Author Description

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