Why Do We Share A “Special Relationship” with Great Britain?

Today we regard America’s relationship with Great Britain as one of the most important and powerful alliances in the history of the world — we call it our “special relationship” — but it was not always this way.

If you took an American History class in high school, you are likely to remember four major inflection points in the Anglo-American dynamic:

But how did these two global superpowers go from staunch geopolitical rivals to the closest of allies? It certainly didn't happen overnight.

In his new book, Churchill, Roosevelt & Company: Studies in Character and Statecraft, National Humanities Medal holder Lewis E. Lehrman describes, in a strong narrative and with great precision, the tense diplomatic relationship between the United States and Great Britain in the lead-up to World War II.

Great Britain was unpopular in the U.S. in the years following World War I, having failed to pay its war debt to the United States. Many political and military leaders actively rooted for the dissolution of the British Empire. “Anglophobia”, as Lehrman astutely labeled it, was markedly high.

As we learn from Lehrman’s fascinating work, amidst this tension President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, perhaps the two greatest leaders of the 20th century, formed a close relationship built largely on the mutual understanding that the Nazis posed an existential threat to the free world.

While the dynamic of the Anglo-American relationship was marked by distrust, Churchill, with high statecraft, courted FDR to move America into the Second World War. Thus was created the Anglo-American “special relationship” that has endured ever since, perhaps reaching its apotheosis in the relationship of President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher in their alliance against the USSR.

Behind closed doors, Roosevelt assured Churchill throughout 1940 that American help was on the way. But Roosevelt also had an election to win. He understood that campaigning on the promise of the U.S. fighting another World War could prove politically suicidal. FDR proceeded to make a promise to American mothers and fathers that our “boys” [would not be] sent into any foreign wars.”

Much of Lehrman’s book focuses on the efforts by FDR and some of his associates to either delay or avoid altogether American involvement in World War II. Opposing America’s entry into the war, for instance, was U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph Kennedy, father of future president John F. Kennedy and future attorney general (and presidential candidate) Robert F. Kennedy. Lehrman tells all.

Churchill, Roosevelt & Company provides a flattering portrait of Winston Churchill. While Roosevelt was a consummate politician, always playing to his constituency, Churchill was motivated by one thing only: victory over Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Yet Churchill demonstrates political chops too. Lehrman shows how Churchill spent the entirety of 1940 and 1941 in a herculean effort to build trust with Roosevelt and lobby for American involvement in the war effort. Churchill even went so far as to share sensitive intelligence with the U.S., something for which he was pilloried back home.

Lehrman shows how Churchill understood that the only way to defeat the Nazis would be to bring the United States’ militarily into the war. Churchill was willing to defeat the Nazis at all costs, even if it ultimately meant accepting the cost that the United States would then supplant Great Britain as the dominant power in the West.

This is perhaps the historical detail that most American history classes forget but which Lehrman shrewdly keys in upon: the United States waged war against the Axis powers while also defeating our greatest rival for supremacy, Great Britain. This is the big reveal of Churchill, Roosevelt & Company. The world political order dominating our lives is founded, in part, upon this largely unrecognized fact.

America reluctantly entered World War II to defeat Hitler. America was by no means brimming with enthusiasm and loyalty to Great Britain. While we recognized the Axis powers as a threat — Germany declared war on the United States within days after Pearl Harbor — America also saw the British as our chief rival for world influence. Our statesmen recognized that in winning the war we would solidify American status as the West’s preeminent global superpower.

Lehrman makes it clear to the reader that Churchill also understood the geopolitical price that Great Britain would likely pay for the United States’ entrance into World War II. The price for defeating the Nazis would be the dismantling of the British Empire and America supplanting Great Britain on the world stage.

Thus, the phrase “special relationship” takes on a fair bit of irony. Yes, we share a language and a culture and much history. That is all part of it. But, ultimately, the “special relationship” is a sort of sibling rivalry in which the older sibling (Great Britain), previously in charge of the family business, subordinated itself to their younger sibling (the United States) as we took over.

The romantic story about America’s heroism in World War II, while true, is sadly incomplete without also recognizing Churchill’s statesmanship. Here was a noble Brit who was willing to set aside his intense national pride, recognize what had to be done, and bend his considerable persuasive powers to coax the United States into defeating one of the greatest evils the world has ever known, Nazi Germany. That Churchill likely knew that this victory would come at a great cost to Great Britain makes him exemplary both for character and statecraft. The world would be a very different place were it not for Winston Churchill.

