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PIED 3158
BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY
How symmetrical is the ‘special relationship’
between Britain and the United States?
4188 words
Dr. Andrew Crines
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The concept of positive Anglo-American interrelations and the
two countries’ bilateral politico-economic cooperation since
the Second World War is largely taken to be self-evident.
However, there are facets of the relationship that potentially
suggest that, despite their claims of a relatively unwavering
and ‘special’ nature to their shared self-interests, these
shared interests may be skewed in preference of the U.S.
rather than the British. However, this essay is designed to
place less emphasis on the symmetry of this particular
bilateral relationship, and instead questions the necessity
and applicability of having a symmetrical relationship between
the U.S and the British. The asymmetry that exists between the
British and the Americans is largely down to the fact that one
is in some respects more powerful and influential than the
other, yet both still derive a certain utility from retaining
close ties to one another. Therefore, in this essay one would
hope to evaluate just how realistic perfect symmetry would be
to achieve in this, or in fact any, bilateral inter-state
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relationship. Rather still, this essay will seek to explain
the rationale of both nation-states’ commitment to the
relationship, and the concept of absolute over relative gains
as a possible theoretical explanation for their on-going
‘special relationship’.
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It could be said that there has, and continues to be, an
underlying power struggle that creates an asymmetric skew to
their overall joint foreign policy efforts, insomuch as the
British seeking to be perceived as retaining their political
integrity by remaining seemingly independent in their foreign
policy objectives; for the U.S., it is to carry out their
foreign policy objectives undisturbed through a thin veil of
multilateralism. Such political pressure to be viewed as more
than a mere dispensable asset is exemplified by the former
Director General of the Ministry of Information during the
Second World War, C. J. Radcliffe, who sought to remind
America of Britain’s worth and the heritage of the British
Empire. He proposed the creation of a committee to relay to
the American community the relevance and importance of the
U.S. regarding Britain as an autonomous state actor with whom
an important alliance could be formed, placing particular
emphasis on Britain’s purpose to establish,
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“The best methods of bringing home to the American people everywhere the
fact that the organisation and principles of the British Empire are such that on
moral and material grounds the United States can and should cooperate with it…
[and] to encourage all Americans to regard the British Empire as a valuable and
permanent partner in guiding world affairs on a basis of peace progress and order.”
(Radcliffe to Foreign Office, 800/300, pg.232 in Ryan, 1987,
pg.34) This attitude epitomises the growing sense that the
British Empire felt required to justify her standing in the
soon-to-be new World Order, and an initial shift in public
perceptions between the two countries.
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American attitudes towards all foreign international
relations has long been one of paternalism, yet it points
towards the inevitable tendency for high ranking government
officials opting to look favourably on nation-states that
share common values and particular interests, and especially
those that look to have more potential to serve U.S.
interests. This sense of maximizing political and economic
utility from other nation-states is inherent to the American
political paradigm that is inherently linked with self-
realisation and security. Essentially, it is the fact that
Americans use the self-proclaimed vision of American
‘exceptionalism’ as a differentiating factor in gauging
themselves against the rest of the international community.
This concept of exceptionalism roots itself in their own
national and cultural identity, and it derives from the early
Pilgrim’s belief that they were a divinely chosen nation, with
Puritan Governor John Winthrop stating in his sermon ‘A Model
of Christian Charity’ aboard the shipping vessel Arbella that
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“[America] shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”
(Winthrop, 1630) The continuation of this belief in their own
cultural superiority manifests itself in the American
Declaration of Independence that was drawn up on the 4th July,
1776, where America established itself as an independent
sovereign state released from the rule of the British
monarchy:
“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the
necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The
history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny
over these States.” (American Declaration of Independence, 1776)
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It was this inherent necessity to break free from the
supposed suppressive colonial British regime, and thus
establish their own sovereign state, that irrevocably shaped
the American culture and firmly rooted their sense of
patriotism. This patriotism heavily influenced American
opinion on trade and their international political
involvement, and this lack of participation formed their
isolationist approach through the early parts of the twentieth
century until their involvement in the Second World War. Most
academic literature points towards the fact that the Second
World War, and America’s subsequent financial investment in
West Berlin and Japan after the defeat of the fascist regime,
was a major contributing factor in the U.S.’ attempt to
establish allies that would secure mutually beneficial
relationships. As William Wallace notes, the U.S. decided that
it was in it’s best interests to cement their influence as
global state hegemon through the establishment of intra-state
connections and multilateral or bilateral institutional
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agreements, with the British seeming to be their main
political and economic ally. In this, he states, “the United States
needed partners. Global partnership is best exerted through persuasion and
cooperation; without willing partners and followers hegemony deteriorates into
domination.” (Wallace in Forman, 2002, pg.141) In order for the
United States to effectively forge stronger linkages between
themselves and other valuable nation-states, they required
Britain’s cooperation and quasi-partnership. It is often noted
that the forging of the Anglo-American partnership fighting
together against the fascist regime led by Adolf Hitler was a
significant moment in the relations between the two countries.
