Since there seems to be a good number of both British and American members of this forum, I thought I'd get your opinions on this. As many of you undoubtably know, there's a kind of partnership and friendship between the countries of Great Britain and the United States that has been around since the end of WW1. It's commonly called the "Special Relationship" by politicians and the press. I don't doubt everyone's awareness of the unparalleled co-operation between the two nations in all levels of international relations, from military operations and itelligence to the world's largest two foreign investments. Coupled with the two nation's similar social and political ideals and the shared history, there are currently no two nations in the world that even come close to the level of close partnership the US and UK have with eachother. So, what I intend to ask is, what is your opinion of this "Special Relationship"? Is it good or bad, and why? Who does it benefit most, and is the relationship still as special as it always was?
What Australia seem to think is that we have some sort of 'Special relationship' with the US. But it's not. When John Howard was in power, he had his head so far up Bush's ass it wasn't funny, and even then we weren't in any kind of special relationship between countries. But I can't really answer your question :/
Yeah, it does seem that Australia gets the cold shoulder from the US and not for lack of trying to get on their good side, kind of like Japan. Still, if anyone has any opinions at all on the relationship between the US & UK, or the relationship between the US and their home country, I'd be really interested in hearing it.
I wasn't even aware we had a special relationship with the states. Might I ask, what exactly is this special relationship supposed to do?
I just think our government are being 'sensible' with their allies. We (the UK) will probably be making bezzies with China before long if they continue to be a strong economic partner! I guess the concern is whoever runs America has massive say in the rest of the world and therefore us, so it's handy to be their friends. My Uncle was a prolific politician in the 1980s though and he never really liked the US that much...
Like I mentioned in my initial post, there's an unparalelled amount of co-operation between the US and UK in virtually all areas of international affairs, from military to foreign investment. If you like, I believe there's a Wiki article all about it. On the day the UK has a partnership of any kind with a opressive third world communist regime like China's government, I will leave these fair islands for the USA.
So ridiculously true. Right now my school is starting to teach first years Chinese/Mandrin… Now if that has nothing to do with making friends with the powerful state then I’m a Dutchman. I think we’re the funniest country of all actually (the UK.) We’re like this small annoying country that spends all of it’s time poking its head in other people’s business and following round the ‘cooler’ states… That sounds like I’m completely dissing Britain by the by – I don’t mean it guys; I’ half one of you!
It's really funny you should say this, I was watching a documentary a few nights ago about Britain on the world stage, and it seems that your opinion of the UK is quite a common one - we tend to perceive ourselves as just about powerful enough to wave a stick at the world and poke our nose into their business, seeing ourselves as more of an irritance to other countries that can't really do anything about us interfering with them, than anything else. The rest of the world however, tends to perceive us as an America -1, smaller, less powerful, less threatening, but still only second place when it comes to muscling the world around. It was very interesting, as most countries tend to think of themselves as more important than they are (in particular secondary European countries like Italy and former colonies like Australia), but Britain, a former worldwide empire, thinks of itself as something of a bother to the world while the rest of the world thinks of it as a serious and powerful nation.
Politically it works in our favour we have standing with the US the "super power" of the world and it works for the US as well because they get to have a link to Europe (which statistically speaking when you put the US against the EU the EU wins hands down in pretty much every aspect of life & power). The British people though in my opinion really started to hate America when there was the Bush & Blair relationship it was hard to find a British person who liked Bush when he first got into power when he was re-elected: Spoiler Yes an overwhelming majority disliked him to start with along with Blair now Obama is in power I think relations wise things will be a million times better Haha if McCain and Palin had got into power America would have no "special relationships" with anyone in the world Palin was truly laughable.
the united states is not a supreme power its a freaking joke... one day we are going to get are asses handed to us by china or Russia or both. as far as the USA UK relationship... i personally feel that the USA bullies the UK around... with out the support of the UK the USA doesn't have enough economical and political pull. However with that said I think that it's a mutual greed that powers these two nations.
