Description
This paper argues that military cooperation makes an important contribution to the so-called Anglo-American ‘Special Relationship’. Working alongside a superpower has been a challenging task and the British armed services have invested considerable effort to ensure their capability to achieve this end. Looking through the lens of historical institutionalism helps to explain how predictability and persistent cooperation has been achieved. Two aspects will receive particular attention in this paper. First, UK-US military cooperation has taken place within a dynamic environment in which the nature of conflict has been evolving. Their armed forces have been required to not only engage in high intensity warfare, but also fashion military doctrines to address insurgency, peace enforcement and nation-building tasks. Second, working with the US military has generated risks as well as benefits for the UK’s armed forces. The UK has engaged in tasks that have weighed heavily upon its resources and this has contributed to tensions between their two armed forces.
