The Special Relationship between Britain and the USA

History has produced many alliances. Some have been born of necessity, others of ideology, and still others of mere geography. Yet few relationships between nations have been quite as peculiar, or as enduring, as the one between Britain and the United States. The two countries have fought one another, mocked one another, borrowed from one another, and rescued one another. They have shared language, literature, and law; they have disagreed loudly while remaining curiously loyal.

It was Winston Churchill who famously gave this curious partnership its enduring name. In 1946, speaking at Westminster College in Missouri, he declared that what the world required was “a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States.” The phrase endured because it captured something that had been forming for centuries: a bond at once familial and political, competitive and cooperative.

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