With stagnant economic growth, the worsening geopolitical environment and the potential for a new American approach when Donald Trump, President-elect of the United States (US), returns to the White House later this month, 2025 poses many challenges and opportunities for the United Kingdom (UK). Under the current financial constraints, His Majesty’s (HM) Government should be strategic and prioritise how best to guide the country through these turbulent times. So, in this week’s Big Ask, we asked six experts: What are Britain’s fundamental interests in 2025?
Director, British Foreign Policy Group
Britain’s primary interest is in Ukraine. Ukraine’s security is critical for UK security and prosperity and with the world watching how the free and open nations – in particular the US – support Ukraine, the outcome of the war will have ramifications well beyond Europe. First and foremost then, HM Government should prioritise ongoing support for Kyiv while also planning for its longer term success and reconstruction, when the war comes to an end.
Given the difficult fiscal situation in the UK, HM Government must also focus tightly on ensuring its foreign policy drives economic growth and prosperity. This requires a focus on driving trade and investment, including through Britain’s diplomatic service, as well as championing UK expertise and soft power in everything from science and technology through to arts and sport. Given Trump’s threats to the widespread use of tariffs, this will also require careful management of London’s relationship with Washington and UK willingness to stand as a champion of free trade on the world stage, which is likely to be significantly threatened throughout 2025.
More broadly too, with Trump likely to pull America back from the world stage, and growing threats from Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), it is also in Britain’s interests to step up, where it is equipped to do so, to provide increased leadership on the world stage. With few UK allies ready to lead, failure by Britain to do so would create opportunities for the country’s strategic rivals and have significant ramifications for the global order and for UK security and prosperity.
Senior Advisor, Pacific Forum
Diplomatically, Britain has a strong presence across the Indo-Pacific, large missions in India, Japan, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and an increased footprint in Oceania.
Britain has negotiated free trade agreements (FTAs) with Japan, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia, and recently acceded to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) a regional trading group. It should to focus on finishing FTA negotiations with South Korea, which leads to possible list of priorities:
South Korea: Despite the current political crisis, Seoul remains a critical European security partner, particularly as Ukraine continues to face armament and ammunition shortages. Second, it provides trade in many of the cutting-edge technologies that are at the heart of future growth. FTA should be prioritised.
The PRC: Beijing is simultaneously a major trading partner and a strategic competitor. The likelihood of conflict between the US and the PRC over Taiwan, Beijing’s support for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, and its attacks on maritime communication lines represent several challenges to the free and open international order and to Britain’s allies and partners.
Japan: The UK’s relationship with Japan remains the lynchpin of its network of partners in the region and all efforts to deepen that relationship (in trade and defence) should be supported.
AUKUS: Last but not least, the UK should continue strengthening the AUKUS relationship in order to develop advanced technologies and expand its submarine industrial base. HM Government should also explore the possibility of turning the trilateral into a formal alliance or otherwise aiding US and Australian efforts to bolster deterrence in the region.
Assistant Professor in Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University
Palmerstonians might respond that the UK’s interests are eternal and perpetual. Indeed, security, prosperity, and values are commonly cited as the enduring national interests of modern democracies. Yet, neither statement reveals much. These interests often conflict, as demonstrated by the pursuit of a ‘Golden Era’ with the PRC by David Cameron’s government, prioritising prosperity at the expense of security and values.
The first Blair government, meanwhile, placed values at the centre of its foreign policy. Keir Starmer’s worldview remains ambiguous, but early evidence, notably over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) deal, suggests that he foregrounds international law and the UK’s reputation as an upstanding global citizen – with corresponding trade-offs for security and prosperity. In short, national interests evolve, as the act of prioritisation is inherently political.
What HM Government should prioritise must be informed by a realistic assessment of the international security environment. The humanitarian interventions of the 1990s were feasible because potential rivals were too weak to challenge the Euro-Atlantic powers. Such conditions no longer hold today. Britain’s adversaries embark on campaigns of territorial aggrandisement while brazenly deploying ‘lawfare’ to undermine the UK’s interests elsewhere. The Prime Minister’s vision of the international system is fast becoming a relic of a bygone era, as even Britain’s closest ally now flirts with expansion. To paraphrase Emmanual Macron, President of France, the UK should show some teeth – lest it find itself on the menu in a world of carnivores.
