The Special Relationship is a phrase used to describe the exceptionally close political, diplomatic, cultural, economic, military and historical relations between the United Kingdom and the United States, following its use in a 1946 speech by British statesman

Statesman

A statesman is usually a politician or other notable public figure who has had a long and respected career in politics or government at the national and international level. As a term of respect, it is usually left to supporters or commentators to use the term...

 Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

. Although both the United Kingdom and United States have close relationships with many other nations, the level of cooperation between them in economic activity, trade and commerce, military planning, execution of military operations, nuclear weapons technology and intelligence sharing has been described as "unparalleled" among major powers.

The United Kingdom and United States have been close allies in numerous military and political conflicts including World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

, the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, the Gulf War

Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

, the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War

War in Afghanistan (2001–present)

The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...

.

Churchillian emphasis

Although the special relationship between the two governments was especially emphasised by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, its existence had been recognised since the 19th century, not least by rival powers. Their troops had been fighting side by side—sometimes spontaneously—in skirmishes overseas since 1859, and the two democracies

Liberal democracy

Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...

 shared a common bond of sacrifice in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald

Ramsay MacDonald

James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....

's visit to the United States in 1930 confirmed his own belief in the 'special relationship', and for this reason he looked to the Washington Treaty

Washington Naval Treaty

The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was an attempt to cap and limit, and "prevent 'further' costly escalation" of the naval arms race that had begun after World War I between various International powers, each of which had significant naval fleets. The treaty was...

 rather than a revival of the Anglo-Japanese alliance

Anglo-Japanese Alliance

The first was signed in London at what is now the Lansdowne Club, on January 30, 1902, by Lord Lansdowne and Hayashi Tadasu . A diplomatic milestone for its ending of Britain's splendid isolation, the alliance was renewed and extended in scope twice, in 1905 and 1911, before its demise in 1921...

 as the guarantee of peace in the Far East

Far East

The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...

. However, as David Reynolds

David Reynolds (English historian)

David Reynolds FBA is Professor of International History and a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. He was educated at Dulwich College, then Cambridge and Harvard Universities. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Nebraska and Oklahoma, as well as at Nihon University in Tokyo...

 observes: ‘For most of the period since 1919

Interwar period

Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....

, Anglo-American relations had been cool and often suspicious. America’s “betrayal” of the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

 was only the first in a series of US actions—over war debts, naval rivalry, the 1931-2 Manchurian crisis and the Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

—that convinced British leaders that the United States could not be relied on.’ Equally, as President Truman

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...

's secretary of state, Dean Acheson

Dean Acheson

Dean Gooderham Acheson was an American statesman and lawyer. As United States Secretary of State in the administration of President Harry S. Truman from 1949 to 1953, he played a central role in defining American foreign policy during the Cold War...

, recalled: 'Of course a unique relation existed between Britain and America—our common language and history ensured that. But unique did not mean affectionate. We had fought England as an enemy as often as we had fought by her side as an ally.'

Arguably, 'the fall of France

Battle of France

In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...

 in 1940 was decisive in shaping the pattern of international politics

International relations

International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...

', leading the special relationship to displace the entente cordiale

Entente Cordiale

The Entente Cordiale was a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and the French Republic. Beyond the immediate concerns of colonial expansion addressed by the agreement, the signing of the Entente Cordiale marked the end of almost a millennium of intermittent...

 as the pivot of the international system. During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, 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.' 'Each time I must choose between you and Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

,' Churchill shouted at General Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....

, leader of the Free French, in 1945, 'I shall choose Roosevelt.'

Churchill's mother was American, and he felt keenly the links between the English-speaking peoples

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples is a four-volume history of Britain and its former colonies and possessions throughout the world, written by Winston Churchill, covering the period from Caesar's invasions of Britain to the beginning of the First World War...

. He first used the term 'special relationship' in 1945 to describe not the Anglo-American relationship alone, but the United Kingdom's relationship with both the United States and Canada. The New York Times Herald quoted Churchill in November 1945:
Churchill used the phrase again a year later, at the onset of the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, this time to note the special relationship between the United States on the one hand, and the English-speaking nations

Anglosphere

Anglosphere is a neologism which refers to those nations with English as the most common language. The term can be used more specifically to refer to those nations which share certain characteristics within their cultures based on a linguistic heritage, through being former British colonies...

 of the British Commonwealth

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

 and Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

 under the leadership of the United Kingdom on the other. The occasion was his 'Sinews of Peace Address' in Fulton, Missouri

Fulton, Missouri

Fulton is a city in Callaway County, Missouri, the United States of America. It is part of the Jefferson City, Missouri Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 12,790 in the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Callaway County...

, on 5 March 1946:
In the opinion of one international relations specialist: 'the United Kingdom's success in obtaining US commitment to cooperation in the postwar

Post-war

A post-war period or postwar period is the interval immediately following the ending of a war and enduring as long as war does not resume. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum when a war between the same parties resumes at a later date...

 world was a major triumph, given the isolation of the interwar period

Interwar period

Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....

. A senior British diplomat in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, Thomas Brimelow

Thomas Brimelow, Baron Brimelow

Thomas Brimelow, Baron Brimelow, GCMG, OBE was a British diplomat. He was Permanent Under-Secretary at the British Foreign Office in 1973-75 and Member of the European Parliament in 1977-78....

, admitted: 'The one quality which most disquiets the Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 government is the ability which they attribute to us to get others to do our fighting for us ... they respect not us, but our ability to collect friends.' Conversely, 'the success or failure of United States foreign economic peace aims depended almost entirely on its ability to win or extract the co-operation of Great Britain'. Reflecting on the symbiosis

Symbiosis

Symbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...

, a later champion, former prime minister Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

, declared: 'The Anglo-American relationship has done more for the defence and future of freedom than any other alliance in the world.'

Military cooperation

The intense level of military co-operation between the United Kingdom and United States began with the creation of the Combined Chiefs of Staff

Combined Chiefs of Staff

The Combined Chiefs of Staff was the supreme military command for the western Allies during World War II. It was a body constituted from the British Chiefs of Staff Committee and the American Joint Chiefs of Staff....

 in December 1941, a military command with authority over all American and British operations. Following the end of the Second World War the joint command structure was disbanded, but close military cooperation between the nations resumed in the early 1950s with the start of the Cold War.

Shared military bases

Since the Second World War and the subsequent Berlin Blockade

Berlin Blockade

The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War and the first resulting in casualties. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway and road access to the sectors of Berlin under Allied...

, the United States has maintained substantial forces in Great Britain. In July 1948, the first American deployment began with the stationing of B-29 bomber

B-29 Superfortress

The B-29 Superfortress is a four-engine propeller-driven heavy bomber designed by Boeing that was flown primarily by the United States Air Forces in late-World War II and through the Korean War. The B-29 was one of the largest aircraft to see service during World War II...

s. Currently, an important base is the radar

Radar

Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...

 facility RAF Fylingdales

RAF Fylingdales

RAF Fylingdales is a Royal Air Force station on Snod Hill in the North York Moors, England. Its motto is "Vigilamus" . It is a radar base and part of the United States-controlled Ballistic Missile Early Warning System...

, part of the US Ballistic Missile Early Warning System

Ballistic Missile Early Warning System

The United States Air Force Ballistic Missile Early Warning System was the first operational ballistic missile detection radar. The original system was built in 1959 and could provide long-range warning of a ballistic missile attack over the polar region of the Northern Hemisphere. They also...

, although this base is operated under British command and has only one USAF representative for largely administrative reasons. Several bases with a significant US presence include RAF Menwith Hill (only a short distance from RAF Fylingdales), RAF Lakenheath

RAF Lakenheath

RAF Lakenheath, is a Royal Air Force military airbase near Lakenheath in Suffolk, England. Although an RAF station, it hosts United States Air Force units and personnel...

 and RAF Mildenhall

RAF Mildenhall

RAF Mildenhall is a Royal Air Force station located at Mildenhall in Suffolk, England. Despite its status as an RAF station, it primarily supports United States Air Force operations and is currently the home of the 100th Air Refueling Wing...

.

During the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, 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 US facilities in the United Kingdom has been reduced in number in line with the US military

United States armed forces

The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...

 worldwide. Despite this, these bases have been used extensively in support of various peacekeeping

Peacekeeping

Peacekeeping is an activity that aims to create the conditions for lasting peace. It is distinguished from both peacebuilding and peacemaking....

 and offensive operations of the 1990s and early 21st century.

The two nations also jointly operate on the British military facilities of Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory

British Indian Ocean Territory

The British Indian Ocean Territory or Chagos Islands is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Africa and Indonesia...

 and on Ascension Island

Ascension Island

Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island in the equatorial waters of the South Atlantic Ocean, around from the coast of Africa and from the coast of South America, which is roughly midway between the horn of South America and Africa...

, a dependency of Saint Helena

Saint Helena

Saint Helena , named after St Helena of Constantinople, is an island of volcanic origin in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha which also includes Ascension Island and the islands of Tristan da Cunha...

 in the Atlantic Ocean.

Nuclear weapons development

The Quebec Agreement

Quebec Agreement

The Quebec Agreement is an Anglo-Canadian-American document outlining the terms of nuclear nonproliferation between the United Kingdom and the United States, and signed by Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt on August 19, 1943, two years before the end of World War II, in Quebec City,...

 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

Tube Alloys

Tube Alloys was the code-name for the British nuclear weapon directorate during World War II, when the development of nuclear weapons was kept at such a high level of secrecy that it had to be referred to by code even in the highest circles of government...

 project and sending a delegation to assist in the work of the Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...

