ISBN: 1461164788 9781461164784

Category: Political Science / International Relations / General

Page count: 354

The idea for this volume grew out of a previous collaboration between Jeffrey McCausland and Douglas Stuart. Arguing that the bilateral relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom was both underappreciated and understudied, they organized a series of conferences in 2005 which brought together a group of well-known American and British academics, journalists, and policymakers to discuss political, military, and economic aspects of the "special relationship." The conference proceedings, published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College under the title U.S.-UK Relations at the Start of the 21st Century, proved to be extremely popular- requiring a second printing and generating followon public discussions on both sides of the Atlantic.1 Conversation during these public events tended to focus on one basic question and a couple of ancillary questions: Was the U.S.-UK relationship unique? If so, in what respects? And why? Scholarly inquiry into the "other special relationship" between the United States and Australia flowed logically from these discussions. With the generous financial and administrative assistance of the U.S. Army War College, Dickinson College, the Australian National University, and the Griffith University Asia Institute, and with the indispensable scholarly collaboration of William Tow and Michael Wesley, a series of professional conferences was organized in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC, on the U.S. side, and in Brisbane and Canberra on the Australian side. A team of American and Australian experts came together in all four locations to discuss issues relating to foreign policy, economics and business, domestic politics and public opinion, and security and defense affairs. The U.S. Army War College also enriched our discussions with panels in Carlisle and Canberra relating to the Global War on Terror. This volume is designed to summarize the major findings of our fruitful collaboration over the last year. To provide the participants with a common lexicon, all of the contributors to this volume were asked to return to their dog-eared copies of Arnold Wolfers' wise and wide-ranging book, Discord and Collaboration.2 Although Wolfers' book is more than 40 years old, it was selected because of its valuable (and still-valid) insights regarding alliance behavior, the goals and interests of nations, and the interaction of individual, national, and international factors as determinants of foreign policy. Readers will find references to Discord and Collaboration throughout this volume. It came as no surprise when many of the themes that surfaced in the study of U.S.-UK relations resurfaced in our deliberations on U.S. Australian relations. One recurrent theme was the importance of leadership in both the U.S.-UK and the U.S.-Australian relationships. Both Tony Blair and John Howard have cultivated close personal relationships with George W. Bush, based on the shared "Anglosphere" values of political and economic liberalism and a shared appreciation of the need to act assertively, and globally, in defense of these values.3 The result has been a level of comfort and mutual trust among the three leaders that has greatly facilitated international cooperation.