Relations between the United Kingdom and the United States have ranged from close allies to military opponents since the latter declared independence from the former in the late 18th century. The Thirteen British Colonies that seceded from the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1776 fought a subsequent revolutionary war and a theatre of the Napoleonic Wars in 1812. During the World Wars the United States had surpassed the United Kingdom as the world's leading power, having overshadowed it economically from the late 19th century. Since 1940 the countries have been close military allies enjoying the Special Relationship built as wartime allies and NATO partners. They are bound together by shared history, an overlap in religion, common language, legal system and kinship ties that reach back hundreds of years, including kindred, ancestral lines among English Americans, Scottish Americans, Welsh Americans, Cornish Americans, Scotch-Irish Americans, Irish Americans, and American Britons. Today, large numbers of expatriates live in both countries. In the early 21st century, Britain affirmed its relationship with the United States as its "most important bilateral partnership" in the current British foreign policy, and the American foreign policy also affirms its relationship with Britain as its most important relationship, as evidenced in aligned political affairs, mutual cooperation in the areas of trade, commerce, finance, technology, academics, as well as the arts and sciences; the sharing of government and military intelligence, and joint combat operations and peacekeeping missions carried out between the United States Armed Forces and the British Armed Forces. Canada has historically been the largest importer of US goods and the principal exporter of goods to the United States. As of January 2015, the United Kingdom was fifth in terms of exports and seventh in terms of import of goods. In long-term perspective, the historian Paul Johnson has called the United Kingdom–United States relations "cornerstone of the modern, democratic world order". The two countries also have had a significant impact on the cultures of many other countries. They are the two main nodes of the Anglosphere, with a combined population of just under 400 million in 2019. Together, they have given the English language a dominant role in many sectors of the modern world. Special Relationship The Special Relationship characterises the exceptionally close political, diplomatic, cultural, economic, military, and historical relations between the two countries. It is specially used for relations since 1940. History Origins After several failed attempts, the