. The United States later kept the results of the work to itself under the postwar McMahon Act, but after the United Kingdom developed its own thermonuclear weapons, the United States agreed to supply delivery systems, designs and nuclear material for British warheads through the 1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement

1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement

The 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement is a bilateral treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom on nuclear weapons cooperation.It was signed after the UK successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb during Operation Grapple. While the U.S...

.

The United Kingdom purchased first Polaris and then the American Trident

Trident missile

The Trident missile is a submarine-launched ballistic missile equipped with multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles . The Fleet Ballistic Missile is armed with nuclear warheads and is launched from nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines . Trident missiles are carried by fourteen...

 system which remains in use today. The 1958 agreement gave the United Kingdom access to the facilities at the Nevada Test Site

Nevada Test Site

The Nevada National Security Site , previously the Nevada Test Site , is a United States Department of Energy reservation located in southeastern Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of the city of Las Vegas...

, and from 1963 it conducted a total of 21 underground tests there before the cessation of testing in 1991. The agreement under which this partnership operates was updated in 2004; anti-nuclear activists

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...

 claimed renewal may breach the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to...

. The United States and the United Kingdom jointly conducted subcritical

Critical mass

A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The...

 nuclear experiments in 2002 and 2006, to determine the effectiveness of existing stocks, as permitted under the 1998 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Military procurement

The United Kingdom is the only collaborative, or Level One, international partner in the largest US aircraft

Aircraft

An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...

 procurement project in history, the F-35 Lightning II

F-35 Lightning II

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is a family of single-seat, single-engine, fifth generation multirole fighters under development to perform ground attack, reconnaissance, and air defense missions with stealth capability...

 program. The United Kingdom was involved in writing the specification and selection and its largest defense contractor, BAE Systems

BAE Systems

BAE Systems plc is a British multinational defence, security and aerospace company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, that has global interests, particularly in North America through its subsidiary BAE Systems Inc. BAE is among the world's largest military contractors; in 2009 it was the...

, which is a partner of the American prime contractor Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....

. BAE Systems is also the largest foreign supplier to the United States Defense Department and has been permitted to buy important US defense companies such as Lockheed Martin Aerospace Electronic Systems and United Defense

United Defense

United Defense Industries was a United States defense contractor which is now part of BAE Systems Land and Armaments. This company produces combat vehicles, artillery, naval guns, missile launchers and precision munitions.-History:...

.

The US operates several British designs including Chobham Armour

Chobham armour

Chobham armour is the name informally given to a composite armour developed in the 1960s at the British tank research centre on Chobham Common, Surrey, England...

, the RAF Harrier GR9 or United States Marine Corps

United States Marine Corps

The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...

 AV-8B Harrier II

AV-8B Harrier II

The McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II is a second-generation vertical/short takeoff and landing ground-attack aircraft. An Anglo-American development of the British Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the Harrier II is the final member of the Harrier family that started with the Hawker Siddeley P.1127 in...

 and the US Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 T-45 Goshawk

T-45 Goshawk

|-Avionics:Data from naval-technology.com *Smiths Industries, Ltd. AN/USN-2 Standard Attitude Heading and Reference System . Later replaced by the BAE/Marconi AN/ASN-180 Navigation Guidance System ....

. The UK also operates several American designs, including the Javelin anti-tank missile

FGM-148 Javelin

The FGM-148 Javelin is a United States-made man-portable third generation anti-tank missile fielded to replace the Dragon antitank missile.-Overview:Javelin is a fire-and-forget missile with lock-on before launch and automatic self-guidance...

, M270 rocket artillery

M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System

The M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System is an armored, self-propelled, multiple rocket launcher; a type of rocket artillery.Since the first M270s were delivered to the U.S. Army in 1983, the MLRS has been adopted by several NATO countries. Some 1,300 M270 systems have been manufactured in the...

, the Apache gunship

AH-64 Apache

The Boeing AH-64 Apache is a four-blade, twin-engine attack helicopter with a tailwheel-type landing gear arrangement, and a tandem cockpit for a two-man crew. The Apache was developed as Model 77 by Hughes Helicopters for the United States Army's Advanced Attack Helicopter program to replace the...

, C-130 Hercules

C-130 Hercules

The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is a four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built originally by Lockheed, now Lockheed Martin. Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally designed as a troop, medical evacuation, and cargo transport...

 and C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft.

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

1943 BRUSA Agreement

The 1943 BRUSA Agreement was an agreement between the British and US governments to facilitate co-operation between the US War Department and the British Government Code and Cypher School...

, signed at Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...

. After World War II 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

SIGINT

Signals intelligence is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether between people , whether involving electronic signals not directly used in communication , or combinations of the two...

 organizations of the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and is still in place today. The head of the CIA station in London attends each weekly meeting of the British Joint Intelligence Committee.

One present-day example of such cooperation is the UKUSA Community

UKUSA Community

The United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement is a multilateral agreement for cooperation in signals intelligence among the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It was first signed in March 1946 by the United Kingdom and the United States and later...

, comprising the USA's National Security Agency

National Security Agency

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...

, the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters

Government Communications Headquarters

The Government Communications Headquarters is a British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence and information assurance to the UK government and armed forces...

, Australia's Defence Signals Directorate

Defence Signals Directorate

Defence Signals Directorate is an Australian government intelligence agency responsible for signals intelligence and information security .-Overview:According to its website, DSD has two principal functions:...

 and Canada's Communications Security Establishment

Communications Security Establishment

The Communications Security Establishment Canada is the Canadian government's national cryptologic agency. Administered under the Department of National Defence , it is charged with the duty of keeping track of foreign signals intelligence , and protecting Canadian government electronic...

 collaborating on ECHELON

ECHELON

ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UK–USA Security Agreement...

, a global intelligence gathering system. Under classified bilateral accords, UKUSA members do not spy on each other.

Following the discovery of the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot

2006 transatlantic aircraft plot

The 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot was a terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives carried on board at least 10 airliners travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States and Canada...

, the CIA began to assist the Security Service

MI5

The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...

 (MI5) by running its own agent networks in the British Pakistani community. Security sources estimate 40 per cent of CIA activity to prevent a terrorist attack in the United States involves operations inside the United Kingdom. One intelligence official commented on the threat against the United States from British Islamists

Islam in the United Kingdom

Islam has been present in the United Kingdom since its formation in 1707, though it was not legally recognised until the Trinitarian Act in 1812. Today it is the second largest religion in the country with estimates suggesting that by 2010 the total Muslim population had reached 2.869 million.The...

: 'The fear is that something like this would not just kill people but cause a historic rift between the US and the UK.'

Economic policy

The United States is the largest source of foreign direct investment

Foreign direct investment

Foreign direct investment or foreign investment refers to the net inflows of investment to acquire a lasting management interest in an enterprise operating in an economy other than that of the investor.. It is the sum of equity capital,other long-term capital, and short-term capital as shown in...

 to the United Kingdom; likewise the United Kingdom is the largest single foreign direct investor in the United States. British trade and capital

Financial capital

Financial capital can refer to money used by entrepreneurs and businesses to buy what they need to make their products or provide their services or to that sector of the economy based on its operation, i.e. retail, corporate, investment banking, etc....

 have been important components of the American economy since its colonial inception. In trade and finance, the special relationship has been described as 'well-balanced', with London's 'light-touch' regulation in recent years attracting a massive outflow of capital from New York

Wall Street

Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...

. The key sectors for British exporters to the United States are aviation

Aviation

Aviation is the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft, especially heavier-than-air aircraft. Aviation is derived from avis, the Latin word for bird.-History:...

, aerospace

Aerospace

Aerospace comprises the atmosphere of Earth and surrounding space. Typically the term is used to refer to the industry that researches, designs, manufactures, operates, and maintains vehicles moving through air and space...

, commercial property

Commercial property

The term commercial property refers to buildings or land intended to generate a profit, either from capital gain or rental income.-Definition:...

, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and heavy machinery. British ideas, classical and modern, have also exerted a profound influence on US economic policy, most notably the historian Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...

 on free trade

Free trade

Under a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...

 and the economist John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton, CB FBA , was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments...

 on counter-cyclical spending

Keynesian economics

Keynesian economics is a school of macroeconomic thought based on the ideas of 20th-century English economist John Maynard Keynes.Keynesian economics argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and, therefore, advocates active policy responses by the...

, while the British government has adopted workfare

Workfare

Workfare is an alternative model to conventional social welfare systems. The term was first introduced by civil rights leader James Charles Evers in 1968; however, it was popularized by Richard Nixon in a televised speech August 1969...

 reforms from the United States. American and British investors share entrepreneurial attitudes towards the housing market

Real estate

In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...

, and the fashion

Fashion

Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...

 and music

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 industries of each country are major influences on their counterparts. Trade ties have been strengthened by globalisation, while both governments agree on the need for currency reform in China and educational reform at home to increase their competitiveness against India's developing service industries. In 2007 the US ambassador

Robert H. Tuttle

Robert Holmes Tuttle is a former United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. He held the post from July 2005 to February 2009.A California native, he was nominated to be Ambassador by U.S. President George W. Bush...

 suggested to British business leaders that the special relationship could be used 'to promote world trade

International trade

International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories. In most countries, such trade represents a significant share of gross domestic product...

 and limit environmental damage as well as combating terrorism

Terrorism

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

'.

Personal relationships

The relationship often depends on the personal relations between British prime ministers and US 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

Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...

 and Prime Minister David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

 in Paris

Paris Peace Conference, 1919

The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...

 had been the only previous leaders to meet face-to-face, but had enjoyed nothing that could be described as a special relationship, although Lloyd George's wartime Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour

Arthur Balfour

Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...

, got on well with Wilson during his time in the United States and helped convince the previously skeptical president to enter the war.

