Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century

The Policy and Diplomacy of Friendly Superpowers

Alan Dobson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780415119436
• eBook ISBN: 9781134812875
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The relationship between Britain and America has been the most important bilateral relationship the world has ever seen. Dobson's concise and readable book covers the whole of this century and employs selected historical detail to expose the special relationship in its true light and in all its complexity.Dobson rejects tha claim that the US was ever hegemonical. Its realtionship with Britain - over the Suez Crisis and Iran in the 1960s and grenada in 1983 - clearly demonstrates that it had to bargain and did not always get its way. However, the two nations co-operated in every major crisis from the Great to the Gulf war, and together promoted liberal democracy and capitalism. The story reveals both more interdependence and conflict than has been recognised in the past.Nuclear, intelligence defence and other links betwen the USA and Britain continue to this day, but the importance of the `special relationship' has diminished for both countries. Have common interests disappeard to an extent that the scope for bilateral cooperation has diminished to insignificince? It is in addressing this question that Dobson draws his conclusions. Coverning defence, economic, political and personal aspects of Anglo-US realtions, this book will be indispensible for students of twentieth century American and British history and international relations.

1 The lion and the eagle: of twisted tails and plucked feathers

We are at the opening verse of the opening page of endless possibilities.

(Rudyard Kipling)

It has been nearly a hundred years since either Britain or the USA held the citizens of the other as prisoners of war. The fact that either has done so this century probably comes as a surprise to most readers who know that Britain and the USA have not been at war since the Peace of Ghent in December 1814 and that the two have had a famous special relationship.¹ Indeed, the uniqueness of their relationship in an era of mayhem and total war can be captured by the phrase ‘friendly superpowers’. Peace between them has survived even during the transition period when the USA took over from Britain as the world’s richest and most potent nation state. In the story that follows the ups and downs of this relationship will be traced through the twentieth century, for, although Britain and the USA have been friendly superpowers, they have also had bitter disagreements and suffered intense diplomatic and political friction. But, before embarking upon the narrative, a few remarks about the nature of the enterprise are in order.

A BRIEF DIGRESSION ON METHOD

Exploring relationships, of whatever kind, always has difficulties. Einstein demonstrated that things never stay still long enough to be captured in thought in the way that classical philosophers had tried to do. We come to know people, things and relationships through the way that they change. But a tendency persists to think in static terms of that which is to be explained. To counter that, it is not necessary to advocate a radical form of relativism. It is not suggested that Anglo-American relations can only be explained in as many ways as there are people who take an interest, all of whom have different perspectives. Change is never absolute, and human knowledge would cease to be knowledge if it were subject to extreme atomisation as a result of radical relativism. In a very strong sense we know people because of what they do and say—types of change as understood in the present argument—and because they are still recognisable as the person they were before saying and doing what they have just said and done. There has to be both continuity and change for knowledge to accumulate and some consensus on how it is produced.

Knowledge for the historian is limited by the evidence that exists for what has gone on in the past. However, trying to explain a relationship that lasts over a lengthy period of time and appears to have some constant elements running through it can tempt one into over-simple generalisations. Before we realise it we fall into the classic trap of trying to conceive of things in static or essentialist terms. Instead of teasing out generalisations from a detailed historical narrative to help us grasp how Britain and the USA have related to each other, there is a danger of using preconceived concepts of how they have interacted to mould the evidence into artificial patterns that are not true to the way the historical actors perceived of the way things were at the time.

One such concept is the so-called ‘special relationship’. At a one-day conference at the University of Durham in the mid-1970s, an American official was asked what he thought about it. His answer nicely illustrated the danger of using that concept to explain or characterise Anglo-American relations. He said: ‘The question reminds me of occasions when I’m asked how my wife is. I always respond: In relation to what?’ As the man suggested, we need to know what was special, when, and in connection with what aspect of the relationship.

