The "special relationship" between Britain and the United States has always been something of a useful fiction — a way of describing a genuinely important but fundamentally unequal partnership in terms that sound more reciprocal than they are.
What Makes It Special
The relationship rests on several foundations that are real and durable: intelligence sharing under the Five Eyes arrangement; military interoperability developed over decades of joint operations; a shared language and cultural inheritance; and a network of personal relationships between government officials, academics, and business leaders.
These foundations have not changed. What has changed is the American political context in which the relationship operates.
The Uncertainty Problem
British foreign policy has traditionally relied on the US as a predictable anchor. Alliance commitments, backed by the credibility of the world's most powerful military, provided a stable framework within which UK foreign policy could operate.
American unpredictability — the possibility that a future US administration might qualify or withdraw its NATO commitments — forces Britain to think about European security in ways it has not had to for seventy years.
The European Alternative
The uncomfortable reality facing British foreign policy is that its strongest guarantee of security is not Washington but the collective will of European democracies. The post-Brexit decision to step back from European defence integration looks increasingly costly.