Churchill spent much time and effort cultivating the relationship which paid dividends for the war effort although 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

John Dill

Field Marshal Sir John Greer Dill, GCB, CMG, DSO was a British commander in World War I and World War II. From May 1940 to December 1941 he was the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the professional head of the British Army, and subsequently in Washington, as Chief of the British Joint Staff...

 and General George Marshall

George Marshall

George Catlett Marshall was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense...

, 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 found herself 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

Harold Wilson

James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...

's government would not commit troops to Vietnam

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

. Harold Wilson and Lyndon Johnson did not get on especially well.

Peaks in the special relationship include the bonds between Harold Macmillan

Harold Macmillan

Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....

 (who like Churchill had an American mother) and John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

, between Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

 and Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 and more recently between Tony Blair

Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

 and Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

. Nadirs have included Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

's opposition to UK operations in Suez

Suez

Suez is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez , near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boundaries as Suez governorate. It has three harbors, Adabya, Ain Sokhna and Port Tawfiq, and extensive port facilities...

 under Anthony Eden

Anthony Eden

Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...

 and Wilson's refusal to enter the war in Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

.

Macmillan and Kennedy

Macmillan famously quipped that it was Britain’s historical duty to guide the power of the United States as the ancient Greeks

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 had the Romans

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

. He endeavoured to broaden the special relationship beyond Churchill’s conception of an English-Speaking Union into a more inclusive "Atlantic Community". His key theme, 'of the interdependence

Interdependence

Interdependence is a relation between its members such that each is mutually dependent on the others. This concept differs from a simple dependence relation, which implies that one member of the relationship can function or survive apart from the other....

 of the nations of the Free World

Free World

The Free World is a Cold War-era term often used to describe states not under the rule of the Soviet Union, its Eastern European allies, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and other communist nations. The term often referred to states such as the United States, Canada, and Western European states such as the...

 and the partnership which must be maintained between Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and the United States', was one that Kennedy subsequently took up.

On the prime minister's retirement in October 1963, the president declared: 'In nearly three years of cooperation, we have worked together on great and small issues, and we have never had a failure of understanding or of mutual trust.' For his part, Macmillan confided to Kennedy's widow in February 1964: 'He seemed to trust me—and (as you will know) for those of us who have had to play the so-called game of politics—national and international—this is something very rare but very precious.'

However, even in the celebrated 'golden days' of the Kennedy-Macmillan partnership, the special relationship was tested, most severely by the Skybolt crisis of 1962, when Kennedy and his secretary of defense

United States Secretary of Defense

The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries...

, Robert McNamara

Robert McNamara

Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War...

, ignoring the British contribution to the development of the atomic bomb

Nuclear weapon

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...

 and reneging on a promise made by Eisenhower, tried to divest the United Kingdom of its nuclear deterrent by unilaterally cancelling a joint project without consultation. Dean Acheson

Dean Acheson

Dean Gooderham Acheson was an American statesman and lawyer. As United States Secretary of State in the administration of President Harry S. Truman from 1949 to 1953, he played a central role in defining American foreign policy during the Cold War...

, a former US Secretary of State, also chose this moment to challenge publicly the special relationship and marginalise the British contribution to the Western alliance in his West Point speech of 1962:
On learning of Acheson's attack, Macmillan thundered:
The looming collapse of the alliance between the two thermonuclear powers forced Kennedy into an immediate volte-face

Volte-face

Volte-face is a total change of position, as in policy or opinion; an about-face.The expression comes through French, from Italian voltafaccia and Portuguese volte face, composed of volta and faccia ....

 at the Anglo-American summit in Nassau

Nassau, Bahamas

Nassau is the capital, largest city, and commercial centre of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The city has a population of 248,948 , 70 percent of the entire population of The Bahamas...

, where he agreed

Nassau agreement

The Nassau Agreement, concluded on 22 December 1962, was a treaty negotiated between President John F. Kennedy for the United States and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan for the United Kingdom...

 to sell Polaris as a replacement for the cancelled Skybolt. Richard E. Neustadt in his official investigation concluded the crisis in the special relationship had erupted because ‘the president's "Chiefs" failed to make a proper strategic assessment of Great Britain's intentions and its capabilities’.

The Skybolt crisis with Kennedy came on top of Eisenhower’s wrecking of Macmillan’s policy of détente

Détente

Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...

 with the Soviet Union at the May 1960 Paris summit, and the prime minister’s resulting disenchantment with the special relationship contributed to his decision to seek an alternative in British membership of the European Economic Community

European Economic Community

The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...

 (EEC). According to a recent analyst: ‘What the prime minister in effect adopted was a hedging strategy in which ties with Washington would be maintained while at the same time a new power base in Europe was sought.' Even so, Kennedy assured Macmillan ‘that relations between the United States and the UK would be strengthened not weakened, if the UK moved towards membership.’

Wilson, Johnson and Nixon

Prime Minister Harold Wilson

Harold Wilson

James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...

 recast the alliance as a 'close relationship', but neither he nor President Lyndon B. Johnson had any experience of foreign policy, and Wilson's attempt to mediate in Vietnam

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, where the United Kingdom was co-chairman with the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 of the Geneva Conference

Geneva Conference (1954)

The Geneva Conference was a conference which took place in Geneva, Switzerland, whose purpose was to attempt to find a way to unify Korea and discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina...

, was unwelcome to the president, who was rumoured to have called the prime minister a 'creep'. 'I won't tell you how to run Malaysia and you don’t tell us how to run Vietnam,' Johnson snapped in 1965. However relations were sustained by US recognition that Wilson was being criticised at home by his neutralist

Neutral country

A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...

 Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 left for not condemning US involvement in the war.

Despite US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara

Robert McNamara

Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War...

's insistence that the United Kingdom should 'pay the blood price' by sending troops to Vietnam as 'the unwritten terms of the Special Relationship', Wilson refused to commit regular forces, only special forces

Special forces

Special forces, or special operations forces are terms used to describe elite military tactical teams trained to perform high-risk dangerous missions that conventional units cannot perform...

 instructors. His stance was consistent with a burden-sharing arrangement agreed by Macmillan, whereby British forces had been concentrated against the Communist insurgency

Malayan Emergency

The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army , the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948 to 1960....

 in Malaya

Federation of Malaya

The Federation of Malaya is the name given to a federation of 11 states that existed from 31 January 1948 until 16 September 1963. The Federation became independent on 31 August 1957...

. 30,000 British troops were still defending Malaysia in 1964 in an undeclared war with Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

. Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 were Commonwealth

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

 allies that did commit regular forces to Vietnam.

The Johnson administration’s support for IMF

International Monetary Fund

The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...

 loans delayed devaluation of sterling

Pound sterling

The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...

 until 1967. The United Kingdom's subsequent withdrawal from the Persian Gulf

Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...

 and East Asia

East Asia

East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...

 'came as a shock to the United States', where it was strongly opposed, British forces being especially valued for their out-of-area contribution. In retrospect Wilson's moves to scale back Britain's global commitments and correct its balance of payments contrasted favourably with Johnson's overexertions which accelerated the United States' relative economic and military decline.

Heath and Nixon

A Europeanist

Europeanism

Although this term is occasionally used to describe support for European integration , it is more commonly used in relation to the idea that Europeans have common norms and values that transcend national or state identity, that have been promoted most actively...

, Prime Minister Edward Heath

Edward Heath

Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....

 preferred to speak of a '"natural relationship", based on shared culture and heritage', and stressed that the special relationship was 'not part of his own vocabulary'.

The Heath-Nixon era was dominated by the United Kingdom's 1973 entry into the European Economic Community

European Economic Community

The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...

 (EEC). Although the two leaders' 1971 Bermuda

Bermuda

Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...

 communiqué restated that entry served the interests of the Atlantic Alliance, American observers voiced concern that the British government's membership would impair its role as an honest broker, and that, because of the European goal of political union, the special relationship would only survive if it included the whole Community.

Critics accused President Richard M. Nixon of impeding the EEC's inclusion in the special relationship by his economic policy, which dismantled the postwar international monetary system

Bretton Woods system

The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world's major industrial states in the mid 20th century...

 and sought to force open European markets for US exports. Detractors also slated the personal relationship at the top as 'decidedly less than special'; Prime Minister Edward Heath, it was alleged, 'hardly dared put through a phone call to Richard Nixon for fear of offending his new Common Market partners.'

The special relationship was 'soured' during the Arab-Israeli War

Yom Kippur War

The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...

 of 1973 when Nixon failed to inform Heath that US forces had been put on DEFCON

DEFCON

A defense readiness condition is an alert posture used by the United States Armed Forces. The DEFCON system was developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and unified and specified combatant commands. It prescribes five graduated levels of readiness for the U.S...

 3 in a worldwide standoff with the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger

Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...

 misled the British ambassador over the nuclear alert. Heath, who learned about the alert only from press reports hours later, confessed: ‘I have found considerable alarm as to what use the Americans would have been able to make of their forces here without in any way consulting us or considering the British interests.’ The incident marked 'a low ebb' in the special relationship.

Callaghan, Ford and Carter

While President Gerald Ford

Gerald Ford

Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...

 never visited the United Kingdom, the British government saw the US bicentennial

United States Bicentennial

The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to the historical events leading up to the creation of the United States as an independent republic...

 in 1976 as an occasion to celebrate the special relationship. Political leaders and guests from both sides of the Atlantic

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 gathered in May at Westminster Hall to mark the Declaration of Independence

United States Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...

. Prime Minister Jim Callaghan presented a visiting US Congressional

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 delegation with a gold-embossed reproduction of Magna Carta

Magna Carta

Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...

, symbolising the common heritage of the two nations. British historian Esmond Wright

Esmond Wright

Esmond Wright was an English historian of the United States, Director of the Institute of United States Studies at the University of London from 1971 to 1983, a television personality, and a Conservative politician.Wright had a grammar school education in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, before winning an open...

