US foreign policy traditionally favors the maintenance of a special relationship – a term customarily reserved for US relationship with the United Kingdom though not necessarily limited to it in a substantive sense – with what US policymakers consider a key ally in a particular region, including Israel in the Middle East and Japan in the Far East. Although it does not sound very diplomatic to classify only a few countries as “preferred” partners, in reality it is practical to focus on relationships with them and cope with mutual threats and concerns, in light of a chronic insufficiency of US diplomatic resources.
Special relationships do not always work in favor of the United States, however, because what US policymakers consider a key ally may not always be very reliable in the face of a mutual threat or concern, due to local political conditions and other reasons, leaving the United States with a unilateral commitment to the special relationship. Moreover, an entangling alliance with one ally could make it difficult for US policymakers to engage some other countries in the region, by forcing the United States to take sides over regional issues often against US national interests or, worse, creating a larger threat of its own making.
Historically, the special relationship with the UK has been the main pillar of the US national security strategy worldwide. Despite the two wars the two countries fought earlier in our relationship, we have been on the same side in both World Wars, the Cold War, all the way through the ongoing war on terror. This what has been remarkably close to a friendship between any two countries is currently facing a setback because of the UK government’s denial of any responsibility for BP’s oil spill or Lockerbie bomber’s release, which may contribute to a declining sense of uniqueness in this relationship, at least on this side of the Atlantic.
Across the Pacific, the United States maintains a specially close alliance with Japan, despite the bloody war the two countries fought all over the Ocean of Peace nearly seven decades ago. During the Cold War, which technically started only two years after the end of the conflict between them, Japan was committed to the support for US military presence in Asia, providing a crucial staging point in Korean and Vietnam Wars. Still, without any combat role of its own, Japan as a US ally has been taking a virtual free ride, while its past aggression continues to complicate US diplomacy in the region.
Speaking of a special relationship, we cannot ignore US-Israel relations, which did not suffer from a major conflict, like US relationships with the UK and Japan, but has not been totally peaceful as in the case of the USS Liberty. Since many of the immediate threats to US national security lie in the Middle East, Israel’s own national security efforts are valuable to the United States to some extent. Yet, as the Gaza flotilla incident indicated, the US commitment to Israel, despite various justifications for its response to the incident and unwavering support for Israel’s security, gives bad publicity to US diplomacy and helps pit it against many Muslim countries.
US relationships with the UK, Japan, or Israel are still very important, but it does not mean that they will forever remain special. Most likely, stuck with those special relationships, US policymakers are too blind to see the importance of other countries quickly on the rise, due particularly to the exigency of the time. In the Middle East, it is hard to imagine that the United States will ever forge a lasting peace without Turkey on one end and Pakistan on the other. In Latin America and Africa, US diplomacy will unlikely become effective without a pivotal ally: possibly Brazil in the former, but how about in the latter? Meanwhile, who in the world is willing to forgo a close relationship with China regardless of political differences?
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