the cessation of testing in 1991. The agreement under which this partnership operates was recently updated; it is argued that U.S. assistance for the UK nuclear deterrent is in breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Military procurement
The United Kingdom is the only "level one" international partner in the largest U.S. aircraft procurement project in history, the F-35 Lightning II program. The United Kingdom was involved in writing the specification and selection and its largest defense contractor BAE Systems is a partner of the American prime contractor Lockheed Martin. BAE Systems is also the largest foreign supplier to the United States Defense Department and has been permitted to buy important U.S. defense companies such as Lockheed Martin Aerospace Electronic Systems and United Defense.
Other joint projects include the RAF Harrier GR9 or United States Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier II and the U.S. Navy T-45 Goshawk. Both nations also operate several common designs, including the Javelin anti-tank missile, M270 rocket artillery, the Apache gunship, C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft.
Other areas of cooperation
Intelligence sharing
A cornerstone of the special relationship is the collecting and sharing of intelligence. This originated during World War II with the sharing of code breaking knowledge and led to the 1943 BRUSA Agreement, signed at Bletchley Park. After WWII the common goal of monitoring and countering the threat of communism prompted the UK-USA Security Agreement of 1948. This agreement brought together the SIGINT organizations of the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and is still in place today.
One present-day example of such cooperation is the UKUSA Community, comprising the USA's National Security Agency, the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters, Australia's Defence Signals Directorate and Canada's Communications Security Establishment collaborating on ECHELON, a global intelligence gathering system. Moreover, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada are the only countries which the CIA has publicly stated that it does not spy upon. This is generally interpreted as meaning that the CIA does not maintain intelligence agents in these aforementioned countries.
Economic policy
The United States is the largest source of Foreign Direct Investment to the UK economy, likewise the United Kingdom is the largest single investor in the U.S. economy. British trade and capital have been important components of the American economy since its colonial inception.
Personal relationships
The relationship often depends on the personal relations between British Prime Ministers and U.S. Presidents. The first example was the close relationship between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt who were in fact distantly related .
Prior to their collaboration during World War II Anglo-American relations had been somewhat frosty. President Woodrow Wilson and Prime Minister David Lloyd George had enjoyed nothing that could be described as a special relationship, although Lloyd George's wartime Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, got on well with Wilson during his time in the United States and helped convince a previously skeptical Wilson to enter the war. Churchill, himself half-American, spent much time and effort cultivating the relationship which paid dividends for the war effort though it cost Britain much of her wealth and ultimately her empire. Two great architects of the special relationship on a practical level were Field Marshal Sir John Dill and General George Marshall whose excellent personal relations and senior positions (Roosevelt was especially close to Marshall) oiled the wheels of the alliance considerably.
The links that were created during the war—such as the UK military liaison officers posted to Washington—persist. However for Britain to gain any benefit from the relationship it became clear that a constant policy of personal engagement was required. Britain starting off in 1941 as somewhat the senior partner had quickly found itself the junior. The diplomatic policy was thus two pronged, encompassing strong personal support and equally forthright military and political aid. These two have always operated in tandem, that is to say the best personal relationships between British prime ministers and American presidents have always been those based around shared goals. For example, Harold Wilson's government would not commit troops to Vietnam. Harold Wilson and Lyndon Johnson did not get on especially well.
Peaks in the special relationship include the bonds between Harold Macmillan (who like Churchill had an American mother) and John F. Kennedy, and between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Nadirs have included the U.S. government's opposition to UK operations in Suez under Anthony Eden and Wilson's refusal to enter the war in Vietnam.
While the relationship between the two countries may have been strained by Reagan's neutrality in the initial phases of the Falklands War, this was more than countered by the U.S. Defense Secretary, Casper Weinberger, who approved shipments of the latest weapons to the massing British task force. Bill Clinton was poorly disposed towards John Major after it was alleged that the Conservative government had allowed his Republican opponents access to British documents detailing his time at Oxford University. Friction in their relationship was also demonstrated when in March 1995 Major refused to answer the phone calls of Clinton over his decision to invite Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams to the White House for Saint Patrick's Day.