, of the Institute of US Studies

Institute for the Study of the Americas

The Institute for the Study of the Americas was founded in August 2004 through a merger of the Institute of Latin American Studies with the Institute of United States Studies , both of which had been founded in 1965 at 31 Tavistock Square...

, noted 'a vast amount of popular identification with the American story'. A year of cultural exchanges and exhibitions culminated in July in a state visit to the United States by The Queen.

Ties between Callaghan and President Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

 were cordial but not emotional. When Carter came to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 on his first foreign trip in May 1977 he described the relationship as 'very special' but, with both left of centre-governments being preoccupied with economic malaise, diplomatic contacts remained low key. US officials characterised relations in 1978 as 'extremely good', with the main disagreement being over trans-Atlantic air routes.

Reagan and Thatcher

After a period of disengagement and drift in the 1970s, the personal friendship between President Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

, often described as 'ideological soul-mates', reinvigorated what she affirmed as the ‘extraordinary alliance’. They shared a commitment to the philosophy of the free market

Free market

A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...

, low taxes, limited government

Limited government

Limited government is a government which anything more than minimal governmental intervention in personal liberties and the economy is generally disallowed by law, usually in a written constitution. It is written in the United States Constitution in Article 1, Section 8...

, and a strong defence; they rejected détente

Détente

Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...

 and were determined to win the battle of ideas with the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

.

Thatcher summed up her understanding of the special relationship at her first meeting with Reagan as president in 1981: ‘Your problems will be our problems and when you look for friends we shall be there.’ Celebrating the 200th anniversary of diplomatic relations in 1985, she enthused: ‘There is a union of mind and purpose between our peoples which is remarkable and which makes our relationship a truly remarkable one. It is special. It just is, and that’s that.’ The president acknowledged:
In 1982 Thatcher and Reagan reached an agreement to replace the British Polaris fleet with a force equipped with US-supplied Trident missiles

UK Trident programme

The UK Trident programme is the United Kingdom's Trident missile-based nuclear weapons programme. Under the programme, the Royal Navy operates 58 nuclear-armed Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles and around 200 nuclear warheads on 4 Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines from...

, and Reagan became only the second foreign leader to address both Houses of Parliament

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 (the first was de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....

 in 1960). The confidence between the two principals was momentarily strained by Reagan's belated support in the Falklands War

Falklands War

The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...

, but this was more than countered by the Anglophile US Defense Secretary, Caspar Weinberger

Caspar Weinberger

Caspar Willard "Cap" Weinberger , was an American politician, vice president and general counsel of Bechtel Corporation, and Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan from January 21, 1981, until November 23, 1987, making him the third longest-serving defense secretary to date, after...

, who provided communications intercepts and approved shipments of the latest weapons to the massing British task force. Thatcher later stood alone among Western allies when she returned the favour by letting US F-111s take off from RAF

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 bases for the 1986 bombing of Libya, justifying it as an overdue move to help Reagan 'turn the tide against terrorism

Terrorism

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

'.

Feathers were also ruffled in 1983 over the lack of consultation before the US invasion

Invasion of Grenada

The Invasion of Grenada, codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, was a 1983 United States-led invasion of Grenada, a Caribbean island nation with a population of about 100,000 located north of Venezuela. Triggered by a military coup which had ousted a four-year revolutionary government, the invasion...

 of the Commonwealth

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

 island of Grenada

Grenada

Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...

. In 1986 the British defence secretary

Secretary of State for Defence

The Secretary of State for Defence, popularly known as the Defence Secretary, is the senior Government of the United Kingdom minister in charge of the Ministry of Defence, chairing the Defence Council. It is a Cabinet position...

 Michael Heseltine

Michael Heseltine

Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC is a British businessman, Conservative politician and patron of the Tory Reform Group. He was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001 and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major...

, a prominent critic of the special relationship and a supporter of European integration

European integration

European integration is the process of industrial, political, legal, economic integration of states wholly or partially in Europe...

, resigned

Westland affair

The Westland affair was a political scandal for the British Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher in 1986. The argument was a result of differences of opinion within the government as to the future of the United Kingdom helicopter industry. The struggling Westland company, Britain's last...

 over his concern that a takeover of Britain's last helicopter manufacturer

Westland Helicopters

Westland Helicopters was a British aerospace company. Originally Westland Aircraft, the company focused on helicopters after the Second World War. It merged with several other British firms in 1961...

 by a US firm

Sikorsky Aircraft

The Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation is an American aircraft manufacturer based in Stratford, Connecticut. Its parent company is United Technologies Corporation.-History:...

 instead of a European consortium

Agusta

Agusta is an Italian helicopter manufacturer. It is based in Samarate, Northern Italy. It is a subsidiary of Finmeccanica. The company was founded by Count Giovanni Agusta in 1923, who flew his first airplane in 1907...

 would harm the British defence industry. Thatcher herself also saw a potential risk to Britain's deterrent

UK Trident programme

The UK Trident programme is the United Kingdom's Trident missile-based nuclear weapons programme. Under the programme, the Royal Navy operates 58 nuclear-armed Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles and around 200 nuclear warheads on 4 Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines from...

 and security posed by the Strategic Defense Initiative

Strategic Defense Initiative

The Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic...

 and Reagan's proposal at the Reykjavík Summit

Reykjavik Summit

The Reykjavík Summit was a summit meeting between U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Secretary-General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, held in the famous house of Höfði in Reykjavík, the capital city of Iceland, on October 11–12, 1986...

 to eliminate all ballistic nuclear weapons

Ballistic missile

A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...

 despite large conventional disparities. Even so, an observer of the period concluded: 'Britain did indeed figure more prominently in American strategy than any other European power'. Peter Hennessy, a leading historian

Peter Hennessy

Peter John Hennessy, Baron Hennessy of Nympsfield, FBA is an English historian of government. Since 1992, he has been Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at Queen Mary, University of London.-Early life:...

, singles out the personal dynamic of 'Ron' and 'Margaret' in this success:

Major, Clinton and George H. W. Bush

The special relationship waned for a time with the passing of the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, despite intensive co-operation

Operation Granby

Operation Granby was the name given to the British military operations during the Gulf War. 53,462 troops were deployed during the conflict. The total cost of operations was £2.434 billion of which at least £2.049 billion was paid for by other nations such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia; £200...

 in the Gulf War

Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

. Thus, while it remained the case that: 'On almost all issues, Britain and the US are on the same side of the table. You cannot say that for other important allies such as France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 or Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

', it was also acknowledged: ‘The disappearance of a powerful common threat, the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, has allowed narrower disputes to emerge and given them greater weight.’

Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 administrations had enjoyed strong links with the Conservative

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 governments, and the new Democratic

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 President Bill Clinton said he intended to maintain the special relationship, avowing: 'I'm a great Anglophile', but he and Prime Minister John Major

John Major

Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...

 were 'an odd couple', who 'got off on the wrong foot'. Their personal relationship was described as ‘especially awful’, with the two leaders once refusing to speak to one another while dining side-by-side.

Both the Conservatives and Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 had sent advisers to the United States to aid the rival candidates in the 1992 presidential election

United States presidential election, 1992

The United States presidential election of 1992 had three major candidates: Incumbent Republican President George Bush; Democratic Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, and independent Texas businessman Ross Perot....

, and it emerged that the Conservative government had allowed Home Office

Home Office

The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...

 press officers to search files for evidence that Clinton had applied for British citizenship to avoid

Draft dodger

Draft evasion is a term that refers to an intentional failure to comply with the military conscription policies of the nation to which he or she is subject...

 the Vietnam draft while a Rhodes scholar

Rhodes Scholarship

The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...

 at Oxford in 1969; no evidence was found that he had.

Major stood accused of letting the special relationship become a personal relationship with the losing candidate, President George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

, and of having 'bet on the wrong horse in the presidential race'. The Economist

The Economist

The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...

predicted: 'the special relationship, declared dead scores of times since Suez

Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...

, will soon face another burial'. The Clinton administration did little to rebut a report in the New York Times in January 1993 that Major topped a 'Clinton enemies list'. The president afterwards explained: ‘I was determined there would be no damage but I wanted the Tories

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 to worry about it for a while.’ At Clinton's first meeting with Major in February 1993 Clinton joked that he was 'grateful that I got through this whole campaign with most of my time in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 still classified.'

The nuclear alliance—'the heart of the special relationship'—was weakened when Clinton extended a moratorium on tests

Nuclear testing

Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the effectiveness, yield and explosive capability of nuclear weapons. Throughout the twentieth century, most nations that have developed nuclear weapons have tested them...

 in the Nevada desert

Nevada Test Site

The Nevada National Security Site , previously the Nevada Test Site , is a United States Department of Energy reservation located in southeastern Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of the city of Las Vegas...

 in 1993, and pressed Major to agree to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The freeze was described by a British defence minister

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury

Robert Michael James Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury, PC, DL , is a British Conservative politician. During the 1990s, he was Leader of the House of Lords under his courtesy title of Viscount Cranborne...

 as 'unfortunate and misguided', as it inhibited validation of the ‘safety, reliability and effectiveness’ of fail-safe mechanisms on upgraded warheads for the British Trident II

UK Trident programme

The UK Trident programme is the United Kingdom's Trident missile-based nuclear weapons programme. Under the programme, the Royal Navy operates 58 nuclear-armed Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles and around 200 nuclear warheads on 4 Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines from...