Clearly, in a short introduction to twentieth-century Anglo-American relations one, perforce, has to be highly selective of material and resort to shorthand generalisations in order both to give a plausible perspective on the relationship and, more importantly, to stimulate thought and further questions about how things came to pass. The greatest compliment scholars can receive is that they stimulate thought in people who then go on to improve on the work that they have done. Much of what is said here is derived from more detailed research published elsewhere by both myself and many others. The aim of the book is ambitious, because it tries to do three things: first, to provide an adequate picture of Anglo-American relations for those with a general interest in these matters; second, to stimulate thoughts about the relationship, which should result in a more critical awareness of the policies of the two countries, that can only be satisfied by further reading; and third, to engage the interest and raise some questions in minds that will then feel the need to embark on their own research.

IDENTIFYING THE CONTOURS OF THE RELATIONSHIP

One of the most striking things in the literature on Anglo-American relations is the tendency for radically different views to be expressed on the role the various components of the relationship have played. Language and culture, economics, politics and diplomacy, personal and ethnic relations, and strategic and military concerns are seen by some as contributing to constructive and friendly relations and by others as factors which have caused tension, conflict and economic exploitation. It is not possible to give a clear line of interpretation on these contending views without looking in more detail at the events in question, but an overview of the general landscape might help to establish a context in which the problems involved in understanding and coming to know about the relationship may be addressed more easily.²

Oscar Wilde once quipped something to the effect that the British and the Americans were divided by a common language. And, indeed, linguistic vagaries do lend themselves to amusing possibilities. An American asking for potato chips in a British pub might be surprised at being presented with a plate of french fries when what he really expected was a packet of crisps. But it is not just at the mundane and trivial level that language has been seen as a problem. In 1928, at a time when there were serious differences between Britain and the USA, Robert Craigie, of the American Department of the British Foreign Office (FO), wrote that the causes of the difficulties included ‘the clash of differing national characteristics emphasised by the existence of a common language; the growing discrepancies of speech and style within that ‘common’ language…’.³ Rather ironically, language was blamed for problems in Anglo-American relations because of both its common and its different usage.

At other times language has been accorded eminence in explaining good relations. H.V.Hodson in the inaugural lecture of the Ditchley Foundation, established near Oxford in 1962 to promote mutual Anglo- American understanding, asserted: ‘Our common language does, after all, remove or minimise one great obstacle to understanding between our peoples.’⁴In the nineteenth century, the great German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, thought that the single most important fact of the twentieth century would be that the British and the Americans spoke the same language, and indeed the ease with which diplomats, the military and politicians from Britain and the USA can converse with each other has been a factor in close co-operation on many occasions. Anglo-American language and culture were seen as so important by the British statesman Joseph Chamberlain that he professed that he could not think of Americans as anything other than blood relatives. In more recent times, James Callaghan, British Prime Minister 1976–9, has spoken of the ease and informality of his relationship with both Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, US Presidents 1974–7 and 1977–81 respectively. With the latter there was an agreement that they could pick up the telephone and discuss things that were of concern at any time. On more than one occasion they did just that.⁵ Thus from one vantagepoint language has promoted and from another undermined good relations between the two states.

Culture has had a similar impact. Early America, while unable to deny its cultural heritage from Britain, came to resent it in many ways and gradually developed a kind of practical Yankee disdain for the effete trappings of high culture. The American good life emerged as a rather contradictory amalgam of plain no-nonsense living and material affluence. To the upper-class Briton, and to the new but quickly assimilated (through public schools,* Oxbridge and the feudal honours system of creating knights and lords) rich commercial and industrial class, Americans appeared rather incompatibly as brash and sanctimonious. For many in Britain the archetypal American was the cowboy, the gangster, the film starlet and later the over-paid, over-sexed and over-here GI. To the American mind the British were either classridden or riddled with socialism. Imperialists, haughty, arrogant and diplomatically too smart to be dealt with with anything other than apprehension: these were views that lingered well into the latter part of the twentieth century. It would appear that on the level of the collective, Americans and Britons had little affection for each other. Fortunately, on the personal level there were often warmer relationships, and it must be said that as the twentieth century progressed, things improved, though not in a consistent and linear pattern. With more travel and with Britain exporting more of its singing and dramatic talents to the USA from the 1960s onwards, stereotypical images began to fade and a more accurate mutual appreciation began to emerge.

