The special relationship has a habit of survival — but no assurance of it 

A week after taking office in January 1957, Harold Macmillan addressed Britain following the Suez Crisis. Public resentment toward the Eisenhower administration was palpable; many felt that Britain had been betrayed by its closest ally.

Yet Macmillan recognized that Britain ultimately faced a choice. Would it face a volatile world with the U.S., or without it? As Macmillan observed, “Any partners are bound to have their differences now and then. … We don’t intend to part from the Americans, and we don’t intend to be satellites.”

Today, the so-called special relationship finds itself under strain. After a fairly positive start to the second Trump administration and a successful state visit for the president to Britain, rhetoric from Washington has shifted markedly. The president recently compared Sir Keir Starmer to Neville Chamberlain. Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has singled out the “big, bad Royal Navy” for failing to aid American military efforts. 

Disagreements over the direction of the Iran conflict, Washington’s criticism of its allies, threats towards Greenland, and concerns about the legality of U.S. actions have placed the relationship under renewed pressure. The U.K.’s former National Security Adviser, Lord Peter Ricketts, has said that the U.K. should “completely forget” the idea of a special relationship with the U.S.

Nevertheless, the defining feature of the relationship is precisely its tendency to endure recurring crises. Anglo-American relations have rarely been free of tension, and several disputes have posed far greater risks to the partnership than current disagreements. 

The McMahon Act, passed by Congress only months after Winston Churchill popularized the term “special relationship” in his Iron Curtain speech, created a major rift by restricting nuclear cooperation. The Suez Crisis threatened to fracture ties, just as it did between the U.S. and France. The Skybolt crisis followed just five years later, forcing Britain into intense negotiations to secure Polaris missiles. Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan; one could go on.

Despite all of these crises, some of which threatened the relationship before it had fully taken shape, the transatlantic partnership has persisted and, over time, become increasingly institutionalized. Its resilience owes less to sentiment and culture than to sheer strategic utility. Britain has consistently offered capabilities that advance American objectives more effectively than any other ally.

British intelligence provided critical insights into hard-to-reach countries like Russia and China, and parts of the Middle East. No two militaries have been so interoperable, nor stood side by side so frequently. Meanwhile, international development efforts — though often underappreciated — have supported shared strategic goals by preventing nations hostile to the U.K. and U.S. from gaining global influence.

Indeed, one of the core objectives of the Kennedy administration was to ensure British support in expanding the “West’s economic and technical assistance programs to the underdeveloped world” to counter “Soviet and Communist Chinese influence in Africa, Asia and Latin America.” Britain’s overseas assets, such as Diego Garcia, have also helped the U.S. to project power globally.

Although the relationship has weathered crises for eight decades, the coming two decades are likely to present the greatest test. Britain’s capabilities across all fronts are depleting, and government commitments to reverse this trend lack credible funding. For instance, the Ministry of Defence requires at least an extra £28 billion ($38 billion U.S.) over the next four years to meet its forecast costs. The stalled Defence Investment Plan is causing a significant delay in the procurement necessary for the U.K. to meet the evolving threats in Eastern Europe and the Arctic, and has left the U.K.’s defense industry paralyzed.

Britain’s global influence is also backsliding. The government cut overseas aid spending to fund an increase in defense spending — an increase that is yet to materialize — threatening to leave a vacuum for Russia and China to fill and undermine the interests of both Washington and Westminster. Moreover, Britain has failed to alter its development policy to fit a new age of strategic competition. It remains stuck in an idealized world that has not appreciated the efforts being put into the Global South by Moscow and Beijing.

Lastly, Britain’s China approach further complicates matters. The U.K.’s foreign policy is proving unable to stand up to and acknowledge the threat that China poses to Western security, values and interests. Continuing to avoid the reality that Beijing poses a pacing threat would cause Britain to fall way down the U.S.’s priority list as its attention shifts to China over the next decade.

There is a natural reservation about the U.S. in Britain at the moment. The rhetoric by the White House has decisively shifted British public opinion away from the U.S. Indeed, one-third of the U.K. public now perceives the U.S. as a threat. The reality is, however, that the relationship is too important for the U.K. to let sink. Without intelligence, defense, trade and technological cooperation with the U.S., the U.K.’s security and strategic position would be in disarray.

If Britain does not intend to part from the Americans over the coming decades, but also does not want to be a satellite, then it needs to become more powerful on its own terms. This requires a foreign policy that encompasses a stronger defense, diplomatic and development strategy that is fit for the modern day, with the spending and commitment to match. The relationship has had a habit of survival over the past 80 years, but without the U.K. doing more to stand on its own two feet, there is no assurance that it will last in the years ahead.

Thomas Nurcombe is research manager at the Coalition for Global Prosperity.

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