Comparing the Anglo-American and Israeli-American special relationships in the Obama era: an alliance persistence perspective

The Anglo-American and Israeli-American security relationships have proved to be unusually close and have confounded expectations that they would wither away with the changing international environment. In order to explain this, the article proposes a theory of ‘alliance persistence’ that is based o...

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Main Authors: Xu, Ruike, Rees, Wyn
Format: Article
Published: Taylor and Francis 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/33077/
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author Xu, Ruike
Rees, Wyn
author_facet Xu, Ruike
Rees, Wyn
author_sort Xu, Ruike
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description The Anglo-American and Israeli-American security relationships have proved to be unusually close and have confounded expectations that they would wither away with the changing international environment. In order to explain this, the article proposes a theory of ‘alliance persistence’ that is based on reciprocity over shared geostrategic interests, sentimental attachments and institutionalized security relations. The article employs this theoretical framework to explore how Anglo-American and Israeli-American relations have developed during the Obama administration. It argues that the Anglo-American relationship has been closer because of the two countries’ shared strategic interests, whilst the Israeli-American relationship has experienced divergences in how the security interests of the two sides have been pursued. The article concludes by assessing how the two relationships will fair in the post-Obama era and argues that there are numerous areas of tension in the US-Israeli relationship that risk future tensions. Keywords: Alliance, US-UK, US-Israel, Special Relationship, Obama
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spelling nottingham-330772020-05-04T17:57:08Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/33077/ Comparing the Anglo-American and Israeli-American special relationships in the Obama era: an alliance persistence perspective Xu, Ruike Rees, Wyn The Anglo-American and Israeli-American security relationships have proved to be unusually close and have confounded expectations that they would wither away with the changing international environment. In order to explain this, the article proposes a theory of ‘alliance persistence’ that is based on reciprocity over shared geostrategic interests, sentimental attachments and institutionalized security relations. The article employs this theoretical framework to explore how Anglo-American and Israeli-American relations have developed during the Obama administration. It argues that the Anglo-American relationship has been closer because of the two countries’ shared strategic interests, whilst the Israeli-American relationship has experienced divergences in how the security interests of the two sides have been pursued. The article concludes by assessing how the two relationships will fair in the post-Obama era and argues that there are numerous areas of tension in the US-Israeli relationship that risk future tensions. Keywords: Alliance, US-UK, US-Israel, Special Relationship, Obama Taylor and Francis 2016-06-10 Article PeerReviewed Xu, Ruike and Rees, Wyn (2016) Comparing the Anglo-American and Israeli-American special relationships in the Obama era: an alliance persistence perspective. Journal of Strategic Studies, 39 (4). ISSN 1743-937X Alliance US-UK US-Israel Special Relationship Obama http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2016.1184147 doi:10.1080/01402390.2016.1184147 doi:10.1080/01402390.2016.1184147
spellingShingle Alliance
US-UK
US-Israel
Special Relationship
Obama
Xu, Ruike
Rees, Wyn
Comparing the Anglo-American and Israeli-American special relationships in the Obama era: an alliance persistence perspective
title Comparing the Anglo-American and Israeli-American special relationships in the Obama era: an alliance persistence perspective
title_full Comparing the Anglo-American and Israeli-American special relationships in the Obama era: an alliance persistence perspective
title_fullStr Comparing the Anglo-American and Israeli-American special relationships in the Obama era: an alliance persistence perspective
title_full_unstemmed Comparing the Anglo-American and Israeli-American special relationships in the Obama era: an alliance persistence perspective
title_short Comparing the Anglo-American and Israeli-American special relationships in the Obama era: an alliance persistence perspective
title_sort comparing the anglo-american and israeli-american special relationships in the obama era: an alliance persistence perspective
topic Alliance
US-UK
US-Israel
Special Relationship
Obama
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/33077/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/33077/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/33077/