Tumultuous Britain « Prospect Magazine

Features

Tumultuous Britain

25th November 2007 — Issue 140

For more than a century, Americans have seen Britain as tired and broken. But some of them now think that the old dynamism and iconoclasm has returned. If Britain really is back, it will be another test for the special relationship

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There are three leading views about the “special relationship” between the United States and Britain. And they are all wrong.

The first view holds that maintaining the special relationship is Britain’s best chance to exercise more influence than a country with 1 per cent of the world’s population and about 3 per cent of its GDP might hope to. From this perspective, Britain should cling as tightly as possible to America’s skirts.

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