Only last week, 300 British troops deployed under the aegis of the UN to support what is fundamentally a French war fought for French interests: we are already France’s military partner of choice, and much more diplomatic capital could be made of this relationship than is currently the case.
So far, we have kept our close military relationship with France separate from Brexit negotiations— though whether this has worked to our advantage is doubtful. As Perry Anderson noted recently, the most obvious British card to play against the EU’s punitive Brexit negotiating tactics was a “warning that if pressed on this plane, the EU could suffer security — military and diplomatic — costs as well.”
Yet as he notes, “any such notion, above all, May and her ministers were voluble in disavowing,” and the opportunity to use this gambit has long since been lost. Nevertheless, the lure of Britain’s strategic muscle remains a powerful diplomatic tool waiting to be deployed, and our greatest asset, perhaps unexpectedly, is the fecklessness of Germany’s foreign policy establishment, still trapped in the conceptual safe space of the early 2000s and America’s unipolar moment.
Merkel is, fundamentally, a relic of the age of Bush and Blair, and the think-tank establishment around her is similarly unwilling to face the unwelcome realities slowly dawning on the rest of Europe. While still loudly proclaiming its loyal Atlanticism and rejecting all talk of European autonomy, Germany is deeply invested in its trading relationship with China, all but ensuring a future crisis as this essential paradox plays out and the world is forced to choose between the two opposing blocs.
This situation is perhaps unlikely to long survive her retirement — there is an amusing irony to the fact that the neurotic Atlanticism of the German establishment is not shared by German voters, who are probably the most indifferent to America’s survival as global hegemon in all of Western Europe. As a recent poll showed, 82% of Germans would wish to remain neutral in a Cold War between America and China, and this indifference to the interests of Germany’s superpower sponsor can in itself be read as a certain popular will for autonomy.
Yet until the desires of Germany’s voters are reflected by the policies of its government, any European effort towards an autonomous strategic vision will founder on German intransigence, leaving Britain looking more and more attractive as a strategic partner. In any case, the inherent difficulty of marshalling the varied and often opposing interests of the EU nations together in the service of a common goal, whether geopolitical or otherwise, will always counteract any attempt at unified foreign policy action, again enhancing our appeal.
Whether or not future strategic cooperation would be with a European Union in which France has become the dominant diplomatic power, or simply bilaterally with France, can only be determined by the course of future events, by their nature impossible to foresee. Yet with our strategic utility already established, the greater question is whether such deepened cooperation with a Union we are leaving in such traumatic and contested circumstances is in our national interests.
Until the delayed SDSR is released, we will not know for certain the strategic assumptions underlying future British policy. It is likely, and fortunate, that the British Government has finally lost its appetite for idealistic crusades in unstable or failing states in the Islamic world, yet the search for a new role brings with it new dangers as well as opportunities.
The options, fundamentally, are that we consider ourselves a European power, and focus on maintaining the continent’s security by sea in the North Atlantic and by land on NATO’s eastern frontier, or that we continue to maintain a tenuous status as a global power, which will in effect mean a predominantly naval effort stretching from the Persian Gulf to the western Pacific. Neither option would mean a breach with the Atlantic alliance; either option would be an attractive addition to Europe’s capabilities.
If the publication, last week, of the MoD’s guidance on Multi-Domain Integration can be read for clues on Britain’s future strategic orientation, then the statement that “Russia is our primary adversary and pacing threat” indicates the European continent and perhaps its near abroad will remain our area of strategic focus; yet the investment in naval rearmament, with the future status of our land forces remaining unclear, implies the opposite: a naval orientation centred on our two giant new carriers will naturally lead us eastward on the open seas, where the obvious future adversary will be a rising China.
The fundamental assumption driving European strategic thought, if Borrell’s blogpost is an accurate guide, is that the outcome of a contest between the United States and China in the Pacific will be China’s winning of hegemonic status. Perhaps this is wrong: perhaps China will blink first, or perhaps both superpowers will exhaust themselves in the struggle, leaving space for smaller powers, like India, or Russia or even Europe, to expand their reach as a result. What seems clear is that this historic future struggle, whose outcome is so uncertain, is not one the European Union has any interest in actively taking part in, and this is probably a sensible decision.
Whatever the outcome of the future contest in the Pacific, the shift in American attention away from Europe and Middle East is most likely permanent, with the result that Europe will be forced to defend its territorial and political authority even on the edges of our own continent. Whatever our global aspirations, or memories, we are a European power and it is in Europe’s near abroad that our interests will primarily be threatened.
Serious engagement with the European debate on grand strategy should therefore be a British priority: once the dust settles on our rancorous departure from the union, the fact will remain that, to defend our interests, we will still need them and they will still need us. Once we’re finished haggling over fish, it should be the Government’s priority to determine what a long-term, self-interested strategic relationship with our closest neighbours — distinct from, though not in opposition to NATO — would look like.
Europe’s strategic autonomy may end up less something to be consciously aimed for than a situation thrust upon the continent by events. We would be wise to carefully consider the full range of possibilities for Britain offered by the aspiring regional power bloc on our doorstep.
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