 D5 missile

UGM-133 Trident II

UGM-133 Trident II, or Trident D5 is a submarine-launched ballistic missile, built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Sunnyvale, California, and deployed with the US Navy and Royal Navy. It was first deployed in 1990, and is still in service....

s, and potentially the development of a new deterrent for the 21st century, leading Major to consider a return to Pacific

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 testing, and the Ministry of Defence

Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

 to turn to computer simulation. One analyst accused the United Kingdom of using safety and reliability as cover for testing a replacement warhead for the WE.177

WE.177

WE.177 was the last air-delivered tactical nuclear weapon of the British Armed Forces. There were three versions; WE.177A was a boosted fission weapon, while WE.177B and WE.177C were thermonuclear weapons...

 free-fall bomb. The moratorium weakened the case for British reliance on Trident, resulting in the entente nucléaire with France in 1995 under a Joint Nuclear Commission.

A genuine crisis in transatlantic relations blew up over Bosnia

Bosnian War

The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...

. London and Paris resisted relaxation of the UN

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 arms embargo, and discouraged US escalation

Lift and strike (Bosnia)

Lift and strike was the name of an American policy, which sought to improve the chances of a political settlement in the Bosnian War. The idea of the proposal was to lift a United Nations arms embargo in order to allow the poorly armed Bosniaks to arm with imported weapons, thus balancing the...

, arguing that arming the Muslims

Bosniaks

The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in other lands of the Balkan Peninsula especially in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia...

 or bombing the Serbs

Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina are people of Serb ethnicity inhabiting the Balkan regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or, since the establishment of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state in the 1990s, the Serbs who have its citizenship. The Serbs are one of the three constitutive nations of this...

 could worsen the bloodshed and endanger their peacekeepers

United Nations Protection Force

The United Nations Protection Force ', was the first United Nations peacekeeping force in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav wars. It existed between the beginning of UN involvement in February 1992, and its restructuring into other forces in March 1995...

 on the ground. US Secretary of State Warren Christopher

Warren Christopher

Warren Minor Christopher was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician. During Bill Clinton's first term as President, Christopher served as the 63rd Secretary of State. He also served as Deputy Attorney General in the Lyndon Johnson administration, and as Deputy Secretary of State in the Jimmy...

's campaign to lift the embargo was rebuffed by Major and President Mitterrand

François Mitterrand

François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...

 in May 1993. After the so-called 'Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 ambush' in June 1993, where Clinton 'ganged up' with Chancellor Kohl

Helmut Kohl

Helmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998...

 to rally the European Community

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 against the peacekeeping states, Major was said to be contemplating the death of the special relationship. The following month the United States voted at the UN with non-aligned countries

Non-Aligned Movement

The Non-Aligned Movement is a group of states considering themselves not aligned formally with or against any major power bloc. As of 2011, the movement had 120 members and 17 observer countries...

 against Britain and France over lifting the embargo.

By October 1993 Christopher was bristling that Washington policy makers had been too 'Eurocentric

Eurocentrism

Eurocentrism is the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective and with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of European culture...

', and declared that Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

 was 'no longer the dominant area of the world'. The US ambassador

Raymond G. H. Seitz

Raymond George Hardenbergh Seitz is a former career diplomat and U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom. He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on December 8, 1940. He graduated from Yale University in 1963 with a BA in history, following which he spent 2 years teaching in Dallas, Texas. He joined the US...

 to London demurred, insisting it was far too early to put a 'tombstone' over the special relationship. A senior US State Department

United States Department of State

The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...

 official described Bosnia in the spring of 1995 as the worst crisis with the British and French since Suez. By the summer US officials were doubting whether NATO had a future.

The nadir had now been reached, and, along with NATO enlargement

Enlargement of NATO

Enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the process of including new member states in NATO. NATO is a military alliance of states in Europe and North America whose organization constitutes a system of collective defence. The process of joining the alliance is governed by Article...

 and the Croatian offensive in 1995 that opened the way for NATO bombing, the strengthening Clinton-Major relationship was later credited as one of three developments that saved the Western alliance. The president acknowledged: 'John Major carried a lot of water for me and for the alliance over Bosnia. I know he was under a lot of political pressure at home, but he never wavered. He was a truly decent guy who never let me down. We worked really well together, and I got to like him a lot.'

A rift opened in a further area. In February 1994 Major refused to answer Clinton's telephone calls for days over his decision to grant Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...

 leader Gerry Adams

Gerry Adams

Gerry Adams is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern...

 a visa

Visa (document)

A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...

 to visit the United States to agitate. Adams was listed as a terrorist by London

Home Office

The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...

. The US State Department, the CIA, the US Justice Department

United States Department of Justice

The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...

 and the FBI

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

 all opposed the move on the grounds that it made the United States look 'soft on terrorism' and 'could do irreparable damage to the special relationship'. Under pressure from Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

, the president hoped the visit would encourage the IRA

Provisional Irish Republican Army

The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...

 to renounce violence. While Adams offered nothing new, and violence escalated within weeks, the president later claimed vindication after the IRA ceasefire of August 1994. To the disappointment of the prime minister, Clinton lifted the ban on official contacts and received Adams at the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 on St. Patrick's Day 1995, despite the fact the paramilitaries had not agreed to disarm. The rows over Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 and the Adams affair reportedly 'provoked incandescent Clintonian rages'.

In November 1995 Clinton became only the second US president ever to address both Houses of Parliament

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

, but by the end of Major's premiership disenchantment with the special relationship had deepened to the point where the incoming British ambassador

Christopher Meyer

Sir Christopher John Rome Meyer, KCMG is a former British Ambassador to the United States , former Ambassador to Germany and the former chairman of the Press Complaints Commission...

 banned the 'hackneyed phrase' from the embassy.

Blair, Clinton and George W. Bush

The election of British prime minister

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...

 Tony Blair

Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

 in 1997 brought an opportunity to revive what Clinton called the two nations' 'unique partnership'. At his first meeting with his new partner, the president said: 'Over the last fifty years our unbreakable alliance has helped to bring unparalleled peace and prosperity and security. It’s an alliance based on shared values and common aspirations.' The personal relationship was seen as especially close because the leaders were 'kindred spirits' in their domestic agendas. New Labour's Third Way

Third way (centrism)

The Third Way refers to various political positions which try to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies. Third Way approaches are commonly viewed from within the first- and second-way perspectives as...

, a moderate social-democratic

Social democracy

Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...

 position, was partly influenced by US New Democratic

New Democrats

New Democrats, in the politics of the United States, are an ideologically centrist faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H. W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. They are identified with centrist social/cultural/pluralist positions and...

 thinking.

Co-operation in defence and communications still had the potential to embarrass Blair, however, as he strove to balance it with his own leadership role in the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 (EU). Enforcement of Iraqi no-fly zones

Iraqi no-fly zones

The Iraqi no-fly zones were a set of two separate no-fly zones , and were proclaimed by the United States, United Kingdom and France after the Gulf War of 1991 to protect the Kurdish people in northern Iraq and Shiite Muslims in the south. Iraqi aircraft were forbidden from flying inside the zones...

 and US bombing raids on Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

 dismayed EU partners. As the leading international proponent of humanitarian intervention

Humanitarian intervention

Humanitarian intervention "refers to a state using military force against another state when the chief publicly declared aim of that military action is ending human-rights violations being perpetrated by the state against which it is directed."...

, the 'hawkish' Blair 'bullied' Clinton to back diplomacy with force in Kosovo

Kosovo

Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...

 in 1999, pushing for deployment of ground troops to persuade the president 'to do whatever was necessary' to win.

The personal diplomacy of Blair and Clinton's successor, US president

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

, further 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

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 and Washington DC. Blair, like Bush, was convinced of the importance of moving against the perceived threat to world peace and international order, famously pledging to stand 'shoulder to shoulder' with Bush:
Blair flew to Washington immediately after 9/11 to affirm British solidarity with the United States. In a speech to the United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

, nine days after the attacks, Bush declared 'America has no truer friend than Great Britain.' Blair, one of few world leaders to attend a presidential speech to Congress as a special guest of the First Lady, received two standing ovations from members of Congress. Following that speech Blair embarked on two months of diplomacy rallying international support for military action. The BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 calculated 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 to 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

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. Blair felt he could defend his close personal relationship with Bush by claiming it had brought progress in the Middle East peace process, aid for Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 and climate-change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

 diplomacy. However it was not with Bush but with California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....

 that Blair ultimately succeeded in setting up a carbon-trading market

Emissions trading

Emissions trading is a market-based approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants....

, 'creating a model other states will follow'.

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

Margaret Beckett

Margaret Mary Beckett is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Derby South since 1983, rising to become the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party under John Smith, from 18 July 1992 to 12 May 1994, and briefly serving as Leader of the Party following Smith's death...

 criticised the United States for 'ignoring procedure' when using Prestwick Airport as a stop-off point for delivering laser-guided bomb

Laser-guided bomb

A laser-guided bomb is a guided bomb that uses semi-active laser homing to strike a designated target with greater accuracy than an unguided bomb. LGBs are one of the most common and widespread guided bombs, used by a large number of the world's air forces.- Overview :Laser-guided munitions use a...

s to Israel. On 17 August, The Independent

The Independent

The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

reported that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott

John Prescott

John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott is a British politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Born in Prestatyn, Wales, he represented Hull East as the Labour Member of Parliament from 1970 to 2010...

 had disparaged as 'crap' Bush's efforts on the Middle East Roadmap

Road map for peace

The roadmap for peace or "road map" for peace is a plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict proposed by a "quartet" of international entities: the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations. The principles of the plan, originally drafted by U.S. Foreign Service...

, which Prescott felt had been a condition of his support for the war in Iraq. Prescott said this was an inaccurate report of a private conversation.

