A Bridge Too Far: The United Kingdom and the Transatlantic Relationship

William Wallace and Tim Oliver

No 22, EUI-RSCAS Working Papers from European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS)

Abstract: For the past fifty years, British foreign policy has attempted to act as a 'bridge' between the continental European governments and US administrators. The end of the Cold War did not change this stance. First by John Major and more significantly by Tony Blair, British Prime Ministers continued to declare Britain's intent to remain 'at the heart of Europe' while also maintaining its 'special relationship' with the US. The period from September 11th 2001 to the invasion of Iraq, however, has severely shaken this concept as the British government has given its strong support to American policy. The argument of this chapter is that Prime Minister Blair's firm support came more from his personal conviction that Saddam Hussein's regime was a threat to global security than from his commitment to transatlantic cooperation under all circumstances. His support also resulted from the British preference for seeking influence within Washington through offering public support while moderating the direction of American policy through private criticism. Blair's double commitment to Europe and America, however, has created a diplomatic dilemma by deepening the level of distrust among its European partners about Britain's real intentions in the EU while also leaving its foreign policy success dependent on Washington's willingness to work with its NATO partners.

Keywords: U.K.; international relations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-10-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-mac
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.eui.eu/ERPA/RSCAS/../../RSCAS/WP-Texts/04_22.pdf Full text (text/html)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.eui.eu/ERPA/RSCAS/../../RSCAS/WP-Texts/04_22.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.eui.eu/ERPA/RSCAS/../../RSCAS/WP-Texts/04_22.pdf)
http://www.eui.eu/ERPA/RSCAS/../../RSCAS/WP-Texts/04_22.pdf Full text (text/html)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.eui.eu/ERPA/RSCAS/../../RSCAS/WP-Texts/04_22.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.eui.eu/ERPA/RSCAS/../../RSCAS/WP-Texts/04_22.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:erp:euirsc:p0138

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in EUI-RSCAS Working Papers from European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Valerio PAPPALARDO (rscas.webunit@eui.eu).