The personal diplomacy of British prime minister Tony Blair and U.S. president George W. Bush served to highlight the special relationship. Despite their political differences on non-strategic matters, their shared beliefs and responses to the international situation formed a commonality of purpose following the September 11 Attacks in New York and Washington DC. Blair, like Bush, was convinced of the importance of moving against the perceived threat to world peace and international order.
Blair flew to Washington immediately after 9/11 to affirm British solidarity with the United States. In a speech to the United States Congress, nine days after the attacks, Bush declared "America has no truer friend than Great Britain." Following that speech Blair embarked on two months of diplomacy gathering international support for military action. The BBC estimates that, in total, the prime minister held 54 meetings with world leaders and travelled more than 40,000 miles (60,000 km).
Blair's leadership role in the Iraq War helped him to sustain a strong relationship with Bush through the end of his time as prime minister, but it was unpopular within his own party and lowered his public approval ratings. It also alienated some of his European partners, including the leaders of France and Germany.
The 2006 Lebanon War also exposed some minor differences in attitudes over the Middle East. The strong support offered by Blair and the Bush administration to Israel was not wholeheartedly shared by the British cabinet or the British public. On 27 July, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett criticised the United States for "ignoring procedure" when using Prestwick Airport as a stop off point for delivering laser-guided bombs to Israel. On 17 August, The Independent reported that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott had said that George Bush was "crap" with regard to the Middle East Roadmap, which Prescott felt had been a condition of his support for the war in Iraq.
Public opinion
Perspectives on the special relationship differ. Polls of the U.S. public show that the United Kingdom, as an "ally in the war on terror" is viewed more positively than any other country. 76% of Americans polled viewed the British as an "ally in the War on Terror" according to Rasmussen Reports. According to Harris Interactive 74% of Americans view Great Britain as a "close ally in the war in Iraq", well ahead of next-ranked Canada at 48%.
A June 2006 poll by Populus for The Times showed that the number of Britons agreeing that "it is important for Britain’s long-term security that we have a close and special relationship with America" had fallen to 58% (from 71% in April), and that 65% believed that "Britain’s future lies more with Europe than America." 44% agreed that "America is a force for good in the world." A later poll reported in The Guardian during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict said that 63% of Britons felt that the United Kingdom is tied too closely to the United States. A 2008 poll by The Economist has shown that Britons' views differ considerably from Americans' views when asked about the topics of religion, values, and national interest. The Economist remarked:
For many Britons, steeped in the lore of how English-speaking democracies rallied around Britain in the second world war, [the special relationship] is something to cherish. For Winston Churchill ... it was a bond forged in battle. On the eve of the war in Iraq, as Britain prepared to fight alongside America, Tony Blair spoke of the "blood price" that Britain should be prepared to pay in order to sustain the relationship.
In America, it is not nearly so emotionally charged. Indeed, American politicians are promiscuous with the term, trumpeting their "special relationships" with Israel, Germany and South Korea, among others. "Mention the special relationship to Americans and they say yes, it's a really special relationship," notes sardonically Sir Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador to Washington.
Iraq
Refusal of the US Government to heed British advice regarding post-war plans for Iraq, specifically the critical importance of preventing the power vacuum in which the current insurgency plaguing the country was allowed to develop. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United Kingdom criticized the United States' de-Ba'athification policy i.e. the purging of Saddam Hussein's party from government. Geoff Hoon, then the UK defence secretary, has stated that the United Kingdom "lost the argument" with the Bush administration over rebuilding Iraq. Speaking on the same topic, Prince Andrew said there are "occasions when people in the UK would wish that those in responsible positions in the U.S. might listen and learn from our experiences", that there is "healthy skepticism" in the United Kingdom toward what is said in Washington DC, and a feeling of "why didn't anyone listen to what was said [in the UK] and the advice that was given." CNN has acknowledged that the Prince's views are widely shared in the UK.