Pertinently, it is widely accepted that a secret meeting
between the two countries’ leaders “under the codename Arcadia was
held in Washington between December 22, 1941 and January 14, 1942…holds a
special place in US-British relations during the Second World War.” (Issraeljan,
1971, pg.10) From this crucial meeting, the fabric of their
bilateral relationship was quickly being stitched. Whilst they
created a combined military force, which comprised of both the
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President, the Prime Minister and the highest ranking
officials in both armies, navies and air forces, “it should be
noted that the British and US governments adopted important decisions over the
course of the entire Second World War without coordinating them with the Soviet
Union…[who] consistently advocated close military cooperation”. (Issraeljan,
1971, pg.94) From this, there was evidence of an increasingly
bilateral relationship emerging between the US and Britain
emerging through the lack of an overarching anti-Hitler
coalition strategy, whereby “the establishment of an Anglo-American
combined staff did not promote military contacts with the Soviet Union but, on the
contrary, served to set up Anglo-American strategy against Soviet strategy.”
(Issraeljan, 1971, pg.94) This is unequivocal evidence of the
early forging of a bilateral alliance that served to be the
backbone of the Western capitalist opposition to the Soviet
communist regime during the Cold War.
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In terms of the importance that the U.S. places on their
relationship with Britain, there are those that regard it as
insouciant in nature. Whilst not wholly indifferent, the
commonalities that stretch to a shared mother language,
liberally democratic political culture and similar
constitutional legal norms provide the loose overarching
political framework for mutual politico-economic symbiosis.
This bilateral and symbiotic relationship is predominantly
built upon “a combination of shared values…similar levels of economic
development, intense interdependence (including rising flows of foreign direct
investment in both directions), growing two-way flows of students and tourists, and
above all shared membership in an alliance with an integrated military service.”
(Wallace in Forman, 2002, pg.142) In essence, there are
various implications that Britain are somewhat superfluous to
the U.S. decision-making process, and the British’s alignment
of their own foreign policy stance with their American
counterpart’s serves only as a device to further America’s
legitimacy in their foreign policy objectives. Alex Danchev
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refers to this concept as providing a ‘fig leaf’ of legitimacy
for the United States, in the hope that they appear less
unilateral in their approach to foreign policy. (Danchev,
2007) It is this prerogative to seem detached from their
label of unilateralism in foreign affairs that drives the U.S.
to seek allegiance politically with Britain - a liberally
democratic sovereign state and fellow permanent member of the
UN Security Council and influential member of the G8 and G20
Councils. It is suggested that this ‘fig leaf’ has often been
mooted as one of the reasons why American foreign policy
propaganda has been so effective, and the United States’
relationship with the British has been the linchpin to their
progressive international influence. This is exemplified in
the Lyndon Johnson administration’s requirement for public
support from their allies over the Vietnam war, where “no
country’s verbal support was more important than the United Kingdom’s. Not only
was Britain the U.S.’s closest ally, nominally at least, it was also a leading social
democratic nation whose example was important, not least to the Commonwealth
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nations and in American liberal circles.” (Ellis in Hollowell, 2001,
pg.180) Modern international attitudes towards the U.S. and
their foreign policy has also shaped their recent relationship
with the British, and has had subsequent effects on the
bilateral relations between the two nation-states. This shift
from the admiration and reverence of the American culture
after the Second World War, with their persistence of equality
of opportunity over outcome and the pursuit of the ‘American
dream’, has been one of cynicism. One erosive feature of the
bilateral transatlantic relationship between Britain and the
U.S. is rooted in America’s continual “assertion…of ‘U.S.
exceptionalism’ and of the superiority of the U.S. economic, social, political and legal
models…[however] today, the U.S. model no longer carries the prestige it
commanded in the post war years.” (Wallace in Forman, 2002, pg.143)
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It is important not to underestimate the U.S.’
