Appraising Britain’s alliances
Appraising Britain’s alliances
Open Briefing | No. SDR-09.2024
This is the ninth in a series of Open Briefings to the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) from the Council on Geostrategy. Our aim is to analyse ten key questions facing the Defence Review Team, from the vantage point of how the United Kingdom’s (UK) adversaries and strategic competitors see us (an approach known as Opposing Forces, or ‘OPFOR’). We will avoid euphemisms and address the challenges head-on. After holding an expert seminar, we will formally submit the briefings at the end of September. Our contributions are deliberately candid – and we invite comment and challenge from all quarters. This ninth Open Briefing dwells on Britain’s ability to work with allies to multiply its defence interests:
Alliances and strategic arrangements have been a core element of British foreign and defence policy since the early 20th century. When the UK has used alliances and partnerships well, they have catalysed British power in support of the national interest. But alliances and strategic partnerships have the potential to divert Britain from the pursuit of its national interests, particularly when British policymakers have seen them with undue sentimentality and idealism.
Since the instrumental role of Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary, in establishing the alliance in the late 1940s, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has been the bedrock of the UK’s security. While the alliance has faced many challenges in recent years, this is unlikely to change in the near future:
The new Labour government is deeply Atlanticist and has reprioritised the alliance in British defence policy;
The collective strength of NATO’s conventional forces and the arsenals of its nuclear custodians – of which the UK is one – remain a powerful deterrent;
In part due to British and American pressure, NATO members, especially on the eastern and northern flanks of the alliance, are rebuilding their defence forces.
The UK has strongly entrenched assumptions regarding alliances which have underpinned British defence thinking since the 1960s. These assumptions contribute towards a level of strategic paralysis:
Since deciding to relinquish a sovereign capability to fight peer conflicts, the UK has – save for some limited exceptions (such as the Falklands War) – become increasingly dependent on allies and partners for military support. This has gone so far that the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, and the British Army may be unable to deploy (and sustain) meaningful fighting formations against a significant adversary, especially if Britain seeks to uphold existing commitments simultaneously.
The UK also sees unity within NATO as paramount, sometimes to the extent that the alliance becomes an end rather than a means to an end. This has held Britain back from pursuing its national interest more effectively. In reality, the credibility of Article 5 is paramount in the minds of adversaries rather than broader political unity – in the 1960s political disagreements led France to withdraw from NATO’s command structures, but this had little strategic impact on the alliance.
Relying excessively on allies and partners and concentrating overly on NATO unity presents an opportunity to adversaries. This problem has become apparent in relation to Ukraine. When Britain feels that it can only support Ukraine at the pace of the slowest movers in the alliance, it becomes simpler for adversaries to hinder British interests. They only have to target the ‘weakest links’ in the alliance with economic and/or diplomatic pressure to place serious brakes on any efforts they are unhappy with. A Ukrainian defeat would be more problematic for British security than a less united NATO.
Accordingly, Britain has employed minilateralism to strategic effect in recent years to bolster its interests both within and beyond NATO. Minilateralism brings together smaller groups of like minded nations which collaborate to pursue specific goals or tackle particular issues. For the UK, recent examples include AUKUS, the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), as well as older frameworks such as the Five Eyes and Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA). Minilaterals present several challenges to adversaries and possess inherent or complementary strengths when compared to larger multilateral frameworks:
They are more focused: Minilaterals tend to have a much more focused remit than larger arrangements. Large alliances or strategic arrangements are more prone to losing focus or expanding their remit to the point where the original focus is lost, whereas minilaterals tend to come together with a very specific objective in mind. For example, AUKUS aims to assist Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered attack submarines to enhance deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, the FPDA protects the independence of Malaysia and Singapore to strengthen stability in Southeast Asia, GCAP develops a sixth generation combat aircraft, the Five Eyes share intelligence, and the JEF supports a multinational rapid reaction force.
They are more flexible: With fewer members, minilaterals tend to find it easier to respond to shifts in geopolitics, or embrace new objectives or members. The JEF, for example, was able to expand to include Sweden and Finland – then not in NATO – to help bolster Nordic security and facilitate better cooperation between NATO members and Stockholm/Helsinki. AUKUS members are also exploring options for ad-hoc cooperation with non-members within Pillar II (technology sharing/collaboration). However, it only takes one ‘bad apple’ in a group to create problems, as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has seen with Cambodia acting at the behest of the PRC within the minilateral: when minilaterals do not exercise sufficient caution in their membership, opportunities for sowing division can be reopened.
They are harder to ‘divide and conquer’: Because minilaterals are formed by small groups to deal with specific issues or goals, their participants are often closely aligned over key issues. This makes it harder for an adversary to coerce a ‘weakest link’ into slowing down or halting the actions of the larger group.
Although NATO will continue to be the bedrock of Britain’s alliance portfolio, the UK’s strategic focus has started to shift:
Within NATO, Britain has built deeper ties in Eastern and Northern Europe. Relations with Western European allies remain strong and are a fundamental part of UK strategic thinking, but its interests are now more closely aligned with those along NATO’s eastern and northern flanks which take the threat of Russian aggression far more seriously than Western Europe.
Beyond NATO, Britain has built new or refreshed ties in the Indo-Pacific. Japan and Australia are now two of Britain’s closest partners and the UK is further enmeshing itself within the patchwork of regional minilaterals to bolster the free and open order in the Indo-Pacific. Indeed, His Majesty’s (HM) Government has been at the forefront of efforts to draw together the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific into a single, integrated geostrategic space, where free and open countries work together to reinforce an international order which supports their interests.
The UK sits at the heart of a web of interweaving multilateral, minilateral, and bilateral alliances and partnerships. Since the late 1940s, it has oscillated between periods of dynamism where new alliances and partnerships have been established or refreshed, and periods of paralysis where alliances have been seen as little more than an end in themselves. It remains unclear whether the UK will employ a more dynamic approach in the years ahead, or whether it will sink into a more passive posture where alliances are seen as an objective rather than an instrument.
Recommendations for the Defence Review Team:
Appraise Britain’s alliances and strategic relationships. As the world becomes more volatile, the UK’s ability to leverage the most strategic advantage from its allies and partners will be crucial. Given the worsening geopolitical picture, this appraisal should be informed by the national interest instead of sentimentality. Which allies and partners are closest to the UK’s positions? Who offers the most support? Who will be the strongest and most determined over the next 20 years? Where can Britain not risk over dependence on allies and partners? The answers to such questions may require a different set of allies and partners than in the past.
Consider deepening bilateral relations and forming new minilaterals to further the national interest. AUKUS and GCAP are two examples of recent minilaterals which will help boost, simultaneously, Britain’s economic prospects and its military capabilities. HM Government should explore where minilaterals can serve or reinforce additional British geoeconomic and/or geopolitical interests. Britain has a broad range of global interests and faces limits on its power (as all countries do). For example, in the Arctic, Middle East, Africa, the Mediterranean and, the Caribbean, and across the Indo-Pacific, the UK has interests which could potentially be better served by economic, military, or diplomatic minilaterals.
Establish a more unified government approach to alliance management and alliance oversight to help exploit Britain’s growing network of alliances and strategic relationships: Often these relations cut across domains which are the remit of different parts of HM Government such as the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), the Ministry of Defence, the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, and others. One body with central oversight and evaluation of the UK’s existing network of allies and partners, with a secondary role of considering new ones, could provide real value.
William Freer is a Research Fellow in National Security at the Council on Geostrategy, where he works on strategic advantage and maritime affairs.
To stay up to date with Britain’s World, please subscribe or pledge your support!
What do you think about this Open Briefing? Why not leave a comment below?