Lehrman demonstrates a jeweler’s eye for detail. He does an excellent job at documenting and capturing personalities, and not only those of Roosevelt and Churchill. He tells the story of a cast of important supporting characters who surrounded the supreme leaders of America and Great Britain. These include important — and colorful! — supporting characters such as Harry Hopkins, Lord Beaverbrook, Dwight David Eisenhower, and many other figures who have entered lore and history. This is a book suffused with human interest.

Lehrman includes excerpts from diaries, memos, and primary historical records of those who supported the Anglo-American alliance and those who opposed it. This work shows, definitively, how the defeat of the Nazis and the Axis Powers was by no means inevitable — an important message, indeed.

Churchill, Roosevelt & Company is a great read. Yes, it explains how the Anglo-American "special relationship" is special, but it also provides many reveals that elucidate our current politics. Most of all, Lehrman, as his subtitle telegraphs, makes a compelling case for how history, then and now, depends on character and statecraft.

Whether or not you have an interest in history, this exceptional work provides powerful lessons for modern politics and for the contemporary world.

Buy Lewis E. Lehrman’s Churchill, Roosevelt & Company: Studies in Character and Statecraft on Amazon here.

The connection between Great Britain & the US runs a little deeper than just saying “we speak the same language”.

Both also have similar cultural outlooks - namely, a respect for the individual, religious tolerance, “acceptance of the eccentric”, and a focus on business and the consumer (the country described as “a nation of shopkeepers” naturally gave birth to “the business of America is business”) that you didn’t see in other countries. Add in a similar common-law-based justice system, similar military structure, similar civil-administrative systems, etc., and the two are natural complements.

But as for Great Britain acting lousy towards Americans in the early 1800s, be assured even GB’s own colonists at the time were ticked off. In Canada, a good example were the naval “press gangs” that roamed colonial Halifax. Because conditions in the Royal Navy were so bad, they had a constant problem with sailors deserting - so to solve the problem, they just created mob gangs of sailors that literally grabbed men off the streets and “pressed” them into naval service. Think about that - you could go out for a nice evening walk in Halifax, then around the corner comes a press gang, you get beat up and kidnapped - when you wake up you’re doing menial duty on some RN ship in the middle of the Atlantic with no chance of escape! No wonder many Canadian colonists wanted to separate.

We're going down the same path, they're just a little further down the road. I suppose you also realize that the royals don't really rule anymore. Their functions are mostly ceremonial.

We inherited our culture, language, legal system, and religion from Britain. She's our mother country and as long as we both retain vestiges of Anglo-Saxon culture, we'll share a special relationship. In 100 years Britain will be a caliphate and the US will be another poor, socialist Hispano nation, the top of the string from South America through Central into North America. When that happens, our special relationship will be no more.

I'm not racist by any means, nor am I Anglo-Saxon, but the Anglo-Saxons as a group have accomplished amazing things in human history. It will be a shame when they pass from the earth, replaced by teeming hordes of 3rd worlders with no appreciation for the culture that build great nations.

Re: “...the United States waged war against the Axis powers while also defeating our greatest rival for supremacy, Great Britain.”

I don't recall that USA citizens were clamoring for American “supremacy” in the 1930s.

More than half of American families were totally stressed about paying next month's rent and food bill in the Great Depression.

And more than half of USA voters wanted America to avoid foreign wars.

Maybe Roosevelt wanted American supremacy, but the rest of America, too? I doubt it.

I think the author's unrestrained idolatry for Roosevelt (one of "the two greatest leaders of the 20th century") has affected his political judgment.

Supported the SOUTH in the Civil War by building warships, blockade runners and sending guns to the South.

All of the European nations backed the weaker side during a revolution with the expectation that their support drained the power of the stronger side, with both sides ending up drained.

The Brits were also known to involve as many allies as they could when they got into a war. When Italy attacked Greece and was getting the snot beat out of them , the Brits told Greece they would "help". Greece sais "No, thanks, we can do this by ourselves" knowing the game. The Brits came in anyway and suddenly they had the Germans come in to bail out the Italians, ending up with the mini Dunkirk there and the German occupation of Greece.

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