By Independent News Roundup
By Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory
King Charles III has gone to Washington, ostensibly to help the transatlantic cousins celebrate getting rid of his predecessor George III 250 years ago. But being a royally gracious loser is, of course, only a pretext.
In reality, as The Economist, the premier British mouthpiece of transatlantic orthodoxy, has deplored, Charles’s mission is to salvage what’s left to be salvaged from the sinking “special relationship” between Washington and London.
That the relationship is in very bad shape is obvious from the compulsive manner in which Britain’s leader Keir Starmer keeps insisting that it still exists, while also emphasizing that he “will remain laser-focused on what is in the British national interest.”
Indeed, the abysmally unpopular Starmer has been subjected to so much typical Trump hazing that, as The Guardian notes, he may be enjoying “a vanishingly rare moment of public approval for his relatively robust response.”
Historically, the “special relationship” has certainly seen better days. It goes back a long way, even if the term itself was coined as late as 1946, when Winston Churchill needed a polite way of suggesting a political friendship with benefits: The British Empire was bankrupt and shrinking, and London was ready to submit to its former colonists in America in return for a new place as their permanent privileged sidekick in the beginning Cold War crusade against the Soviet Union.
Historically, the moderately sized island realm off Europe’s shores had laid the foundations for the continental behemoth across the Atlantic, even if not deliberately but by strategic blunder. The bloody divorce between the rebellious colonists and the obstinate mother country has been baked into the bedrock of US self-glorification as a war of independence and revolution.
It is true that, at first, the British were very cross indeed and returned in 1812 to burn the White House. When the Americans went to war with each other in the 1860s, Britain’s upper classes mostly rooted for the South, that is, for the break-up of the US. But even then, London was already cautious enough to maintain official neutrality.
Fast forward half a century and that turned out to have been a very wise decision. When the Germans fought for hegemony in the First World War and knocked out Russia, Berlin might well have won or achieved a stalemate peace against France and Britain. It was US intervention that ensured German defeat in 1918.
True, considering the consequences of that defeat and its mismanagement by the victors, you don’t have to like the Kaiser’s Germany to wonder if Europe and the world would not have been better off if the Americans had stayed out, as historian Dominic Lieven has pointed out.
In any case, there was a second German, and this time also Japanese, attempt at primacy. Again, in the Second World War, over-extended Britain and the booming US were not only on the same side but formed a particularly close if unequal relationship.
The pattern continued during the subsequent Cold War and beyond, with American and British spies and soldiers often in cahoots to topple sovereign governments and replace them with authoritarian vassal regimes, including Iran in 1953, Chile twenty years later, Iraq in 2003, and Syria more recently.
Churchill’s American vision came true. While shedding its empire, a much-diminished Britain, a middling power with a weakened manufacturing base, continued to punch above its geopolitical weight due in large measure to having found a niche as America’s junior accomplice.
There have been exceptions. Britain, for instance, refused to send troops to Vietnam. Yet in other ways London still supported Washington’s war, including on the sly. The greatest debacle was the Suez in 1956, shorthand for a British-French-Israeli assault on Egypt that collapsed under pressure from both the US and the Soviet Union.
Suez brings us to today. The combination of Western-Israeli strategy, contested narratives, and a strategic waterway now reappears in a different form. This time, the resistance comes from Iran, and the strategic chokepoint is the Strait of Hormuz.
There are differences between 1956 and today. What matters for the US-British relationship is that this time, it is the US that has become deeply entangled in a failing war dynamic alongside Israel.
Britain has by no means “refused to take part,” as the New York Times has misinformed its readers. In reality, in allowing the US to use it as a launch platform, London again acts as a reliable accomplice.
At the same time, the Starmer government is attempting to balance its involvement while limiting domestic political fallout. That balancing act has not satisfied Washington. President Donald Trump has complained: “When we needed them, they weren’t there.”
There are other issues of discontent between the “special relationship” partners. London is not pleased that the Trump administration has cast doubt over its sovereignty over the Falklands. Plans involving the Chagos Islands have also run into US opposition.
Britain once held influence as America’s voice within the EU, but Brexit removed that leverage. At the same time, Washington still treats London as part of Europe when convenient.
Opinion polls show that disenchantment is growing on both sides of the Atlantic. The British public has been largely unhappy about the king’s visit.
There is much that appears strained in the relationship between the former global empire and its successor. But the deeper issue lies not only in what divides them, but in what still binds them.
Both Washington and London have cultivated close strategic alignment with Israel, supporting policies that critics argue come at the expense of their own domestic priorities.
The article further claims that political elites in both countries have been linked to controversies surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, raising questions about accountability and influence at the highest levels.
Despite visible tensions, the so-called “special relationship” persists.
Not necessarily because it is strong.
But because the underlying structures, alliances, and shared interests continue to reinforce it.
Whether in agreement or disagreement, the relationship remains defined by deep interconnection, strategic alignment, and ongoing controversy.
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