The Special Relationship Lives Between the United States and Britain

But now that they want to collaborate, United States and Great Britain had made their ways different than other and against

The National Government were successful in some aspects of softening the blow in Britain. Faced with a steep decline in international trade the; partly due to America’s protectionist tariffs

The United States entered World War Two in late 1941, and right away they were thrown into a conflict that involved making important decisions that would affect generations of people, in the United States and elsewhere, for years to come. A most notable decision by the Allies, namely the United States and Great Britain, was the combining of the American and British military chiefs of staff. This joint collaboration was appropriately titled the “Combined Chiefs of Staff”. They worked together as one body, and made war planning decisions and strategized together. This type of alliance was an innovation in war planning for the time, and the decisions made collaboratively by the two powers contributed greatly to the Allied victory in 1945. The relationships involved and the disputes that came up are worth noting, specifically the question of the Allies opening up a second front in the west, particularly titled “Operation Sledgehammer”. The relationship between President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, as well as General George Marshall of the United States and General Sir Alan Brooke of Great Britain were the main actors involved in this undertaking, and they will be the main individuals discussed and analyzed for the purposes of this paper. Ultimately Operation Sledgehammer was delayed and no action was taken upon it. Even though it caused rifts between the USSR, for reasons that will be explained, and the Allies far into the future, in retrospect they may have been

Prior to the “Imperial Crisis” 1763-1775, Great Britain had a few set backs all while carrying the world on their shoulders. France was quickly moving out of North America and Spain was out of Florida, all while loosing power, allowing for Great Britain to only move up. After about one hundred years of continuous war, Great Britain had found themselves sinking in a pile of national debt due to the fact that they borrowed money by collected taxes to reduce or try and stabilize the debt they had already piled up. Another problem that arose was that the British taxpayers demanded and received many tax cuts, which reduced government income, only reducing the spending. Limiting spending only hurt Britain more, because it was very tough to decrease the disbursement when you are the biggest world power and have the responsibility to maintain a large army and navy, all well protecting your colony from the growing of large, powerful enemies.

Adding to the money problem, the United States had permitted neutral nations to trade freely in American ports carrying American exports to England and Canada and English goods into the US ports. As a result, American food was rolling directly into British military commissionaires, strengthening the enemy’s ability and will to fight.

Even though it may not be Britain, we have formed alliances with many other countries. The relations may not all be good, but we have been involved with other countries. For example, in the photo “Monroe Doctrine” by Victor Gillam, the British are trying to get more land and money out of the U.S., but the U.S. doesn’t like it. America has the sign that says no trespass, and they have a gun ready to stop them, which shows that they didn't want anything to do with Great Britain in our country. We have had foreign relationships with Great Britain, but not good

Beginning with Napoleonic wars between France and Britain, the United States has remained neutral. As times have gone on this has convicted a strong disadvantage in the United States. Remaining in neutrality, the States have continued to trade with both France and Britain. Consequently, this has resulted in a median situation for America. In order to weaken opposing sides in the reinforcement

Once was a time where Britain and America were not allies. Even more we were enemies fighting in a war against each other. Many soldiers were killed or severely injured.

The American policy of Marshall Aid sparked both huge appraisal and significant opposition, and to this day it is debated whether it was purely a policy of self-interest and an imposition of America’s political and economic views on a weak and vulnerable Europe, or alternatively one of the greatest acts of altruism and generosity in modern history. It was enormously successful, ‘It was the most unambiguously and triumphantly successful of all America’s post-war policies’ , and helped to create a foundation on which Europe could become an economic power. While there were benefits to America which may have been interpreted as attempts to increase American power and inflamed opposition to the Marshall Plan, the administering of economic aid

after the meeting took place in 1972. In addition the British shifted its investment and their “special relationship” from the U.S. to the European Union. (MacMillan, 288)

Leffler stated that “they were worried that the Kremlin might exploit these weaknesses to alter the balance of power… so they harnessed the economic principles of the open door to the national security interests of the United States. (Heilbrunn) Leffler describes the Cold War in this way: “…neither the Americans nor the Soviets sought to harm the other in 1945… The protests that each country’s actions evoked from the other fueled the cycle of distrust as neither could comprehend the fears of the other, perceiving its own actions as defensive. Herein rests the classic security dilemma… U.S. officials… chose to contain and deter the Russians rather than to reassure and placate them, thereby accentuating possibilities for a spiraling cycle of mistrust.” (Heilbrunn) In 1947, Ernest Bevin, British foreign secretary, “believed it essential to construct a defensive military alliance in Western Europe; and in December of that year he proposed to George C. Marshall an alliance that would guarantee Western European security and prevent further Soviet aggrandizement.” (Heilbrunn) This proposal was realized in the North Atlantic Treaty and the establishment of NATO in 1949. Only an alliance such as this would halt Soviet infiltration and the gradual collapse of one western wall after another. According to Heilbrunn, the Soviet military buildup started after 1945. By 1950 American intelligence estimates suggested that the Soviets

     Most important of all, perhaps, was the growing sense of anxiety which Americans felt toward Great Britain. Americans had always been suspicious of British activities in the western hemisphere, but inevitably this fear had grown as the United States began to define its strategic and economic interests in terms that extended beyond its own

Following the second World War, the U.S. suddenly found itself the dominant economic and military might in a devastated world. As the British Empire faded, into the vacuum a new empire arose and armed with a nuclear deterrent, the U.S began to exert its global influence.

Throughout the years, the United States of America has endured a very strong economy. Although there have been many obstacles of hindrance such as trade deficits, wars, hostile governments and embargo’s, the economic status of the United States still continues to prevail. Just to name a few, the economy of this country survives on simple commodities such as pork, oranges, precious metals and the productive efforts of its citizens. In this paper, I will not only introduce and discuss the logistics of both the United States and the United Kingdom; I will discuss its key economic obstacles and its economic well being.

The first cause that I will discuss that led to British decolonization was its debt from back to back World Wars and the overall affect on the wars itself. World War 1 was costly to the British economy, but for World War 2, the economic losses were far heavier. World War 2 ate up Britain’s monetary reserves and a quarter of its stored wealth. Britain was also stripped of two-thirds of its pre-war export trade. This economic loss forced Britain into acquiring loans from the United States. This meant that after World War 2 Great Britain had emerged from war as a debtor nation with an empire still intact. The once great financial resources of Britain were devastated by the high cost of the wars and even the Great Depression before. Ultimately, this meant that Britain’s foreign policy could not be as extravagant as it was before the Wars.