prerogative to preserve the status quo, which, in the anarchic
international political system, is their relative position of
global state hegemon. (Davis, 1993) Consequently, it is
rational to assume that their own agenda will be self-serving,
and that their allies, being less influential than America
themselves, will be used as catalysts in America’s search to
achieve their own ends. This lends weight to the argument that
America will seek to appease those who align themselves
culturally or economically with U.S. norms, and America will
actively look to provide inducements and persuasive diplomacy
to those nation-states that offer political and economic
leverage. This can be seen in Obama’s speech in 2011 in
regards to their alliance with the French, where he
unequivocally disregarded the importance and exclusivity of
the ‘special’ Anglo-American relationship by stating that “We
don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French
people.” (Obama, 10th January 2011) Therefore, the relationship
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that they have with the U.K. may appear to be symbiotic and
exclusive, yet realistically speaking much can be drawn from
the eventual decision-making that occurs between their
respective governments and the overall utility that is
garnered from the subsequent effects of those decisions. It is
too easy to merely disregard Britain’s capabilities of acting
independently from their American counterpart’s political
agenda, and what should rather be fully scrutinized is the
utility that they derive from each other. However holistic
this approach may be, the success of the relationship is
intrinsically affected by the personal relationships of the
two leaders, therefore it is worth casting an analytical eye
on two different major relationships between Anglo-American
leaders.
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The first of which is the close relationship between Tony
Blair and George W. Bush. Blair has himself has been referred
to as “a traditional British Prime Minister in his approach to Washington, and in
his desire to avoid choosing between Europe and America” (Riddell, 2003,
pg. x), which leads us to suggest that he acted in a
historically institutional manner in order to preserve the
relative historical status quo of positive relations between
the leaders of both nations, and to retain the support and
preferential treatment from George W. Bush’s White House. The
importance of retaining the close bilateral ties with
Washington is something that Tony Blair put a great deal of
emphasis upon, which consequently led to a plethora of anti-
American and anti-Blairite public sentiment – especially in
the face of imminent deployment of troops to Iraq in 2003.
Riddell, however, poignantly suggests that any cultural or
linguistic commonalities between American and British society
do not transcend any usual relations between America and any
other countries, and consequently the transatlantic view was
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that “in the eyes of Washington Britain is a European power, albeit one usually
closer to America than either France or Germany”. (Riddell, 2003, pg. xi)
It is oft described that the Anglo-American relationship was
at its weakest during the mid-to-late 1960s, and substantially
effected by the poor personal relationship between Harold
Wilson and Lyndon B. Johnson, where in “May 1967 the US Embassy in
Britain judged the ‘special relationship’ to be ‘little more than sentimental
terminology’.” (Ellis in Hollowell, 2001, pg. 180) The reasons for
this exponential deterioration in the two countries’ relations
was not merely down to Johnson and Wilson’s personal
differences, but is seen to be heavily exacerbated by what
Slyvia Ellis describes as an increasing awareness “that Britain’s
role as a world power was rapidly diminishing: decolonisation was in full swing, the
country was over-stretched militarily, and its economy was weakening. The power
differential between Britain and America was therefore more acute”. (Ellis in
Hollowell, 2001, pg. 181) This damning indictment of Britain’s
obvious diminishing appeal to a growing Superpower of the
United States’ stature provides a rational commentary on the
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strains of the Anglo-American ‘special’ relationship, as it
unequivocally calls into question the motives of both
countries to remain committed to it. It is important to note,
however, that relations between the two nations were
irrevocably affected by Johnson’s attitude towards Wilson,
where, despite seven visits to Washington during Wilson’s
tenure as Prime Minister, “the visits were not reciprocated, Johnson never
visited Great Britain during his five years in the White House.” (Ellis in
Hollowell, 2001, pg. 181)
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There is evidence to suggest that the British have and do
enjoy particular and often significant advantages in being
close allies with America. For instance, Britain is placed in
the highest tier of the U.S. military’s cooperation, even
ahead of the state of Israel, whom the U.S. has often almost
blindly protected. In terms of national security, this is in
fact a major advantage to be prioritised by a nation-state
with the largest military defence budget on the planet.
However, there have been examples of the U.S. not only acting
in self-interest to the detriment of the British, but they
have actively sought to undermine British interests and
restrict British influence on the global international stage.
