ABSTRACT
This chapter will focus upon the military security relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States during the 1980s. It will investigate the bilateral relationship between the two powers and the special role that Britain has sought to play in United States-European affairs. With Britain's ability to reciprocate within the relationship much diminished, it has sought to emphasize the ideological and intangible links between the two countries. Britain can no longer portray itself as the global partner of the United States, a role that was in any case steadily undermined in the postwar period by American anti-colonialism and the relative weakness of the United Kingdom's economy. Unification has increased the already weighty importance of Germany, and this state, with political influence as well as economic power, will remain the focus of American attention for some time to come. The contact between desk officers will continue regardless of declining intimacy at the top of the political tree.
