Alexander Bowen: It’s high time we looked at the ‘special relationship’ with a far more realistic eye
We're watching the same failure loop.
Alexander Bowen is a trainee economist based in Belgium, specialising in public policy assessment, and a policy fellow at a British think tank.
In 1991, for four days, Kazakhstan stood alone as the Soviet Union – despite there being no other soviets to be in Union with – including the Russians.
For 243 years, from the end of Mary I to the Act of Union that merged Ireland into the UK, the English and British sovereigns self-styled themselves as the rulers of France despite having no French land.
For just over a millennium, the Germans speaking little Latin, and enjoying near zero territorial or cultural continuity with Rome, declared their sovereign the Emperor of the Romans.
Each of these are titles arising from a moment in time where for a fleeting second they were indeed accurate – or at least accurate enough – but that aged into absurdity. Voltaire’s adage about the latter, the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, that it was “ni saint, ni romain, ni empire” is well known enough today. Its contemporary equivalent, that the ‘special relationship’ is neither special nor a relationship (at least not a healthy one) still needs some publicity work.
Much like the Holy Roman Empire snatching its Roman claim from the dying East, the special relationship was born in the snatching of leadership from the East. Before the special relationship Britain was what?
It was the centre of a global free trade area – a position that the US destroyed in Article VII of the lend-lease agreement. It was the home of the global reserve currency – a position the US destroyed using lend-lease and then cemented at Bretton-Woods. It was the major technological power – a position surrendered in the Quebec Agreement and Tizard Mission before the Americans having acquired the technology decided ‘perhaps not’. It was still capable of exercising power in its interests – before the Americans declared that they would break Britain if it did not back down and break itself.
You needn’t even go back to ‘ancient history’ to see what the special relationship looks like.
A US under Obama promising the Russians Britain’s nuclear secrets or Trump’s State Department making fun of British veterans and trying to dictate the UK’s purely domestic policies are not imperial history. Nor are tariff threats for standing up for basic morality as far as Greenland is concerned. The US government may be more openly hostile, more openly imperialistic, but it is, if we accept reality, not new.
We have established then the ‘What?’ but of equal consequence is the ‘Why?’. Why are ‘we’ obsessed with the Americans and our ‘special relationship’? There are I think four theories-
The first that, for about five years under Tony Blair the special relationship really was a special relationship. Blair was sincerely …
We're watching the same failure loop.
Alexander Bowen is a trainee economist based in Belgium, specialising in public policy assessment, and a policy fellow at a British think tank.
In 1991, for four days, Kazakhstan stood alone as the Soviet Union – despite there being no other soviets to be in Union with – including the Russians.
For 243 years, from the end of Mary I to the Act of Union that merged Ireland into the UK, the English and British sovereigns self-styled themselves as the rulers of France despite having no French land.
For just over a millennium, the Germans speaking little Latin, and enjoying near zero territorial or cultural continuity with Rome, declared their sovereign the Emperor of the Romans.
Each of these are titles arising from a moment in time where for a fleeting second they were indeed accurate – or at least accurate enough – but that aged into absurdity. Voltaire’s adage about the latter, the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, that it was “ni saint, ni romain, ni empire” is well known enough today. Its contemporary equivalent, that the ‘special relationship’ is neither special nor a relationship (at least not a healthy one) still needs some publicity work.
Much like the Holy Roman Empire snatching its Roman claim from the dying East, the special relationship was born in the snatching of leadership from the East. Before the special relationship Britain was what?
It was the centre of a global free trade area – a position that the US destroyed in Article VII of the lend-lease agreement. It was the home of the global reserve currency – a position the US destroyed using lend-lease and then cemented at Bretton-Woods. It was the major technological power – a position surrendered in the Quebec Agreement and Tizard Mission before the Americans having acquired the technology decided ‘perhaps not’. It was still capable of exercising power in its interests – before the Americans declared that they would break Britain if it did not back down and break itself.
You needn’t even go back to ‘ancient history’ to see what the special relationship looks like.
A US under Obama promising the Russians Britain’s nuclear secrets or Trump’s State Department making fun of British veterans and trying to dictate the UK’s purely domestic policies are not imperial history. Nor are tariff threats for standing up for basic morality as far as Greenland is concerned. The US government may be more openly hostile, more openly imperialistic, but it is, if we accept reality, not new.
We have established then the ‘What?’ but of equal consequence is the ‘Why?’. Why are ‘we’ obsessed with the Americans and our ‘special relationship’? There are I think four theories-
The first that, for about five years under Tony Blair the special relationship really was a special relationship. Blair was sincerely …
Alexander Bowen: It’s high time we looked at the ‘special relationship’ with a far more realistic eye
We're watching the same failure loop.
Alexander Bowen is a trainee economist based in Belgium, specialising in public policy assessment, and a policy fellow at a British think tank.
In 1991, for four days, Kazakhstan stood alone as the Soviet Union – despite there being no other soviets to be in Union with – including the Russians.
For 243 years, from the end of Mary I to the Act of Union that merged Ireland into the UK, the English and British sovereigns self-styled themselves as the rulers of France despite having no French land.
For just over a millennium, the Germans speaking little Latin, and enjoying near zero territorial or cultural continuity with Rome, declared their sovereign the Emperor of the Romans.
Each of these are titles arising from a moment in time where for a fleeting second they were indeed accurate – or at least accurate enough – but that aged into absurdity. Voltaire’s adage about the latter, the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, that it was “ni saint, ni romain, ni empire” is well known enough today. Its contemporary equivalent, that the ‘special relationship’ is neither special nor a relationship (at least not a healthy one) still needs some publicity work.
Much like the Holy Roman Empire snatching its Roman claim from the dying East, the special relationship was born in the snatching of leadership from the East. Before the special relationship Britain was what?
It was the centre of a global free trade area – a position that the US destroyed in Article VII of the lend-lease agreement. It was the home of the global reserve currency – a position the US destroyed using lend-lease and then cemented at Bretton-Woods. It was the major technological power – a position surrendered in the Quebec Agreement and Tizard Mission before the Americans having acquired the technology decided ‘perhaps not’. It was still capable of exercising power in its interests – before the Americans declared that they would break Britain if it did not back down and break itself.
You needn’t even go back to ‘ancient history’ to see what the special relationship looks like.
A US under Obama promising the Russians Britain’s nuclear secrets or Trump’s State Department making fun of British veterans and trying to dictate the UK’s purely domestic policies are not imperial history. Nor are tariff threats for standing up for basic morality as far as Greenland is concerned. The US government may be more openly hostile, more openly imperialistic, but it is, if we accept reality, not new.
We have established then the ‘What?’ but of equal consequence is the ‘Why?’. Why are ‘we’ obsessed with the Americans and our ‘special relationship’? There are I think four theories-
The first that, for about five years under Tony Blair the special relationship really was a special relationship. Blair was sincerely …
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