Relating back to the concept of U.S. ‘exceptionalism’, a
strand of politico-economic thought emerged that reinforced
the American ideal that they should leading the post-war
international world order. This was referred to as the ‘Pax
Americana’, and it essentially rooted the U.S.’ belief that it
was their right and obligation as the global state hegemon to
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reconstruct the framework of the anarchic international
political system by restoring “the integrity of the world capitalist
economy” which had collapsed due to the Wall Street Crash and
subsequent Great Depression in the 1930s. (Gill in McGrew,
1994, pg.67) This led to the United States’ ‘Grand Area’ idea,
which was effectively to expand it’s economic influence and
American markets to unprecedented parts of the globe, where
the U.S. could use it’s “economic and political leverage…to politically
embed it’s vision in a politics of consent.” (Gill in McGrew, 1994, pg.68)
Yet, this ‘Grand Area’ politico-economic policy also created a
major caveat to the symbiotic nature of the Anglo-American
relationship, as it involved the United States engaging in,
from an economic standpoint, perhaps their most unilateral
policy making up to that point. This economic strategic
planning was referred to as the Bretton Woods fixed exchange
system, which essentially comprised all global currencies
having fixed exchange rates directly convertible to the U.S.
dollar, whilst also making the US$ directly convertible to
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gold. The Bretton Woods system was an issue for Britain
because “the United States, having extracted large payments from Britain during
the war, manoeuvred immediately after the end of the war to ensure that London
was deprived of a dominant position in relation to Middle East oil. At the same time,
Washington effectively underfinanced Britain during the early post-war period, while
insisting on sterling convertibility.” (Varoufakis, 2011, pg.69) It is seen
that the “slide of the pound to eventual non-convertibility” was perhaps the
most damaging of factors in the Anglo-American relationship at
the time, as it evidently signalled the ambivalence of the
Americans to the British cause and paved the way for
significant relative losses for Britain, both economically and
politically. The American decision to invest so heavily in the
restructuring of Japan after the bombings in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and also in the progressive rebuilding of the German
economy, was due to the fact that the U.S. wanted to use them
as large surplus economies to maximise their own capital
gains. The controversy of opting for investing in Germany
rather than Britain was in part due to the fact that Britain
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herself had fought alongside America against Germany in the
war, and was in need of financial aid. Yet the decision was
made based on the potential of the German Deutschmark in
comparison with the weakening Pound Sterling. Thus, despite
Britain being ‘close allies’ with the U.S. and requiring
substantial financial injections, the United States believed
that the German’s greater proficiency in the manufacturing
industry meant they were seen to be a shrewder investment than
their British counterparts, and as a consequence meant they
were better equipped to serve U.S. interests in the long term.
The fact that America were prepared to allow Britain to
progressively decline and become marginalised from the ‘Global
Plan’ – a multilateral economic strategy whereby “it seemed
inconceivable…that Britain would not be a central pillar” (Varoufakis, 2011,
pg.69) was the clearest indication that the U.S. were acting
against British interests. Much of this aggressive, anti-
British sentiment can be attributed to the Suez Crisis in
1956, where the British and French colluded with the Israelis
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to invade Egypt in the October of that year. This collusion
with Israel led the U.S. to force Britain to accept the
sterling’s almost non-convertibility within international
money markets, and this American refusal “to support sterling on the
world money markets…[signaled] the beginning of the end for Britain’s hopes to
maintain an independent and unilateral foreign policy. (Lynn, 2005, pg.8)
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There is also much to be analysed about just how
‘special’ and symbiotic the relationship truly is between
America and Britain insofar as the exclusivity of their
particular relations. The implication of a ‘special’ inter-
state relationship is that both states seek to establish a
framework whereby their own interests can be furthered and can
enjoy these shared benefits. However, in the case of Israel,
it is evident that the Israelis receive substantially
inordinate sums of financial aid and this preferential
treatment by the United States calls into question just how
special the Anglo-American relationship truly is. A case in
point, 1982 saw the United States further establish their
close connections and public backing of Israel in regards to
the dispute over continual, and controversial, military
presence in Lebanon and Beirut, whereby “the U.S. …vetoed an
otherwise unanimous Security Council resolution condemning Israel for ignoring the
earlier demand for withdrawal of Israeli troops” from Lebanon. (Chomsky,
1983, pg.10) Further controversy has shrouded the undoubtedly
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asymmetrical relationship between the U.S. and Israel due to
their disproportionate financial and military aid programmes
compared to any other country. It was recorded that “for fiscal
years 1978 through 1982, Israel received 48% of all U.S. military aid and 35% of U.S.