In November 2006 US State Department analyst Kendall Myers

Kendall Myers

Walter Kendall Myers is a retired U.S. State Department Officer who, with his wife, Gwendolyn, was arrested and indicted on June 4, 2009, on charges of nearly 30 years of spying for Cuba.-Background:...

 dismissed the special relationship as a ‘myth’ with 'no sense of reciprocity'. Myers was disowned by the State Department. Former Foreign Office minister Denis MacShane

Denis MacShane

Denis MacShane is a British politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Rotherham since the 1994 by-election and served as the Minister for Europe from 2002 until 2005, as well as being a current Policy Council member for Labour Friends of Israel.On 14 October 2010, it was announced...

 said: 'Every little rat who feasted during the Bush years is now leaving the ship'.

Brown and Obama

Although British Prime Minister

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...

 Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown

James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

 stated his support for the United States on assuming office in 2007, he appointed ministers to the Foreign Office

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...

 who had been critical of aspects of the relationship or of recent US policy. A Whitehall

Whitehall

Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...

 source said: 'It will be more businesslike now, with less emphasis on the meeting of personal visions you had with Bush and Blair.' British policy was that the relationship with the United States remained the United Kingdom's 'most important bilateral relationship'.

Prior to his election as US president in 2008, Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

, suggesting that Blair and Britain had been let down by the Bush administration, declared: 'We have a chance to recalibrate the relationship and for the United Kingdom to work with America as a full partner.'

On meeting Brown as president for the first time in March 2009, Obama reaffirmed that 'Great Britain is one of our closest and strongest allies and there is a link and bond there that will not break... This notion that somehow there is any lessening of that special relationship is misguided... The relationship is not only special and strong but will only get stronger as time goes on.' Commentators, however, noted that the recurring use of 'special partnership' by White House Press Secretary

White House Press Secretary

The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration....

 Robert Gibbs

Robert Gibbs

Robert Lane Gibbs was the 28th White House Press Secretary. Gibbs was the communications director for then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama and Obama's 2008 presidential campaign...

 could be signaling an effort to recast terms. One commentator noted the new term in a review of the HMS Gannet-pen holder which Brown presented to the president, and other gifts exchanged at the time. Obama presented Brown with 25 DVDs of American movies, but in the US Region 1 code, not the Region 2 encoding used in the UK.

The special relationship was also reported to be 'strained' after a senior US State Department

United States Department of State

The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...

 official criticised a British decision to talk to the political wing of Hezbollah, complaining the United States had not been properly informed. The protest came after the Obama administration had said it was prepared to talk to Hamas

Hamas

Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...

 and at the same time as it was making overtures to Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 and Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

. A senior Foreign Office official responded: 'This should not have come as a shock to any official who might have been in the previous administration and is now in the current one.’

In June 2009 the special relationship was reported to have 'taken another hit' after the British government was said to be 'angry' over the failure of the US to seek its approval before negotiating with Bermuda

Bermuda

Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...

 over the resettlement to the British overseas territory

British overseas territories

The British Overseas Territories are fourteen territories of the United Kingdom which, although they do not form part of the United Kingdom itself, fall under its jurisdiction. They are remnants of the British Empire that have not acquired independence or have voted to remain British territories...

 of four ex-Guantanamo Bay inmates wanted by the People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

. A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'It's something that we should have been consulted about.' Asked whether the men might be sent back to Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

, he replied: 'We are looking into all possible next steps.' The move prompted an urgent security assessment by the British government. Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague

William Hague

William Jefferson Hague is the British Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State. He served as Leader of the Conservative Party from June 1997 to September 2001...

 demanded an explanation from the incumbent, David Miliband

David Miliband

David Wright Miliband is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for South Shields since 2001, and was the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2007 to 2010. He is the elder son of the late Marxist theorist Ralph Miliband...

, as comparisons were drawn with his previous embarrassment over the US use of Diego Garcia for extraordinary rendition without British knowledge, with one commentator describing the affair as 'a wake-up call' and 'the latest example of American governments ignoring Britain when it comes to US interests in British territories abroad'.

In August 2009 the special relationship was again reported to have 'taken another blow' with the release on compassionate grounds of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie Bombing

Pan Am Flight 103

Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport...

, US Secretary of State

Secretary of State

Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....

 Hillary Clinton said 'it was absolutely wrong to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi', adding 'We are still encouraging the Scottish authorities not to do so and hope they will not'. Obama also commented that the release of al-Megrahi was a 'mistake' and 'highly objectionable'.

In March 2010 Hillary Clinton's support for Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

's call for negotiations over the Falkland Islands triggered a series of diplomatic protests from Britain and renewed public scepticism about the value of the special relationship. The British government rejected Clinton's offer of mediation after renewed tensions with Argentina were triggered by a British decision to drill for oil near the Falkland Islands

Falkland Islands

The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...

. The British government's long-standing position was that the Falklands were British territory, with all that this implied regarding the legitimacy of British commercial activities within its boundaries. British officials were therefore irritated by the implication that sovereignty was negotiable.

Later that month, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons suggested that the British government should be 'less deferential' towards the United States and focus relations more on British interests. According to Committee Chair Mike Gapes

Mike Gapes

Michael John "Mike" Gapes is a British Labour Co-operative politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Ilford South since 1992....

, 'The UK and US have a close and valuable relationship not only in terms of intelligence and security but also in terms of our profound and historic cultural and trading links and commitment to freedom, democracy and the rule of law. But the use of the phrase "the special relationship" in its historical sense, to describe the totality of the ever-evolving UK-US relationship, is potentially misleading, and we recommend that its use should be avoided.' In April 2010 the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 added its voice to the call for a more balanced relationship between Britain and the United States.

Cameron and Obama

On David Cameron

David Cameron

David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....

 being elected as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 11 May 2010, President Obama was the first foreign leader to offer his congratulations. Following the conversation Obama said:
Incoming British Foreign Secretary William Hague

William Hague

William Jefferson Hague is the British Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State. He served as Leader of the Conservative Party from June 1997 to September 2001...

 responded to the President's overture by making Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, his first port of call, commenting: 'We're very happy to accept that description and to agree with that description. The United States is without doubt the most important ally of the United Kingdom.' Meeting Hillary Clinton, Hague hailed the special relationship as 'an unbreakable alliance', and added: 'It's not a backward-looking or nostalgic relationship. It is one looking to the future from combating violent extremism to addressing poverty and conflict around the world.' Both governments confirmed their joint commitment to the war in Afghanistan and their opposition to Iran's nuclear programme

Nuclear program of Iran

The nuclear program of Iran was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program. The support, encouragement and participation of the United States and Western European governments in Iran's nuclear program continued until the 1979 Iranian Revolution...

.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Deepwater Horizon oil spill

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which flowed unabated for three months in 2010, and continues to leak fresh oil. It is the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry...

 in 2010 sparked a media firestorm against BP

BP

BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...

 in the United States. The Christian Science Monitor observed that a "rhetorical prickliness" had come about from escalating Obama administration criticism of BP—straining the special relationship—particularly the repeated use of the term 'British Petroleum' even though the business no longer uses that name. Cameron stated that he did not want to make the president's toughness on BP a US-UK issue, and noted that the company was balanced in terms of the number of its American and British shareholders. The validity of the special relationship was put in question as a result of the 'aggressive rhetoric'.

On July 20, Cameron met with Obama during his first visit to the United States as prime minister. The two expressed unity in a wide range of issues, including the War in Afghanistan. During the meeting, Obama stated, "We can never say it enough. The United States and the United Kingdom enjoy a truly special relationship," then going on to say, "We celebrate a common heritage. We cherish common values. ... (And) above all, our alliance thrives because it advances our common interests." Cameron stated in an interview during the trip that he wanted to build a strong relationship with the United States, Britain's "oldest and best ally." Cameron further stated that, "from the times I've met Barack Obama before, we do have very, very close -- allegiances and very close positions on all the key issues, whether that is Afghanistan or Middle East peace process or Iran. Our interests are aligned and we've got to make this partnership work."

Cameron has tried to downplay the idealism of the special relationship and called for an end to the British fixation on the status of the relationship, stating that it's a natural and mutually beneficial relationship. He said, "...I am unapologetically pro-America. But I am not some idealistic dreamer about the special relationship. I care about the depth of our partnership, not the length of our phone calls. I hope that in the coming years we can focus on the substance, not endlessly fret about the form."

The England v. USA World Cup encounter, which ended in a 1-1 draw, ended a bet between the two leaders in which Obama gave Cameron a Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 beer called 'Goose Island 312' while Cameron presented Obama with a bottle of 'Hobgoblin', a beer from his constituency town in Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

. Obama also took the moment to praise the way that Cameron had handled the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday

Bloody Sunday (1972)

Bloody Sunday —sometimes called the Bogside Massacre—was an incident on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, in which twenty-six unarmed civil rights protesters and bystanders were shot by soldiers of the British Army...

.

In January 2011, during a White House meeting with the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier....

, Obama declared: "We don't have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people", a statement which triggered outcry in the United Kingdom. In May, however, Obama became the third US President to make a state visit

State visit

A state visit is a formal visit by a foreign head of state to another nation, at the invitation of that nation's head of state. State visits are the highest form of diplomatic contact between two nations, and are marked by ceremonial pomp and diplomatic protocol. In parliamentary democracies, heads...

 to the UK. For the keynote speech, he became only the second US President to address both Houses of Parliament after Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

. Considered a rare privilege for a foreign leader, only Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....

, Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

, Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...

 and Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI

Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...

 had done so since the Second World War.

Public opinion

It has been noted that secret defence and intelligence links 'that [have] minimal impact on ordinary people [play] a disproportionate role in the transatlantic friendship', and perspectives on the special relationship differ.

Poll findings

A 1942 Gallup poll conducted after Pearl Harbor

Attack on Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...