Britain and the USA have had strong economic ties since the colonial era. In the nineteenth century it was largely British capital that developed America’s railways and other vital parts of her industrial and agricultural economy, and British money that bought American exports. Thedominance of British economic power was much resented, and viewed as another unpalatable taste of her imperialism. But, beginning in the 1850s, the USA began to invest and develop production in Britain. By the twentieth century the average standard of living in the USA had overtaken Britain’s, and its gross national product (GNP) was the greatest in the world. The house of J.P.Morgan had to be called on to raise money for the British war efforts against, first, the Boers in South Africa and then later the Central Powers— Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire—in Europe. After the Great War, 1914–18, Britain was indebted to the USA to the tune of $3.7 billion. In the Second World War, 1939–45, money debts were avoided, for the most part because of an arrangement known as Lend-Lease, but costs were involved in terms of the kind of peacetime economic policies Britain agreed to pursue at America’s behest. Because of this, some saw Britain as economically subject to an imperial capitalist hegemon—the USA. Others who disagree with that have pointed to her recalcitrance in refusing American demands that she should work within Europe for integration during the 1940s and 1950s. In a similar vein, there was her refusal to abandon the sterling monetary area and British imperial trade preferences, which were forms of discriminatory monetary and trade relations with the Empire, the Commonwealth and client states. Such policies were seen as evidence of her continuing independence and of the relationship with the USA in the economic realm as one of competitive co-operation and mutual benefit.⁶ So, did Britain exploit the USA in the early twentieth century? Were roles reversed after 1918? Was the USA an imperial economic hegemon after the Second World War? If relationships of an imperial kind existed between the two, where was there room for a special relationship?

Whatever conclusions one might come to in answer to these questions some facts that cannot be interpreted away have to be taken into account. First, there was an enormous reversal of relative economic fortunes between 1880 and 1980; in the industrial world in which we live, this set the limits of possible international political and military power. In 1880 Britain’s manufacturing output was approximatley one-third as big again as that of the USA: in 1980 her GNP was barely one-sixth of that of the USA. Second, Britain’s descent from premier superpower status to being a middle-range power, and the USA’s ascent from the lower rungs of world affairs to premier superpower status, occurred without any belligerent conflict between the two. There has never been any other comparable peaceful transformation of power roles in the history of the world, a phenomenon that demands consideration as the course of their economic relations is assessed.

In the realms of politics and diplomacy, there appears to be as much that divides as brings together the two countries. In the nineteenth century, the dominant tradition in the diplomacy of the USA fed off a number of moral convictions and prudential precepts that separated her from practices prevalent in Britain and created grounds for possible friction. America was called the New World and was seen by the Americans of the USA as the redeemer of the state of fallen man in Europe:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

The parallel between St. Peter at the doors of heaven and this extract from the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty hardly needs to be pointed out. And just as a distance needs to be maintained between the earthly and the heavenly, so there had to be an isolation of the New World from the Old to prevent contamination and corruption. Eventually, as the power of the New prospered and grew, there came a time for a crusade, at first, beyond the dominant influence of Europe, and then, as confidence grew, the time was ripe for a second coming: the New World would meet with the Old on its own ground and attempt a conversion from corruption and evil to democracy, liberty and moral conduct. President Woodrow Wilson tried, but failed, to achieve this after World War I.

In addition to this pious view of the world role of the USA, there was a more pragmatic one expressed by George Washington in September 1796 in his farewell address as President, which also contributed to isolationism. Because Europe’s interests were not related to the concerns of the USA (and, though this was unspoken, because European states were so much more powerful than the USA) ‘it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities’.⁷ Extend America’s commercial activities abroad by all means, but keep out of Europe’s dynastic and immoral squabbles.

