Another perspective on the "special relationship"
In his Foreign Affairs article this month Lawrence Freedman has a very different take than Janice Bially Mattern on the origin and nature of the US-British "special relationship." Using the case study of the Falklands war he argues that the special relationship was mainly one-sided on the part of Britain and something it wanted that the US merely tolerated.
There are many similarities in his discussion of the British mindset prior to the onset of armed conflict and that of Mattern's description of the mindset prior to the nationalization of Suez- the taken for granted expectation that the US would support them, the surprise and chagrin, even betrayal, British officials felt when they discovered their most reliable ally was wavering between supporting Britain or a two-bit dictator. Freedman is the official historian of the Falklands campaign so one assumes he probably has pretty good access to materials, and probably better than Bially Mattern.
Freedman even mentions the Suez crisis, saying that British governments became "obsessed with the idea of a special relationship" (63), indicating a one-sided and this not mutually constituted identity. Although Freedman's article is 100% policy-driven, as Foreign Affairs is known for, throughout his explanations and discussions one sees echoes of Bially Mattern's ideas and interpretations. For example, he similarly attributes a central role to elites and the bureaucracy in constituting the special relationship in times of crises. His main point is about Iraq, of course, and the the importance of nuance and complexity during times of crises, even among the best of allies. So to address KSG's concern about practical applicability or real-world usefulness, this analyses of the Falklands and Iraq seems to demonstrate how one can apply Bially Mattern's general framework to a time of crisis in order to understand change and continuity. Of course, whether the fact that the two authors attribute different starting points to the special relationship is important remains. Anyway, thought this might be of interest given that we were just reading an extremely theoretical account of a very similar crisis is in the US-British special relationship.
There are many similarities in his discussion of the British mindset prior to the onset of armed conflict and that of Mattern's description of the mindset prior to the nationalization of Suez- the taken for granted expectation that the US would support them, the surprise and chagrin, even betrayal, British officials felt when they discovered their most reliable ally was wavering between supporting Britain or a two-bit dictator. Freedman is the official historian of the Falklands campaign so one assumes he probably has pretty good access to materials, and probably better than Bially Mattern.
Freedman even mentions the Suez crisis, saying that British governments became "obsessed with the idea of a special relationship" (63), indicating a one-sided and this not mutually constituted identity. Although Freedman's article is 100% policy-driven, as Foreign Affairs is known for, throughout his explanations and discussions one sees echoes of Bially Mattern's ideas and interpretations. For example, he similarly attributes a central role to elites and the bureaucracy in constituting the special relationship in times of crises. His main point is about Iraq, of course, and the the importance of nuance and complexity during times of crises, even among the best of allies. So to address KSG's concern about practical applicability or real-world usefulness, this analyses of the Falklands and Iraq seems to demonstrate how one can apply Bially Mattern's general framework to a time of crisis in order to understand change and continuity. Of course, whether the fact that the two authors attribute different starting points to the special relationship is important remains. Anyway, thought this might be of interest given that we were just reading an extremely theoretical account of a very similar crisis is in the US-British special relationship.
posted by C at 5:41 PM
1 Comments:
I will try to get the article at the library; AU does not seem to have online access to the journal.
But my question: Does Freedman offer an account of WHY the special relationship was one-sided? That seems to be one of Mattern's contribution to this topic-- the causal account.
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