No offense, but people who quite clearly have no idea what they're talking about shouldn't comment on things they don't understand. The USA is a juggernaught compared to the rest of the world. Russia and China are like tigers with no teeth, and I'll be glad to explain that analogy to you. Russia and China both have tremendous armies, however, their air forces and navies are tiny, outdated, and incapable. While China has an army millions strong, it does not have the ability to send it anywhere that they can't walk to. They have no blue-water navy, no aircraft carriers, no amphibious assault vessels. Their nuclear deterrent is obsolete and they have no viable airdefence capability. All of this applies to Russia, too. The only thing that China and Russia have that make them a threat to anyone that isn't resting on their doorstep is their nuclear weaponry, and I'll now go on to explain why that isn't threatening, either. China or Russia would have to be twelve different kinds of stupid to launch a nuclear attack on the USA, UK or France, as all of these nations have spectacular air defence capabilities, but moreso, they have CASD, Continuous At-Sea Nuclear Deterrent. That means they have ships, mostly submarines and escort destroyers, capable of launching a nuclear attack from anywhere in the world. Even if a nation was able to take out the US' land based launch sites, the offending government would quickly find themselves managing a smoking crater. Furthermore, Russia's economy was crippled even before the economic crisis. At the moment it's looking irreperable. China's economic boom has slowed to a crawl. The vast majority of both nations live in abject poverty. Neither of these nations are a military threat to the west. An invasion of China or Russia would be a military impossibility, certainly, but no sane man would order an invasion; if it came to war, the enemy would just be bombarded into submission. Fortunately, it will never come to that, because China and Russia are well aware of the fact that they are no danger to the USA unless the world suddenly shifts and the USA ends up 5 miles outside China. If you want a good example of the USA's power, first look at the UK's Royal Navy. It is, by a big margin, the second most powerful Navy in the world. Except by the USA, the Royal Navy is unrivaled. Then, knowing this, look at the USA's navy. It's almost three times as large and far, far more powerful. Then, look at China's navy, which consists of two bathtubs and four oars.
Military and arms means nothing in the modern world if any major player dared to wage war against another major player it's over for us all, WW3 would be the end of the world. Powerful countries now use third world countries as pawns to settle their differences like Iraq vs. Iran they aren't stupid the shear amount of nuclear weapons owned by the U.K and U.S is ridiculous but if even one is actually used say against China or Russia the world goes boom military statistics are a shield not a weapon as in don't attack me I could blast you. Today all that matters is money and the things related to money like country relationships and while Bush was in power both deteriorated rapidly. China is going to be a superpower their economy is huge and they export so much unlike the U.K and U.S who import most things from places like China so what if they don't have as many weapons as I've said they are practically pointless they have trade and money. Every country has it's poor America is definitely no exception but China's population is so large I'm sure there are enough people in China living good lives to fill America a few times over China is hardly third world. I don't understand why Russia could be viewed as an upcoming powerhouse though other than the fact that most Westerners will always be told to keep an eye on China & Russia by the media.
Look mate all I am saying is the great USA is nothing spectacular just like all you moron's out there that think having a baby(nothing more than a chemical reaction) is a miracle. I am glad that you understand that we have such a great military, or econ is shit our stupid ass president is screwing over every freaking American. Look at what a great job we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan lets kill 100's of thousands more people and not pay any attention to it lets close down Guatemala Bay!!! YaYa FOR OBAMA wait that piece of shit open's up a dozen more of these camps... I HATE THIS COUNTRY and everyone of the stupid americans out there that don't have a clue as to what is going on in the white house sickens me. our right's are being destroyed our constitution is damn near meaningless. I am glad that you are one of the many millions of American's that live by the "Ignorance is Bliss" motto. I'll give it to you that Russia may not have the numbers in planes/ships than we have but maybe your far superior intelligence has never read about what this country can produce in a blink of an eye... it took less than 2 decades in the 1800's for Russia to build a navy that rivaled the best in that era. Russia has equal if not superior technology in many of the aspects.russians love their country... in a much more meaningful way than americans. "Furthermore, Russia's economy was crippled even before the economic crisis." WTF are you talking about.. shut up SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS is NOT 1970 THIS is NOT 1980 THIS is NOT 1990.... "Russia ended 2008 with GDP growth of 6.0%, following 10 straight years of growth averaging 7% annually since the financial crisis of 1998." https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... os/rs.html Please Please Please Worry about what rights you have right now as a citizen of the USA and what rights you are losing right now because of OBAMA WAKE THE HELL UP AMERICA! we are not almighty TYPICAL AMERICAn ego up there. Albert Einstein " I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but world War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
No offense intended (and I really do mean that), but Arkley, you sound like you're just repeating back what the media is saying to you. That America and Britain have a "special relationship"? Recently, I suppose yes, especially since Britain chose to support the US's decision to invade Iraq, the countries have grown closer. But it's not a secret pact, or special treatment- just as France's opposition to the Iraq war created hostility, Britain's support evinced congeniality. And China's oppressive government, I'll say that there's is truth to that- of course, the government has been oppressive, but nowhere near as brutal, cruel, or tyrannical as the "free world", western media blows it up to be. But that's a whole another issue I could rant on and on about. However, the economic claims you make are just downright wrong. Russia' economy is booming, there is no doubt, and so is China's. China may be slowing down (though not much) and the stock market bubble will soon burst, but it is still certainly rapidly growing. And the Russian economy "at a crawl"? I don't even think I need to comment. While the wealth gap in these countries in indeed increasing by leaps and bounds, both poor and rich citizens have improved standards of living. I've seen these truths with my own eyes, not through the thick glossy screen of a prejudiced news show.