, before the arrival of US troops and Churchill's heavy promotion of the special relationship, showed wartime ally Russia

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 was still more popular than the United States among 62% of Britons. However only 6% had ever visited the United States and only 35% knew any Americans personally.

In 1969 the United States was tied with the Commonwealth

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

 as the most important overseas connection for the British public, while Europe came in a distant third. By 1984, after a decade in the Common Market

European Economic Community

The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...

, Britons chose Europe as being most important to them.

British opinion polls from the Cold War revealed ambivalent feelings towards the United States. Margaret Thatcher's 1979 agreement to base US cruise missile

Cruise missile

A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards a land-based or sea-based target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy...

s in Britain was approved of by only 36% of Britons, and the number with little or no trust in America's ability to deal wisely with world affairs had soared from 38% in 1977 to 74% in 1984, by which time 49% wanted US nuclear bases in Britain removed, and 50% would have sent US-controlled cruise missiles back to the United States. At the same time, 59% of Britons supported their own country’s nuclear deterrent

Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom was the third country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon, in October 1952. It is one of the five "Nuclear Weapons States" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the UK ratified in 1968...

, with 60% believing Britain should rely on both nuclear and conventional weapons, and 66% opposing unilateral nuclear disarmament

Nuclear disarmament

Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated....

. 53% of Britons opposed dismantling the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

's Polaris submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

s. 70% of Britons still considered Americans to be very or fairly trustworthy, and in case of war the United States was the ally trusted overwhelmingly to come to Britain's aid, and to risk its own security for the sake of Britain. America and Britain were also the two countries most alike in basic values such as willingness to fight for their country and the importance of freedom.

In 1986, 71% of Britons, questioned in a Mori poll the day after Ronald Reagan’s bombing of Libya, disagreed with Thatcher's decision to allow the use of RAF

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 bases, while two thirds in a Gallup survey opposed the bombing itself, the reverse of American opinion.
The United Kingdom's all-time low poll rating in the United States came in 1994, during the split over Bosnia

Bosnian War

The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...

, when only 56% of Americans interviewed considered Britons to be close allies.

In a 1997 Harris poll published after Tony Blair's election, 63% of Americans viewed Britain as a close ally, up by one percent from 1996, 'confirming that the long-running "special relationship" with America's transatlantic cousins is still alive and well'. Britain came second behind its colonial offshoot Canada, on 73%, while another offshoot, Australia, came third, on 48%. Popular awareness of the historical link was fading in the mother country, however. In a 1997 Gallup poll, while 60% of the British public said they regretted the end

Decolonization

Decolonization refers to the undoing of colonialism, the unequal relation of polities whereby one people or nation establishes and maintains dependent Territory over another...

 of Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

 and 70% expressed pride in the imperial past, 53% wrongly supposed that America had never been a British possession

British colonization of the Americas

British colonization of the Americas began in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia and reached its peak when colonies had been established throughout the Americas...

.

In 1998, 61% of Britons polled by ICM said they believed they had more in common with Americans than they did with the rest of Europe. 64% disagreed with the sentence, 'Britain does what the US government tells us to do.' A majority also backed Blair's support of Bill Clinton's strategy on Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, 42% saying action should be taken to topple Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...

, with 24% favouring diplomatic action, and a further 24%, military action. A majority of Britons aged 24 and over said they did not like Blair supporting Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal

Lewinsky scandal

The Lewinsky scandal was a political sex scandal emerging in 1998 from a sexual relationship between United States President Bill Clinton and a 25-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The news of this extra-marital affair and the resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment of...

.

A 2006 poll of the US public showed that the United Kingdom, as an 'ally in the war on terror' was 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 viewed 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

Populus Ltd

Populus is a market research company in the United Kingdom formed in 2003. Populus co-founded the British Polling Council in 2004 and regularly publishes opinion polls on voting intention and as well as other political and commercial issues. Clients have included national brands such as the AA and...

 for The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

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.' Only 44%, however, agreed that 'America is a force for good in the world.' A later poll during the Israel-Lebanon conflict

2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War #Other uses|Tammūz]]) and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War , was a 34-day military conflict in Lebanon, northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. The principal parties were Hezbollah...

 found that 63% of Britons felt that the United Kingdom was tied too closely to the United States. A 2008 poll by The Economist

The Economist

The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...

showed that Britons' views differed considerably from Americans' views when asked about the topics of religion, values, and national interest. Indeed, it has been argued that Britons are more closely aligned with other Western Europeans, especially the Germans and Dutch. 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.

In January 2010 a Leflein poll conducted for Atlantic Bridge found that 57% of Americans considered the special relationship with Britain to be the world's most important bilateral partnership, with 2% disagreeing. 60% of Americans regarded Britain as the country most likely to support the United States in a crisis, while Canada came second on 24%, and Australia third on 4%.

In May 2010, another poll conducted in the UK by YouGov revealed that 66% of those surveyed held a favourable view of the USA and 62% agreed with the assertion that the USA is Britain's most important ally. However, the survey also revealed that 85% of British citizens believe that the UK has little or no influence on American policies, and that 62% think that America does not consider British interests.

1967 letter

In 1967 a group of prominent Americans sought to reaffirm the importance of close ties in a letter published in The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, saying that the special relationship should remain a fundamental bilateral policy

Bilateralism

Bilateralism consists of the political, economic, or cultural relations between two sovereign states. For example, free trade agreements signed by two states are examples of bilateral treaties. It is in contrast to unilateralism or multilateralism, which refers to the conduct of diplomacy by a...

 even if the United Kingdom entered the European Economic Community

European Economic Community

The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...

. They suggested that the two governments 'begin to consider contingent means, including mutually beneficial trade and fiscal reforms, for saving and strengthening the historic relationship between our nations, whatever the outcome of the E.E.C. negotiations'. Signatories included 10 senators

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

, 29 members of the House of Representative

United States House of Representatives

The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

s and a number of university presidents. The Times proposed a 'wide Atlantic-based free trade area

Transatlantic Free Trade Area

The Transatlantic Free Trade Area is a proposed free trade area between the United States and the European Union in reaction to the growing economic power of the People's Republic of China. It was considered in the 1990s and again in 2007 but no firm plan has been made...

' as one possibility of a broader economic grouping.

Friendly fire

In the 1991 Gulf War

Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

, nine British soldiers were killed when a USAF A-10 Thunderbolt II

A-10 Thunderbolt II

The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is an American single-seat, twin-engine, straight-wing jet aircraft developed by Fairchild-Republic in the early 1970s. The A-10 was designed for a United States Air Force requirement to provide close air support for ground forces by attacking tanks,...

 attacked a group of two Warrior

Warrior Tracked Armoured Vehicle

The Warrior tracked vehicle family is a series of British armoured vehicles, originally developed to replace the older FV430 series of armoured vehicles. The Warrior started life as the MCV-80 project that was first broached in the 1970s, GKN Sankey/Defence winning the production contract in 1980....

 IFV

Infantry fighting vehicle

An infantry fighting vehicle , also known as a mechanized infantry combat vehicle , is a type of armoured fighting vehicle used to carry infantry into battle and provide fire support for them...

s. Public controversy arose after US military authorities refused to allow USAF pilots to give evidence at a 1992 British inquest

Inquest

Inquests in England and Wales are held into sudden and unexplained deaths and also into the circumstances of discovery of a certain class of valuable artefacts known as "treasure trove"...

 into the deaths, saying that they had already supplied all the relevant information. The inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing

Unlawful killing

In English law unlawful killing is a verdict that can be returned by an inquest in England and Wales when someone has been killed by one or several unknown persons. The verdict means that the killing was done without lawful excuse and in breach of criminal law. This includes murder, manslaughter,...

. The families of those killed accused the United States of 'double standards' after three US military officers were reprimanded for negligence after a separate incident involving the similar death of a US soldier. Tammy Groves, solicitor for the families, said: 'We have been denied any inquiry in the US; there have been no reprimands; and the pilots have not been named. The contrast could not be greater.' Anne Leech, whose son was one of the British soldiers killed, said: 'They are supposed to be a friendly country, but it shows it only goes as far as they want it to ... Unless people are made accountable for what they do in these situations it will continue to happen.'

President George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

 responded: 'My heart goes out to their families. But I see no reason in going beyond what we've already done to fully account for this terrible tragedy of war.' Peter Atkinson, whose son was also killed, said: 'We met George Bush. He was trying to slide out of meeting us so I ran after him, collared him and told him what I thought. He said to me "You want the facts? ... Right, you'll get them." Months later they sent us a report. It was rubbish. All the relevant details had been censored out.'

Further friendly fire

Friendly fire

Friendly fire is inadvertent firing towards one's own or otherwise friendly forces while attempting to engage enemy forces, particularly where this results in injury or death. A death resulting from a negligent discharge is not considered friendly fire...

 incidents in the 2003 Iraq War brought assurances from officers and politicians that they would not hurt the close alliance: 'A situation like this does not mean anything of harm to the coalition

Coalition of the willing

The term coalition of the willing is a post-1990 political phrase used to collectively describe participants in military or military-humanitarian interventions for which the United Nations Security Council cannot agree to mount a full UN peacekeeping operation...

, but in many ways it brings us closer together,' said RAF

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 Group Captain

Group Captain

Group captain is a senior commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many other Commonwealth countries. It ranks above wing commander and immediately below air commodore...

 Jon Fynes. However the US government again refused to co-operate with the coroner’s investigations. This culminated in the United States attempting to prevent the release of cockpit videos—later leaked to The Sun

The Sun (newspaper)

The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...

—showing events leading to the death of Lance-Corporal Matty Hull of the Household Cavalry

Household Cavalry

The term Household Cavalry is used across the Commonwealth to describe the cavalry of the Household Divisions, a country’s most elite or historically senior military groupings or those military groupings that provide functions associated directly with the Head of state.Canada's Governor General's...

