« UK ‘Special Relationship’ with USA and its Impact on the European Union (1945-2015) »

Abstract

In 1946, in one of his speeches, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill introduced the expression “Special Relationship” that entails the exceptional close political, diplomatic, economic, and military relations between the United Kingdom and the United States of America.These two nationsenjoyed what was described as ‘unparalleled’ relationship at variant levels, namely, economic activity, military planning and execution of operations, and nuclear technology and intelligence sharing. However, albeit this relationship refers to a ‘special cooperation between two different states, it did not remain stable; it witnessed many ups and downs through different periods of time, and nearly ended after the end of the Cold War during the twentieth century then was resurrected after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. In this regard, adopting the chronological narration analysis, the present thesis explores the evolvement of this relationship from 1945 till 2015, accentuating the most crucial turning points that contributed in shaping it. To this end, the dynamics of this relationship were focused on, shedding light on the different levels of cooperation between the two nations through a close study of some case studies to extract the whys and wherefores that enhanced the survival of this relationship.The results revealed that besides some setbacks, the special relationship witnessed its golden ages during Thatcher premiership and President Reagan, and survived the end of the cold war during Tony Blair premiership and President Bush due their close personal relationship, and it becomes nowadays a need to be resurrected again to face the rise of the Chinese red dragon.