thank you phee.. I honestly wasn't trying to be an asshole in my last post but man that post above me shocked me and put me at horror that this is the thought process of a lot of American's! disappointing!
Looks like I have a bit of catching up to do here, I've been away for a few days. First of all, China's economy has slowed to a crawl. If you compare its current growth figures to its growth in 2004~7, you'll see they've dropped, and not in any insignificant manner. It has the lowest development speed of any of the countries in its region. You'll also note the recent trouble China has been running into due to its conflicted hybrid economic system (the same troubles the USSR ran into towards the end of its days). Even if China's economy does begin to boom again, it still has a lot of industrialising left to do, a lot of its people to pull out of poverty. That China's economy is catching up to the likes of Britain and France and still growing sounds pretty threatening, until you consider China's sprawling size and impossibly large population. It has a long way to go. Russia's economy is growing and that's not a fact I've denied nor will I deny, however, growth is not the same as stability. Russia is still suffering massively from the collapse of the USSR and dissent and corruption run rampant through all tiers of government. Their particular economic system is, like China's, filled with massive potholes. If you require evidence of Russia's economic instability (not including the natural instability caused by her dependancy on natural gas as an export) I would be glad to direct you to the information you need rather than posting uncited figures here. But don't confuse growth for stability, reliability or even an accurate depiction of their economic future. China, India and even Brazil are far more likely challengers for the position of #1, and none of them are even a remote threat to the US yet. This isn't quite true unless you mean in terms of the general public feeling towards eachother's countries. The "Special Relationship" has existed since the end of WW2 in terms of mutual arms and intelligence sharing and co-operation. You could wiki the special relationship for more info, but I would reccomend reading directly from the cited sources rather than the article itself. Moving back on to the military aspect, what I said still stands, wether you consider an outright war between developed powers a possibility or not. Even if the only wars left to be fought are proxy wars, the USA, Great Britain and to a lesser extent France are still far, far more capable than Russia or China provided the wars in question don't take place in any of their neighbouring countries.
what about the great socialistic america??? our econ sucks and our president is doing everything in his power to destroy our economy he is one of the morons that threatened banks in past to give out loans that people couldn't afford. But that's right the USD is Stronger than ever! There's hope where there's change... HA HA get rid of the fed, get the banks out of the gov' and get rid of obama and we might have a decent year or two in the next decade.
I'm guessing you mean Guantanamo Bay. Guatemala is a country in central america. I'm totally not going to go into my own political views on this, but I will comment on one thing. I noticed that a certain country didn't even come into discussion at all. Unless there's something wrong with my Ctrl+F, nobody even typed the name of the country. This country, while lacking a substantial army (thank god! I wouldn't live here if we did), is the USA's largest trading partner. This country and the united states have the longest shared border on earth. Mexico? Nah. Canada. You americans do more business with Canada than any other country. Neato eh. Oh hey britain, we still have your queen on our coins. If anyone should have a special relationship with the US, it's Canada. No no, we're mocked by Americans. A great number of them think that the longest border is with mexico. "Durr, border jumping? Mexico lolol". Just my two cents.
yeah Guantanamo Bay not Guatemala ... but yeah canada ..canadians really aren't mocked by usa citizens at least around me they aren't.