The ‘special relationship’ and the withdrawal from East of Suez

David Reynolds has described the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’ as ‘a device used by a declining power for trying to harness a rising power to serve its own ends’.1 More specifically, he argues that the special relationship must be seen ‘primarily as a stratagem of British diplomacy rather than as a metaphysical entity’.2 In a similar vein, Geoffrey Warner identifies Britain’s aim as being ‘quite simply to harness the much greater military, political, and economic power of the US in support of its own objectives’.3 Injecting similar realism into the debate, Ian Clark argues that ‘the special relationship was viewed from London not as a romantic and sentimental ideal but rather as a pragmatic instrument for the attainment of British interests’.4 Referring specifically to the Middle East, Matthew Elliot comments that while Britain wanted to ‘use American political, military and economic weight in support of their own efforts to obtain treaties or economic agreements with Arab states’, it also sought to ‘deny the United States real control and to limit the advance of American influence’.5

The self-interested nature of British calculations inherent in these interpretations complements the questioning by some of the US’s hegemonic status in the Anglo-American relationship. ‘Contrary to popular apperception,’ observes Alex Danchev, ‘specialness is not a matter of grace and favour. It is not in the gift of one partner, however strong. . . . It is a process – a process of interaction’.6 In a similar vein, Alan Dobson points out that the USA ‘had to compromise and accommodate her policies on numerous occasions and was not in a position to call all the shots unilaterally except in the Western hemisphere’.7 Equally, John Dumbrell’s analysis of the Cold War era and after has led him to conclude that ‘the history of recent US-UK relations is not one of unremitting and absolute American domination’.8 The British decisions, taken in spite of countervailing US pressure, to devalue sterling and withdraw from East of Suez can be seen in this context. In the mid-1960s, Britain also sought to harness American economic and financial power in the interests of preserving its overseas commitments. This utilization of American power for the pursuit