Of course there was no special relationship before WW2 as the article describes, because that war is what created it. There were three things that established t

Of course there was no special relationship before WW2 as the article describes, because that war is what created it. There were three things that established this relationship. * Britain and the Commonwealth nations fought alongside America in every theatre of the war, and had a global network of naval bases to supply bunker fuel and supplies. This was massively important. Wherever US servicemen found themselves, there were Brits there somewhere around fighting alongside them or supporting their efforts. * We were thoroughly embedded in the Manhattan Project, contributing crucial technology, research and skills. In fact when the collaboration started in 1940 the British nuclear research program was significantly ahead of that in the US. * Intelligence gathering and sharing was deep and wide, and British intel was crucial to the war effort. Aside from extensive communications and humint resources, we had Bletchley and freely shared the technology with the US. All three of these spheres of collaboration continued after the war, and continue to this day. Britain still has a global military response capability only rivalled by the US itself, and maybe France (Seriously, nobody else, Russsia isn't even close). AUKUS still shows our nuclear technology collaboration with the US is deep even in the most closely guarded strategic technologies. That does not in any way imply the relationship is an equal one. That would be completely unrealistic, we have to peddle as fast as we can to keep up. This is why we spend significantly more on our military than most European countries. Also this is really a Commonwealth special relationship (at least the A-listers), not just a British one. Again see AUKUS for a prime example. Team Commonwealth collectively still has it where it counts. France chose to go their own way, and I think at this point it's clear this hasn't worked out as well as they had hoped. It's a real shame, France has fantastic global experience and assets, and for all our ribbing a first class military. If it hadn't been for de Gaul we could be reading about FRAUKUS in the news.