, and threatening newspapers that published them with prosecution. The coroner

Andrew Walker (barrister)

Andrew Walker is an English barrister and coroner for Northern District of Greater London,. In June 2006 he was appointed on temporary contract as assistant deputy coroner in Oxfordshire, one of three temporary appointees to assist in reducing a backlog of inquests into the deaths of British...

 slammed US 'intransigence', and the British press accused the Pentagon

The Pentagon

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...

 of operating 'in a no-fault zone', with the Daily Telegraph commenting: 'This will reaffirm the view of many in the British military that while the US has the best kit, it does not necessarily have the best training ... Uninhibited by the risk of any sanction, is it any wonder that they go about their lethal business with such apparent insouciance?' The Spectator

The Spectator

The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...

described the British forbearance towards American evasiveness as "a bleak parable of the flaws at the heart of the US-UK 'special relationship'."

Iraq

Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq

2003 invasion of Iraq

The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...

, senior British figures criticized the refusal of the US Government to heed British advice regarding post-war plans for Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, specifically the Coalition Provisional Authority

Coalition Provisional Authority

The Coalition Provisional Authority was established as a transitional government following the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies, members of the Multi-National Force – Iraq which was formed to oust the government of Saddam Hussein in 2003...

's de-Ba'athification policy and the critical importance of preventing the power vacuum

Power vacuum

A power vacuum is, in its broadest sense, an expression for a condition that exists when someone has lost control of something and no one has replaced them. It is usually used to refer to a political situation that can occur when a government has no identifiable central authority...

 in which the insurgency

Insurgency

An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...

 subsequently developed. British defence secretary Geoff Hoon

Geoff Hoon

Geoffrey "Geoff" William Hoon is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament for Ashfield from 1992 to 2010...

 later stated that the United Kingdom 'lost the argument' with the Bush administration over rebuilding Iraq. Speaking on the same topic, The Duke of York

Prince Andrew, Duke of York

Prince Andrew, Duke of York KG GCVO , is the second son, and third child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...

 said there were "occasions when people in the UK would wish that those in responsible positions in the US might listen and learn from our experiences", that there was 'healthy skepticism' in the United Kingdom toward what was said in Washington DC, and a feeling of 'why didn't anyone listen to what was said and the advice that was given'. CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

 acknowledged that the Prince's views were widely shared in the UK.

Extraordinary rendition

Assurances made by the United States to the United Kingdom that 'extraordinary rendition' flights had never landed on British territory were later shown to be false when official US records proved that such flights had landed at Diego Garcia repeatedly. The revelation was an embarrassment for former British foreign secretary David Miliband, who was obliged to apologise to Parliament

Parliament

A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...

, describing the incidents as 'a most serious matter'.

Legal and moral doubts also arose over the US government's extraordinary rendition process, which ignored extradition treaties and officially sanctioned the kidnap and extrajudicial transfer of people (some of them British 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 failure to heed British concerns had 'serious implications' for future intelligence relations.

Criminal law

In 2003 the United States pressed the United Kingdom to agree to an extradition treaty

Extradition Act 2003

The Extradition Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It came into force on 1 January 2004 and all import and export extradition requests submitted or received from this date are covered by the Act...

 which, proponents claimed, allowed for equal extradition requirements between the two countries. Critics argued that the United Kingdom was obligated to make a strong prima facie

Prima facie

Prima facie is a Latin expression meaning on its first encounter, first blush, or at first sight. The literal translation would be "at first face", from the feminine form of primus and facies , both in the ablative case. It is used in modern legal English to signify that on first examination, a...

 case to US courts before extradition would be granted, and that, by 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

City of London

The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

 businessmen (e.g. the Natwest Three and Ian Norris) on fraud charges. Contrasts have been drawn with the United States' harboring of Provisional IRA

Provisional Irish Republican Army

The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...

 terrorists in the 1970s through to the 1990s and repeated refusals to extradite them to the UK.

On 30 September 2006, the US Senate unanimously ratified the 2003 treaty. Ratification had been slowed by complaints from some Irish-American groups that the treaty would create new legal jeopardy for US citizens who opposed British policy in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

. The Spectator

The Spectator

The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...

condemned the three-year delay as 'an appalling breach in a long-treasured relationship’.

The United States also refused to accede to another priority of the Blair government, the treaty setting-up the International Criminal Court

International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...

.

Trade policy

Trade disputes and attendant job fears have sometimes strained the special relationship. The United States has been accused of pursuing an aggressive trade policy, using or ignoring WTO

World Trade Organization

The World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...

 rules; the aspects of this causing most difficulty to the United Kingdom have been a successful challenge to the protection of small family banana farmers in the West Indies from large US corporations such as the American Financial Corporation, and high tariffs on British steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

 products. In 2002 Blair denounced Bush's imposition of tariffs on steel as 'unacceptable, unjustified and wrong', but although Britain's biggest steelmaker, Corus

Corus Group

Tata Steel Europe is a multinational steel-making company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest steel-maker in Europe and is a subsidiary of Tata Steel of India, one of the ten largest steel producers in the world.Corus Group was formed through the merger of Koninklijke...

, called for protection from dumping

Dumping (pricing policy)

In economics, "dumping" is any kind of predatory pricing, especially in the context of international trade. It occurs when manufacturers export a product to another country at a price either below the price charged in its home market, or in quantities that cannot be explained through normal market...

 by developing nations, the Confederation of British Industry

Confederation of British Industry

The Confederation of British Industry is a British not for profit organisation incorporated by Royal charter which promotes the interests of its members, some 200,000 British businesses, a figure which includes some 80% of FTSE 100 companies and around 50% of FTSE 350 companies.-Role:The CBI works...

 urged the government not to start a 'tit-for-tat'.

Diplomacy

In October 2007 The United Kingdom's first Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 government minister, Shahid Malik

Shahid Malik

Shahid Rafique Malik is a British Labour Party politician who became the Member of Parliament for Dewsbury in 2005 after defeating Conservative Sayeeda Warsi, now Conservative Chair Baroness Warsi and remained so till 2010 when Conservative candidate Simon Reevell won Dewsbury...

, rebuked US authorities after having been detained and searched for explosives at a Washington airport on his way home from a meeting with the US Department of Homeland Security. This was the second occasion on which this Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 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

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 should be afforded the same respect and dignity at USA airports that we would bestow upon our colleagues in the Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 and Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

.'

The ongoing refusal of the US embassy

Embassy of the United States in London

The Embassy of the United States of America to the Court of St. James's has been located since 1960 in the American Embassy London Chancery Building, in Grosvenor Square, Westminster, London...

 in Grosvenor Square

Grosvenor Square

Grosvenor Square is a large garden square in the exclusive Mayfair district of London, England. It is the centrepiece of the Mayfair property of the Duke of Westminster, and takes its name from their surname, "Grosvenor".-History:...

 to pay the London congestion charge

London congestion charge

The London congestion charge is a fee charged for some categories of motor vehicle to travel at certain times within the Congestion Charge Zone , a traffic area in London. The charge aims to reduce congestion, and raise investment funds for London's transport system...

 has also been a minor source of controversy. Embassy officials claimed they did not have to pay the congestion charge because it was a tax

Tax

To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...

, from which diplomats were exempt. London officials asserted that the congestion charge was no different from the toll

Road toll

Road toll is the term used in some countries for the number of deaths caused annually by road accidents.The term is in common and official use in Australia and New Zealand.-Australia:In Australia the road toll is reported at a state level...

 charges paid by drivers to travel into US cities such as New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 via bridges and roads. US embassies paid similar congestion charges in Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

 and Oslo

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

.

See also

• 1943 BRUSA Agreement
  1943 BRUSA Agreement
  The 1943 BRUSA Agreement was an agreement between the British and US governments to facilitate co-operation between the US War Department and the British Government Code and Cypher School...
  
  
• Foreign relations of the United Kingdom
  Foreign relations of the United Kingdom
  The diplomatic foreign relations of the United Kingdom are implemented by the United Kingdom's Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The UK was the world's foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Throughout history it has wielded significant influence upon other nations via the British...
  
  
• Foreign policy of the United States
• The Great Rapprochement
  The Great Rapprochement
  The Great Rapprochement, a term usually attributed to Bradford Perkins, is used to describe the convergence of social and political objectives between the United States and the United Kingdom and its colonies in the two decades before World War I....
  
  
• ABCA Armies
  ABCA Armies
  ABCA Armies is a program aimed at optimizing interoperability and standardization of training and equipment between the armies of the United States of America, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, plus the United States Marine Corps and the Royal Marines...
  
  
• The Technical Cooperation Program TTCP
• United Kingdom – United States relations

External links

• June 2002, Policy Review
  Policy Review
  Policy Review is one of America's leading conservative journals. It was founded by the Heritage Foundation and was for many years the foundation's flagship publication. In 2001, the publication was acquired by the Stanford University-based Hoover Institution, though it maintains its office on...
  
  , The State of the Special Relationship
• November 2006, The Times
  The Times
  The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
  
  , State Department Official disparages the relationship
• May 2007, Professor Stephen Haseler
  Stephen Haseler
  Stephen Haseler is Professor of Government, author of numerous books on contemporary politics, and Director of The Global Policy Institute in London...
  
   (Global Policy Institute, London Metropolitan University) has written a book examining the history of the special relationship from a British perspective entitled Sidekick: Bulldog to Lapdog, British Global Strategy from Churchill to Blair
• February 2009, The Guardian
  The Guardian
  The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
  
  , Presidents and prime ministers: a look back at previous first meetings of US and UK leaders