economic aid, worldwide”. (Chomsky, 1983, pg.11)
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Disputes occurred over the legality of the U.S.’ lack of
adherence to their self-imposed ban for any international
financial or military aid to the state of Israel after their
refusal to withdraw their troops out of Lebanon in 1967. The
lackadaisical stance adopted by the U.S. over the continual
delivery of financial and military aid packages to Israel,
irrespective of their non-compliance in retreating to their
pre-June 1967 borders, suggests a dual standard in terms of
their relations to nation-states in that region of the Middle
East. The preferential treatment afforded to Israel was duly
observed by Dr. Ian Lustick, who noted at the time that “the aid
programme is designed so that it cannot be enforced: ‘in contrast to most other aid
relationships, the projects [America] fund in Israel are not specified’…and no official
of the State Department or the aid program has ‘ever been assigned to supervise the
use of our funds by the Israeli government’.” (Lustick in Chomsky, 1983,
pg.11) This is in great contrast to the normative procedures
of supervision of the State Department for the U.S.’ Egyptian
non-military aid programme, where the administrative
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supervision of the use of funds was described as thoroughly
‘meticulous’. The greater concern, however, was the allegation
that this particular aid programme reflected “American rather than
Egyptian priorities, financing U.S. imports which must be brought on American ships
and U.S. consultants, when trained personnel are available in Egypt for a fraction of
the cost.” (Chomsky, 1983, pg.11)
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This idea of critically analysing the symmetry of the
Anglo-American ‘special relationship’ is therefore ultimately
difficult to achieve, as there are a variety of factors that
we have addressed that question the propriety of absolute
symmetry between the two countries. What this essay has sought
to highlight is that perhaps perfect symmetry is not only
realistically unachievable, but also not necessarily
important. The neorealist political analyst Joseph Grieco is
seen to be a major proponent of the concept that state actors
are positional in character, rather than atomistic, and as a
consequence place great emphasis on their relative position
within the anarchic international political system. (Grieco,
1993) Despite this being widely accepted to be the case, it
would not be naïve to present the case that the Anglo-American
relationship is ‘special’ due to the absolutism that is
intrinsic in their bilateral relationship. In other words,
both countries commitment to the relationship is based on the
achievement of absolute, rather than relative, gains. This
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symbiosis is effective because it does not place under strain
any underlying or unachievable objectives of conflicting
interests between the two countries, but rather revolves
around their mutual achievement of absolute gains that they
derive from their bilateral relations. In realistic terms, one
can assume that there cannot be perfect equilibrium or total
symmetry between the U.S. and Britain, as both wish to be more
powerful than the other. John J. Mearshiemer refers to nation-
states as “short-term power maximisers” (Mearshiemer, 2001, pg.36),
and in this analysis it is clear to see that the anarchic
structure of international system drives intra-state
competition. From this, it is relatively easy to comprehend
that neither nation-state wishes to be symmetrical, as both
wish to be more powerful than their ‘special’ ally. For the
U.S., this is the case and, as such, they wish to retain their
status of global state hegemon and have no inclination to
regress economically or militarily to British standards. For
Britain, their fall from major colonial Empire to their
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present day standing reflects the transition of their
international political and economic clout from hegemonic
power to the U.S.’ subordinate state actor close ally.
However, this relative fall from grace does not mean that
absolute gains are not of importance, as these absolute gains
they gain from the United States can provide Britain with
relative gains over their closest competitors such as Brazil
with a shared annual GDP of US $2.5 trillion. This helps to
emphasise the fact that even if capital outflow from the U.S.
into Britain is roughly equal to capital outflow from Britain
to their American counterparts, it still equates to Britain
being far more dependent on that bilateral trade, due to the
fact that America’s economy is the largest in the world and is
roughly eight times the size of the U.K’s, standing at around
US $16.2 trillion. It is a rational assumption to make that
both parties will seek to gain as much political and economic
leverage as possible to further their own ends and accrue
benefits from one another, or mutual relative or absolute
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gains at the expense of other state actors. Consequently, it
is appropriate to note that despite the glaring disparity
between the two countries in terms of economic, political and
military strength, perhaps it is more pertinent to accept that
their dependency on each other is not linearly comparable and
thus symmetry is somewhat inconsequential.
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