Britain and America's 'Special Relationship' Is a Myth Built on Power, Not Partnership |
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Although much is written and televised about British history, especially the ‘Good’ Second World War, it is surprising how little most people actually know about the politics of the war and of the Anglo-American alliance that was forged during it and which has persisted to this day. Prime minister Winston Churchill’s wartime leadership is extolled – to a high degree, rightly – to the heavens. After all, he vehemently opposed the appeasement of the Nazis by the majority of the British establishment as German tanks rolled into one country after another in the 1930s.
Churchill is famous or infamous for much else of course – especially in India, then under the jackboot of British colonial rule – including the Bengal famine that killed millions. He is also known more widely as the leader who forged the United Kingdom-United States ‘special relationship’ – the alliance at the heart of British foreign policy and strategy since 1945. To sell the wartime alliance, Churchill weaved a potent myth of shared language and history, of liberal heritage and culture going back centuries to the Magna Carta in 1215.
Yet, this was largely smoke and mirrors.
The Anglo‑American “special relationship” emerged during the Second World War not as an expression of natural affinity or cultural destiny, but as a contingent political project forged by elites under conditions of acute power inequality and colonial-geopolitical crisis. Its origins lay as much in domestic elite networks and interest groups on both sides of the Atlantic as in formal state‑to‑state diplomacy.
British business lobbies such as the Federation of British Industries, trade unions, financial actors in the City of London, and elite think tanks like Chatham House worked alongside official institutions – the Foreign Office, Treasury, and Cabinet – to press for closer ties with the United States (US). Parallel elite formations in the US, most notably the Council on Foreign Relations, performed a similar function.
Also read: Independent India and the Secret UK-US Deal That Changed It All
But not all political forces in Britain supported this. Hardline colonialists wanted to continue the Empire strategy of centuries-duration – to hold onto India and empire markets and imperial preference. Some, including among elite circles, wanted an alliance with the Soviet Union to continue after 1945. Others promoted closer relations with Europe. But the dominant voices threw in their lot with the Americans, knowing that the power imbalance was tilting evermore towards the rising superpower, and would drag Britain along with it on its path to global domination.
At the heart of this convergence was Britain’s declining global position. Facing imperial overstretch and existential military threat, British elites saw US support as essential not only to survival in wartime but also to preserving influence in the postwar order. The resulting alliance was thus driven less by sentiment as Churchill........