From these perspectives on American foreign relations three important characteristics emerged. First, there was the policy of isolationism. The usefulness of this term has been challenged by various scholars; here it is taken to mean isolationism from European political and miltary matters— though by the beginning of the twentieth century that has to be qualified by saying that the USA became concerned with naval power and the defence of the Western hemisphere in such a way that it could no longer maintain its aloofness consistently. The main international plank upon which isolationism rested in the nineteenth century was the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which proclaimed that any European intervention in the Western hemisphere would be regarded as an unfriendly disposition towards the USA.⁸ By a fortunate coincidence of interests it suited Britain to approve of the Monroe Doctrine: it cut down possible European competition for commercial dominance in Latin America and would allow free trade with that area. As no power could challenge the dominance of the Royal Navy on the high seas between the battles of Trafalgar in 1805 and Jutland in 1916, American idealism, backed by the reality of British power, meant that the Monroe Doctrine would be effective.

Second, isolationism led logically to a neutrality policy during European conflicts and that, combined with America’s expansion of trade and commerce, resulted in the USA adopting a strong line on neutral rights to trade. This was to provide the longest-lasting and the most difficult bone of contention between Britain and the USA from the Napoleonic Wars in the early nineteenth century to America’s entry into World War I in 1917, and beyond to the 1927 Geneva Naval Conference.⁹

Third, the moralising involved in isolationism developed strongly in the nineteenth century, but along lines perhaps not entirely foreseen in the moralising of the Founding Fathers. As America’s self-confidence and power grew, so did her vision of her role in world history. Americans began to talk of ‘Manifest Destiny’, and, ironically, that position subsumed the isolationist sense of America’s unique quality of morality in its public, private and political life—sometimes referred to as American exceptionalism. That ‘unique quality’ contributed to a crusading spirit that would lead to interventionism in order to spread the American way of doing things abroad. The values inherent in isolationism required aloofness from the Old World, but could be used to justify intervention elsewhere to advance America’s mission to civilise the world. The legacy received down the years has been a tendency to moralise, sometimes in ways that have oversimplified situations. Of course, this is nowhere near the whole story: pragmatism, realpolitik, mistakes, circumstances outside America’s control, and the need to mobilise US public opinion (to mention but a few) have also played their part in affecting US foreign policy, but signs of moralising in the manner just drawn often make an appearance.

British conduct in foreign affairs was in marked contrast to the professed principles of the USA in its main traditions, though there were traits that corresponded to attitudes in the USA. Perfidious Albion got her name largely because of what theorists would call a realist approach to foreign policy. This involves a state-centred view in which power is the medium through which affairs are conducted in a world where there is no Leviathan to maintain order and legality. In the nineteenth-century, because of her imperial and commercial preoccupations, the mainstay of British strategic policy was to neutralise the impact of European affairs on British matters by upholding a balance of power in Europe in order to prevent the emergence of a dominant state that could threaten her security. As one of the great nineteenth-century Foreign Secretaries, Lord Palmerston, put it, Britain had no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. To implement this view of national interest Britain had to be pragmatic and bolster the power of any state or group of states in danger of being overcome by a more powerful state in Europe. British determination to prevent the emergence of an hegemonic military power meant that she had to support states that threatened to disturb the balance of power by becoming relatively too weak. That support had to be rendered irrespective of the morality of the immediate tactical issues at stake, for the sake of British grand strategy. In many American eyes this epitomised the unprincipled nature of European power games and was a clear symptom of the evils of self-seeking imperialistic aggrandisement.

Another major characteristic of British foreign policy, one that caused difficulties with the USA, was naval strategy in wartime. Britain ruled supreme over the oceans of the world, but never had a large army establishment until the Great War of 1914–18. British war strategy thus centred on the use of naval power, and as industrialisation made materials and equipment ever more important for the successful waging of war so Britain took a harder and harder line to deny materials and equipment to her enemies. This led to a longstanding problem with the USA because of her assertion of extensive neutral rights to trade in wartime: the one exception to that in the nineteenth century was US policy during...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• 1: THE LION AND THE EAGLE: OF TWISTED TAILS AND PLUCKED FEATHERS
• 2: ASSERTION AND RESPONSE 1900–19
• 3: STABILITY AND CHANGE 1919–39
• 4: IN WAR AND COLD WAR 1939–51
• 5: CONSERVATIVELY SPECIAL 1951–61
• 6: YEARS OF TRANSITION 1961–79
• 7: OF INTERESTS AND SENTIMENT 1980–95, AND BEYOND
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY