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Anglo-American relationship
The term Anglo-American relations refers to bilateral relations between the Britain and the United States, especially since 1900. The special relationship is a term used to emphasize the warmth and cordiality of the relationship between the leaders and military forces of the two countries and used to describe Anglo-American relations in a positive light; however, before 1900 Anglo-American relations went through times of war and conflict as well as peace.
The term transatlantic relations as used in Britain usually refers to Anglo-American relations. As used in the United States, the term can refer to either Anglo-American relations or to relations between the United States and Europe (see the article transatlantic relations for more information).
History
Origins
The British established many colonies in the New World. The Thirteen Colonies had limited self government. Tensions escalated from 1765 to 1775 over issues of taxation and control, leading to the American Revolution. The Declaration of Independence of 1776 was a decisive break. British military efforts to defeat the Americans failed, and independence was recognized in 1783. When Britain and France went to war again in 1793, relations verged on war. The two countries signed the Jay Treaty in 1794 which established a decade of peace and prosperous trade relations. That broke down in 1805.[1]
War of 1812
After 1805 relations were on the verge of war, with the Americans imposing trade embargoes such as the Embargo Act of 1807, and the British, with a vast Royal Navy, seizing American ships and impressing (seizing) sailors. War of 1812 was initiated by the U.S. under President James Madison, but went very badly at first for the Americans. In 1814 the British raided Washington and burnt the Presidential mansion. After Napoleon was defeated there were no further causes for war, and a compromise Treaty of Ghent ended the war(ironically)before the Americans won one of the most important battles of the war in 1815, the Battle of New Orleans.
Disputes 1815-1860
The international slave trade was largely ended after Britain had passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, and the U.S. passed a similar law in 1808. Britain emancipated all slaves in the British Empire in 1833, with compensation to the masters. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 had expressed American hostility to European colonialism, but had British approval. After the Panic of 1837 numerous American states defaulted on their bonds owned by British investors. In 1837 after a failed rebellion in Canada, rebels fled to New York and used a small American ship the Caroline to smuggle supplies into Canada. In late 1837 Canadian militia burned the ship leading to diplomatic protests, popular anglophobia and additional incidents. Additional conflicts on the Maine border involved rival teams of lumberjacks in the "Aroostook War." The Webster-Ashburton treaty of 1842 resolved these issues and finalized the New Brunswick/Maine border.
American Civil War
In the American Civil War, the Confederate States of America assumed that the British would prove sympathetic despite their opposition to slavery. Though their first attempt to provoke British intervention by using an embargo of cotton exports was a failure, the Trent Affair, when a United States ship stopped a British ship and took off two Confederate diplomats, almost provoked a third war between Britain and the United States, but Lincoln was against fighting on two fronts and Seward was able to smooth matters over. The British did allow the CSS Alabama to leave port as a commerce raider but prevented other completed Confederate ships from doing so. After the war Britain abided by the arbitration of an international tribunal and paid compensation to the United States for the activities of the Alabama as part of the Treaty of Washington (1871).[4]
Venezuelan and Canadian border disputes
In 1895 President Cleveland intervened in a dispute over the border between British Guiana and Venezuela. Cleveland issued an ultimatum that stated that unless Britain submitted the dispute to arbitration she would risk war with America. The British reply flatly refused to arbitrate and also refused to recognise the Olney interpretation. War fever grew but clooler heads prevailed and the dispute was resolved by arbitration (the border was favourable to Britain).In 1898 there was another border dispute, this time over the American-Canadian border, in which Britain agreed under American pressure to submit the dispute to an international tribunal. According to one historian the outcome of this tribunal in 1903 "was almost wholly favourable to the United States".[5]
World War I
After the Spanish-American War of 1898 the United States had acquired overseas territories and had begun to build a fleet to go with it. At the beginning of World War I, both Britain and Germany engaged in propaganda campaigns designed to win over the United States. The British were able to guarantee a price for American cotton producers, who were the most affected by the loss of trade with Germany and Central Europe. The anglophile President Wilson then opted to allow the munitions trade to continue, despite disputes over freedom of the seas because of the British blockade of Germany and complaints of a 'navalism' like German 'militarism'. This policy meant that the United States would supply only the Entente powers. When Germany responded with a submarine blockade of Britain, the sinking of the RMS Lusitania by a German U-boat led to a protest by the United States and the sinkings stopped.
Germany returned to unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917 in the belief that Britain would be forced to make peace before the United States could mobilise. After London gave Washington a copy of the Zimmermann Telegram in which Germany encouraged Mexico to join a war against the U.S., Congress declared war. The U.S. did not join the Allies, and diplomatically stood at arms length, but it did supply them with vast sums of money, food and raw materials, releasing hundreds of thousands of workers and farmers for the Allied Armies.
Though Wilson had wanted to wage war for cause of humanity the negotiations over the Treaty of Versailles made plain that his diplomatic position had weakened with victory. The borders of Europe were redrawn on the basis of national self-determination- with the exception of Germany, because of the French desire for a punitive peace. Though Wilson was against large-scale war reparations from Germany, he also insisted that the British and French pay their war debts, an attitude which caused resentment. The British often put the U.S. Government under serious pressure because of this.
Inter-war years
The Great War was the end of the Royal Navy's superiority, an eclipse acknowledged in the Washington Naval Treaty, when the United States and Britain were allocated equal tonnage quotas. United States policies on immigration and trade fostered a Pacific rivalry with Japan rather than an Atlantic rivalry, though during the Great Depression the United States was preoccupied with its own economic recovery and was only sporadically active in foreign affairs, an isolationist policy. Britain relied on the ineffective League of Nations as a policy instrument during the Spanish Civil War and then pursued the appeasement of Nazi Germany whilst pursuing limited rearmament. The Abdication Crisis, while absorbing popular interest in both countries, did not become a foreign relations issue, with Mrs. Simpson seen as being rejected as unsuitable for religious reasons rather than as an American. Tensions over the Irish question declined with the independence of Eire, and with the successful ambassadorship of Joseph P. Kennedy in the late 1930s. [7]
World War II
Though the American public was generally sympathetic to Britain and France, there was popular opposition to actual involvement in the war. Roosevelt's cash-and-carry policy allowed Britain and France to order munitions from the United States. Churchill, whose mother was American, had become prime minister after the failure to prevent the German invasion of Norway, and after the fall of France, Roosevelt allowed Britain all aid short of war, including the 1940 Destroyers for Bases Agreement and Lend-lease. Before Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war, two U.S. Navy destroyers had already been torpedoed on convoy duties in the North Atlantic. The US then became heavily involved in the war in Europe. It was during this period of extremely close co-operation that the special relationship was created.[8]
Cold War
At the end of World War Two, the United States and Britain became two of the founding members of the United Nations, as well as two of the five permanent members of the Security Council. They were suspicious of the motives of their former ally, the USSR, under Stalin. Rising tensions between the capitalist and communist powers led to the Cold War and an era of close cooperation between the United States and Britain which included the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, a mutual-defense alliance. As the British Empire declined throughout the world, the United States became one of two world superpowers along with the Soviet Union, while Britain became the most important and influential alliance partner with the United States on the American side of the Cold War. Forces from both countries were involved in the Korean War, fighting under United Nations command. The United States had become the leading world power and pursued a mixed anti-colonial anti-communist policy, refusing to support the French attempt to retain Indochina and threatening to impose financial sanctions on Britain over Suez. As the Americans concentrated on their technological rivalry with the Soviet Union and waged an unpopular proxy war in Vietnam, Anti-Americanism became a factor in Europe, which partially reached Britain due to Suez and Vietnam. However, Harold Wilson refused to send British troops to Vietnam. Protests against the introduction of medium-range weapons which might allow a nuclear war to be confined to Europe became a feature of British politics in the eighties. [9]
Initially the U.S. followed a non-committal response to the 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands by Argentina in the Falklands War, since both countries were friendly and Argentina had supported the American struggle against Communism in Latin America. Washington tried to mediate but ultimately supported Britain's successful invasion. The US Defense department under Casper Weinberger supplied the British Army with needed equipment. [10]
In October 1983 the US and a coalition of Caribbean nations undertook Operation Urgent Fury, the invasion of Grenada. Grenada had seen a bloody coup overthrow its Marxist regime and neighboring countries asked Reagan to intervene, which he did despite the requests from Thatcher.
Throughout the 1980s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was strongly supportive of President Reagan's stance towards the Soviet Union. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, both the British and the Americans governments provided arms to the anti-Soviet Mujahadeen rebels in Afghanistan. Both Reagan and Thatcher met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on separate occasions.
Post Cold War
Both the United States and Britain provided forces for the coalition army which liberated Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War. The British Labour Party were elected to office in 1997 for the first time in eighteen years. Blair used Clinton's expression 'Third Way' to describe the ideology of his own party. Forces from both countries were again used to impose a peace during the Kosovo War.
Have a nice day 
The term Anglo-American relations refers to bilateral relations between the Britain and the United States, especially since 1900. The special relationship is a term used to emphasize the warmth and cordiality of the relationship between the leaders and military forces of the two countries and used to describe Anglo-American relations in a positive light; however, before 1900 Anglo-American relations went through times of war and conflict as well as peace.
The term transatlantic relations as used in Britain usually refers to Anglo-American relations. As used in the United States, the term can refer to either Anglo-American relations or to relations between the United States and Europe (see the article transatlantic relations for more information).
History
Origins
The British established many colonies in the New World. The Thirteen Colonies had limited self government. Tensions escalated from 1765 to 1775 over issues of taxation and control, leading to the American Revolution. The Declaration of Independence of 1776 was a decisive break. British military efforts to defeat the Americans failed, and independence was recognized in 1783. When Britain and France went to war again in 1793, relations verged on war. The two countries signed the Jay Treaty in 1794 which established a decade of peace and prosperous trade relations. That broke down in 1805.[1]
War of 1812
After 1805 relations were on the verge of war, with the Americans imposing trade embargoes such as the Embargo Act of 1807, and the British, with a vast Royal Navy, seizing American ships and impressing (seizing) sailors. War of 1812 was initiated by the U.S. under President James Madison, but went very badly at first for the Americans. In 1814 the British raided Washington and burnt the Presidential mansion. After Napoleon was defeated there were no further causes for war, and a compromise Treaty of Ghent ended the war(ironically)before the Americans won one of the most important battles of the war in 1815, the Battle of New Orleans.
Disputes 1815-1860
The international slave trade was largely ended after Britain had passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, and the U.S. passed a similar law in 1808. Britain emancipated all slaves in the British Empire in 1833, with compensation to the masters. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 had expressed American hostility to European colonialism, but had British approval. After the Panic of 1837 numerous American states defaulted on their bonds owned by British investors. In 1837 after a failed rebellion in Canada, rebels fled to New York and used a small American ship the Caroline to smuggle supplies into Canada. In late 1837 Canadian militia burned the ship leading to diplomatic protests, popular anglophobia and additional incidents. Additional conflicts on the Maine border involved rival teams of lumberjacks in the "Aroostook War." The Webster-Ashburton treaty of 1842 resolved these issues and finalized the New Brunswick/Maine border.
American Civil War
In the American Civil War, the Confederate States of America assumed that the British would prove sympathetic despite their opposition to slavery. Though their first attempt to provoke British intervention by using an embargo of cotton exports was a failure, the Trent Affair, when a United States ship stopped a British ship and took off two Confederate diplomats, almost provoked a third war between Britain and the United States, but Lincoln was against fighting on two fronts and Seward was able to smooth matters over. The British did allow the CSS Alabama to leave port as a commerce raider but prevented other completed Confederate ships from doing so. After the war Britain abided by the arbitration of an international tribunal and paid compensation to the United States for the activities of the Alabama as part of the Treaty of Washington (1871).[4]
Venezuelan and Canadian border disputes
In 1895 President Cleveland intervened in a dispute over the border between British Guiana and Venezuela. Cleveland issued an ultimatum that stated that unless Britain submitted the dispute to arbitration she would risk war with America. The British reply flatly refused to arbitrate and also refused to recognise the Olney interpretation. War fever grew but clooler heads prevailed and the dispute was resolved by arbitration (the border was favourable to Britain).In 1898 there was another border dispute, this time over the American-Canadian border, in which Britain agreed under American pressure to submit the dispute to an international tribunal. According to one historian the outcome of this tribunal in 1903 "was almost wholly favourable to the United States".[5]
World War I
After the Spanish-American War of 1898 the United States had acquired overseas territories and had begun to build a fleet to go with it. At the beginning of World War I, both Britain and Germany engaged in propaganda campaigns designed to win over the United States. The British were able to guarantee a price for American cotton producers, who were the most affected by the loss of trade with Germany and Central Europe. The anglophile President Wilson then opted to allow the munitions trade to continue, despite disputes over freedom of the seas because of the British blockade of Germany and complaints of a 'navalism' like German 'militarism'. This policy meant that the United States would supply only the Entente powers. When Germany responded with a submarine blockade of Britain, the sinking of the RMS Lusitania by a German U-boat led to a protest by the United States and the sinkings stopped.