Associate Fellow, Council on Geostrategy
Britain’s fundamental problems are rising insecurity and the absence of economic growth. These are both set to be exacerbated by Trump’s mercurial approach to international relations – as shown by the current stress over the UK bond yields. So Britain’s fundamental interest remains to construct alliances that assuage these challenges.
First, it is in the UK’s interest to rearm. If the Strategic Defence Review does its job, it is hard to see how it recommends spending less than 3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence; to retain and rebuild British leadership in Europe probably demands even more. Fortunately, there is a clear economic upside to doing so: rearm and the economy will grow.
Second, it is in the country’s interest for Europe – via the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the European Union (EU) and the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) – to cohere as an international actor. Macron is right to say that Europe is either at the table of global strategic competition or on the menu.
Third, it is in the UK’s interest for domestic democratic institutions to remain strong and resilient, which includes widespread societal consent for the state to carry out its national security tasks.
Luckily, there are synergies among these three fundamental interests: a government that delivers growth can also deliver security and maintain democratic consent.
Charles Parton
Chief Advisor, China Observatory, Council on Geostrategy
History and geography ordain that the UK’s fundamental interests are focused on relations with Europe and North America. Russia forces itself into the picture, painfully so at present. But the accelerating change of the 21st century is the arrival of the ‘fourth industrial revolution’, new sciences and technologies in which Beijing is a major power. Moreover, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sees exploitation of these technologies not just as a means of gaining comparative advantage commercially and economically, but as the key to attaining its geopolitical ambitions.
So despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the uncertainties of dealing with Trump, and the need to improve relations with the EU, at or near the top of Britain’s fundamental interests in 2025 is the need to lay down a clear strategy for dealing with the long-term threat to economic and national security posed by the CCP’s geopolitical ambitions. The harvest from doing so will only emerge in the coming decade, but the seeds have to be sown now.
This is why it is worrying that HM Government appears to be delaying and downplaying its ‘China audit’ as the prelude to a clearly and publicly articulated strategy for relations with the CCP. The incoherence of the previous government (think of policy on Huawei, the shift from ‘Golden Era’ to the absence of political engagement) must be replaced by well-researched policies on how to balance engagement with Beijing against the need to put Britain’s security as the top priority, which Labour ministers say is their aim. China policy is too important to be left to HM Treasury, as it was in the past.
Peter Watkins
Former Director General for Security Policy, Ministry of Defence (2014-2018) and Visiting Professor, King’s College London
While the UK’s fundamental interests are not necessarily ‘eternal and perpetual’, as Lord Palmerston famously claimed, they do not generally change from year-to-year. The security and economic prosperity of Britain are the country’s key fundamental interests. What changes over time is the emphasis placed on the different dimensions of those interests and how they are best pursued.
The geopolitical environment is deteriorating, particularly with the emergence of the ‘CRINK’, a quasi-alliance of North Korea, Iran and – tacitly – the PRC supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine. This development raises big questions for European security and NATO. The election of Trump complicates the picture, with NATO members potentially arguing about burden-sharing and tariffs (and even apparently settled principles like the inviolability of national borders). While internal discord should not compromise NATO’s deterrence posture, there is a continuing risk of miscalculation by others – especially in the context of the intensifying ‘grey zone’ confrontation with Russia.
So HM Government should prioritise security. Its target of investing 2.5% of GDP on defence is laudable, but should go further. Spending 2.5% of GDP will not suffice to meet Britain’s obligations to NATO and other commitments, including the nuclear deterrent. Likewise, additional defence investment should not be absorbed by the medium-term modernisation of capabilities, but should – initially at least – focus on augmenting stockpiles to meet, and deter, near-term threats. HM Government should also prioritise building resilience to ‘grey zone’ attacks on critical infrastructure. As much of this infrastructure is in private hands, responsibility for its protection needs to be clarified and enforced.
In this respect, there is a crossover with the economy. The prerequisite for economic growth is stability. That may require some hard decisions in 2025. Fortunately, some measures necessary to enhance resilience and economic security also contribute to meeting climate targets, including reducing Britain’s dependency on fossil fuels. They may also nurture the development of new technologies, which could drive economic growth. Seeking a better alignment between security and economic objectives should be a policy priority for 2025 – and that is as much a matter of mind-set as money.
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