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Comparing the Anglo-American and Israeli-American Special Relationships in the Obama Era: An Alliance Persistence Perspective

Xu, Ruike; Rees, Wyn

Authors

Ruike Xu

WYN REES WYN.REES@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
Professor of International Security



Abstract

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The Anglo-American and Israeli-American special 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 institutionalised 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.

Citation

Xu, R., & Rees, W. (2018). Comparing the Anglo-American and Israeli-American Special Relationships in the Obama Era: An Alliance Persistence Perspective. Journal of Strategic Studies, 41(4), 494-518. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2016.1184147

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 24, 2016
Online Publication Date Jun 10, 2016
Publication Date Jun 7, 2018
Deposit Date May 4, 2016
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Journal of Strategic Studies
Print ISSN 0140-2390
Electronic ISSN 1743-937X
Publisher Routledge
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 41
Issue 4
Pages 494-518
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2016.1184147
Keywords Alliance, US-UK, US-Israel, Special Relationship, Obama
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/795789
Publisher URL http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2016.1184147
Additional Information This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Strategic Studies on 10 June 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01402390.2016.1184147

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