DBWI: AHC: Avoid the Anglo-American split

During the Cold War, the USSR and China, despite ideological differences, stuck together as close allies. The US and the UK, on the other hand, had trouble seeing past each other's differences, and the US even went hardcore Monroe Doctrine.

Bonus points if you can create a similar "Sino-Soviet split", though it may be hard to pull off.

OOC: Please, no annexation of Canada.
 
During the Cold War, the USSR and China, despite ideological differences, stuck together as close allies. The US and the UK, on the other hand, had trouble seeing past each other's differences, and the US even went hardcore Monroe Doctrine.

Bonus points if you can create a similar "Sino-Soviet split", though it may be hard to pull off.

OOC: Please, no annexation of Canada.

Really? Here's some info on the Sino-Soviet Split in 1960s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_split

The Chinese and the USSR even went into war with each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict
 
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Maybe Britain gets into a war and they need US help? Ideally from before the split, like that debacle in Iran back in the 50s. Damn, was was awful.
 
Maybe Britain gets into a war and they need US help? Ideally from before the split, like that debacle in Iran back in the 50s. Damn, was was awful.

I don't know if that'd help. I mean, they'd just fought together in two wars and still split IOTL. I don't see how a third would do anything more.
 
Well IIRC, at the end of WWII, Britain was practically bankrupt - with Debts equal to 240% of GDP - and needed either an influx of billions in 1945 money, or insane austerity and demilitarisation to stay afloat. The US wouldn't give a grant, and when a loan was asked for instead, they tagged far too many conditions to it.

I mean seriously, a shock move to full currency convertibility of Sterling? Knowing that Sterling was vulnerable at that time? God only knows what that would have done! >_<

How the UK dodged bankruptcy anyway is quite a mystery at times. But I suppose what really matters is that it happened, and that's when the split occurred.

Perhaps adjusting the terms of the Loan way back then to something that both sides could accept can prevent the Anglo/American Split. Other than that though......
 
Also, avoiding Wallace's crude attempts at getting Britain to give up their Empire peacefully would have helped a lot. Having an American President openly voicing support for the anti-colonial movements in British Africa definitely went a long way towards embittering the British towards the US. Nothing like having your ally calling you a colonialist oppressor to split up two allies. Maybe have Roosevelt realize he was mortal (ASB right there :p) and appoint someone different as his final VP? Cordell Hull seems like a good choice to me, or Marshall.
 
Hmm well I suppose if the British and French backed down in the Suez crisis that might prevent the Anglo-US split. Although that's going to cause big problems politically for Anthony Eden. To be honest I think this is going to be very difficult to pull off. Remember that Eden was one of the lone voices in Chamberlain's Cabinet who was warning about Hitler. Eden knew a dictator when he saw one and he saw Nasser basically as an Egyptian Hitler. When the Americans pulled their support Eden refused to back down as he predicted it would embolden Nasser to take even more aggressive actions. He was probably right because the Egyptian Army ended up removing Nasser in a coup and installing a more moderate leader who was able to negotiate.

The American denouncement was very unpopular in Britain at the time and their effective economic blockade badly damaged the economy. There was a lot of bad blood and I struggle to see how the relationship could be significantly repaired in that era. Maybe if Thatcher was to win the election in the late 70s but even then her pro-America stance was pretty unpopular within her own party.

A Sino-Soviet Split is almost ASB. Molotov was firmly committed to the Sino-Soviet Alliance. He was also close personally and ideologically to Mao. I just can't see how this would happen. Maybe if a freak accident kills off Molotov but his rise to power is pretty inevitable by the time Stalin dies.

Edit: I should also add that the downgrading of Anglo-US relations had started earlier by this point particularly with the American's moral support of the anti-colonial movement. The Suez crisis was the straw that broke the camel's back.
 
It wasn't just Wallace who denounced colonialism. Taft's VP, Owen Brewster was also a harsh critic of British colonialism. The Chicago Tribune (coiner of the phrase "Evil Empire" that Reagan used in the Malvinas war) even referred to the world as "Half slave and half free, with the British Empire representing slavery."

And Wallace had good reason to distrust the British beyond his negative views on Churchill. He felt betrayed by his friend Roald Dahl, after Dahl was caught taking a speech of Wallace's to be copied by the British Embassy. (And, as we all know from the movies, Dahl's unmasking shocked Claire Booth Luce, who he was ordered to sleep with.)

(OOC: The remarks from Brewster and the Tribune, as well as Dahl's sending Wallace's speech to be copied and sleeping with Claire Booth Luce are OTL.)
 
The fault was never on the American side. Wallace was open to trans-Atlantic co-operation, remember - just not without some give on the British side. If Attlee had beaten Churchill in 1945, Britain would have been much more receptive to Wallace's overtures on the empire and more successful at bridging the gap between Europe and America. A less die-hard British government might even have been able to persuade Taft to bring America into NATO (and probably wouldn't have tried to start a war when the communists reunified Korea, so Taft wouldn't have come so close to pulling America out of the UN).

America never pursued an inherently anti-British line - it just maintained outspoken opposition to colonialism and to intrigues by the great powers in the affairs of smaller nations. And the US stuck to its guns, even when it caused division at home - like when Taft finally shut down the SSU and PWD in 1951 (the last remnants of the wartime OSS). If he hadn't done that then America could easily have ended up with a counterpart to Britain's MI6, sponsoring all manner of coups and assassinations abroad; but he knew that was risking the hawks taking revenge, and it was Eisenhower's third party challenge in 1952 that sealed the deal on Wallace's return to the White House.

The Anglo-American split was dictated by British aggression rather than American exceptionalism. Timing was a big part of it too. The presidential race in 1956 was over-shadowed by Britain joining with France to intervene in Suez, in 1960 by the Anglo-French intervention in Vietnam, and in 1964 by the final blood-soaked end of the Kenyan War. That timing naturally focussed and hardened American attitudes and made Britain as big a pariah as France - there was no way to repair the damage after that.
 
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