After the Iraq War, there were a series of coroners' inquests into so-called friendly fire incidents relating to UK armed servicemen who had been killed by U.S. forces. The U.S. Government routinely hindered the coroner's investigation by refusing to cooperate. In January 2007 this culminated in the United States preventing the release of cockpit videos showing events leading to the death of Lance-Corporal Matty Hull of the Household Cavalry, and threatening newspapers who published them with prosecution. This particular incident caused a diplomatic row.
Extraordinary rendition
Assurances made by the U.S. to the UK that "extraordinary rendition" flights had never landed on British territory were later shown to be false when official U.S. records proved that such flights had landed at Diego Garcia repeatedly. The revelation was an embarrassment for British foreign secretary David Miliband, who was obliged to apologise to Parliament, describing the incidents as "a most serious matter".
Legal and moral doubts have also arisen over the U.S. government's extraordinary rendition process, which ignores extradition treaties and officially sanctions the kidnap and extrajudicial transfer of people (some of them UK citizens) from one country to another, sometimes to one of their covert CIA-run prisons, known as black sites, other times to Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The United Kingdom's Intelligence and Security Committee stated that America's refusal to listen to British concerns regarding this issue had "serious implications" for future intelligence relations.
Criminal law
In 2003 the United States pressed the United Kingdom to agree to an extradition treaty, whereby the United Kingdom was obligated to make a strong prima facie case to U.S. courts before extradition would be granted. In contrast, extradition from the United Kingdom to the United States was a matter of administrative decision alone, without prima facie evidence. This had been implemented as an anti-terrorist measure in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Very soon, however, it was being used by the United States to extradite and prosecute a number of high-profile London businessmen (e.g. the Natwest Three and Ian Norris) on fraud charges. Contrasts have been drawn with the United States' harboring of Provisional IRA terrorists in the 1970s through to the 1990s. There was also indignation that U.S. service personnel who had killed UK colleagues in friendly fire incidents (where a subsequent inquest verdict of unlawful killing was returned) were sheltered from extradition to the United Kingdom. The United States also refused to accede to another priority of the Blair government, the treaty setting up the International Criminal Court.
On 30 September 2006 the U.S. Senate unanimously ratified a treaty allowing for equal extradition requirements between the two countries. Ratification had been slowed by complaints from some Irish-American groups that the treaty would create new legal jeopardy for U.S. citizens who opposed British policy in Northern Ireland.
Trade policy
The United States has been accused of pursuing an aggressive trade policy, using or ignoring WTO rules; the aspects of this causing most difficulty to the United Kingdom have been high tariffs on British steel products and a successful challenge to the protection of small family banana farmers in the West Indies from large U.S. corporations such as the American Financial Corporation.
Diplomacy
In October 2007 The United Kingdom's first Muslim government minister, Shahid Malik, rebuked U.S. authorities after having been detained and searched for explosives at a Washington airport on his way home from a meeting with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This was the second occasion on which this Member of Parliament had been detained and searched, having received the same treatment at JFK airport during a visit to the United States in November 2006. Mr Malik remarked: "The abusive attitude I endured last November I forgot about and I forgave, but I really do believe that British ministers and parliamentarians should be afforded the same respect and dignity at USA airports that we would bestow upon our colleagues in the Senate and Congress."
The ongoing refusal of the U.S. Embassy in London to pay the London congestion charge has also been a minor source of controversy. American Embassy officials claimed they did not have to pay the congestion charge because it was a tax, from which diplomats were exempt. London officials asserted that the congestion charge was no different from the toll charges paid by drivers to travel into U.S. cities such as Manhattan via bridges and roads. U.S. embassies paid similar congestion charges in Singapore and Oslo.
Current status
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