Germany returned to unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917 in the belief that Britain would be forced to make peace before the United States could mobilise. After London gave Washington a copy of the Zimmermann Telegram in which Germany encouraged Mexico to join a war against the U.S., Congress declared war. The U.S. did not join the Allies, and diplomatically stood at arms length, but it did supply them with vast sums of money, food and raw materials, releasing hundreds of thousands of workers and farmers for the Allied Armies.
Though Wilson had wanted to wage war for cause of humanity the negotiations over the Treaty of Versailles made plain that his diplomatic position had weakened with victory. The borders of Europe were redrawn on the basis of national self-determination- with the exception of Germany, because of the French desire for a punitive peace. Though Wilson was against large-scale war reparations from Germany, he also insisted that the British and French pay their war debts, an attitude which caused resentment. The British often put the U.S. Government under serious pressure because of this.
Inter-war years
The Great War was the end of the Royal Navy's superiority, an eclipse acknowledged in the Washington Naval Treaty, when the United States and Britain were allocated equal tonnage quotas. United States policies on immigration and trade fostered a Pacific rivalry with Japan rather than an Atlantic rivalry, though during the Great Depression the United States was preoccupied with its own economic recovery and was only sporadically active in foreign affairs, an isolationist policy. Britain relied on the ineffective League of Nations as a policy instrument during the Spanish Civil War and then pursued the appeasement of Nazi Germany whilst pursuing limited rearmament. The Abdication Crisis, while absorbing popular interest in both countries, did not become a foreign relations issue, with Mrs. Simpson seen as being rejected as unsuitable for religious reasons rather than as an American. Tensions over the Irish question declined with the independence of Eire, and with the successful ambassadorship of Joseph P. Kennedy in the late 1930s. [7]
World War II
Though the American public was generally sympathetic to Britain and France, there was popular opposition to actual involvement in the war. Roosevelt's cash-and-carry policy allowed Britain and France to order munitions from the United States. Churchill, whose mother was American, had become prime minister after the failure to prevent the German invasion of Norway, and after the fall of France, Roosevelt allowed Britain all aid short of war, including the 1940 Destroyers for Bases Agreement and Lend-lease. Before Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war, two U.S. Navy destroyers had already been torpedoed on convoy duties in the North Atlantic. The US then became heavily involved in the war in Europe. It was during this period of extremely close co-operation that the special relationship was created.[8]
Cold War
At the end of World War Two, the United States and Britain became two of the founding members of the United Nations, as well as two of the five permanent members of the Security Council. They were suspicious of the motives of their former ally, the USSR, under Stalin. Rising tensions between the capitalist and communist powers led to the Cold War and an era of close cooperation between the United States and Britain which included the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, a mutual-defense alliance. As the British Empire declined throughout the world, the United States became one of two world superpowers along with the Soviet Union, while Britain became the most important and influential alliance partner with the United States on the American side of the Cold War. Forces from both countries were involved in the Korean War, fighting under United Nations command. The United States had become the leading world power and pursued a mixed anti-colonial anti-communist policy, refusing to support the French attempt to retain Indochina and threatening to impose financial sanctions on Britain over Suez. As the Americans concentrated on their technological rivalry with the Soviet Union and waged an unpopular proxy war in Vietnam, Anti-Americanism became a factor in Europe, which partially reached Britain due to Suez and Vietnam. However, Harold Wilson refused to send British troops to Vietnam. Protests against the introduction of medium-range weapons which might allow a nuclear war to be confined to Europe became a feature of British politics in the eighties. [9]
Initially the U.S. followed a non-committal response to the 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands by Argentina in the Falklands War, since both countries were friendly and Argentina had supported the American struggle against Communism in Latin America. Washington tried to mediate but ultimately supported Britain's successful invasion. The US Defense department under Casper Weinberger supplied the British Army with needed equipment. [10]
In October 1983 the US and a coalition of Caribbean nations undertook Operation Urgent Fury, the invasion of Grenada. Grenada had seen a bloody coup overthrow its Marxist regime and neighboring countries asked Reagan to intervene, which he did despite the requests from Thatcher.
Throughout the 1980s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was strongly supportive of President Reagan's stance towards the Soviet Union. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, both the British and the Americans governments provided arms to the anti-Soviet Mujahadeen rebels in Afghanistan. Both Reagan and Thatcher met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on separate occasions.
Post Cold War
Both the United States and Britain provided forces for the coalition army which liberated Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War. The British Labour Party were elected to office in 1997 for the first time in eighteen years. Blair used Clinton's expression 'Third Way' to describe the ideology of his own party. Forces from both countries were again used to impose a peace during the Kosovo War.
Have a nice day 
