Trump, Ukraine and Russia: What would Ernest Bevin do?
The Memorandum | No. 05.2025
The peace gambit made by Donald Trump, President of the United States (US), over Ukraine, together with the remarks of Peter Hegseth, Defence Secretary of the US, may represent a historic turning point for European security and a major challenge for British foreign policy. The new administration appears to be seeking a land-for-peace deal in Ukraine, potentially excluding Ukraine, the United Kingdom (UK), and European Union (EU) countries, from the table. In particular, the US has ruled out North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) membership for Ukraine, ruled out Article 5 protection for any NATO troops involved in securing a future peace deal, and ruled out its own participation. This means any British military participation in stabilising a post-conflict Ukraine will be carried out at increased geostrategic risk.
Equally, the US has signalled it no longer sees European security as paramount and that European states themselves must shoulder the burden. This confronts the UK with a strategic choice over its future role in relation to the defence of Europe. Indeed, Washington has made an explicit demand on European states to spend 5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence. The UK is currently committed only to 2.5% at an unspecified date, and has adopted fiscal rules that make this impossible to achieve; several EU states likewise have preventive fiscal constraints.
Whether right or wrong, few can say that this moment has not been coming. Back in 2011, Robert Gates, then US Defence Secretary, warned of a potential post-Atlanticist turn in American foreign policy:
…if current trends in the decline of European defense capabilities are not halted and reversed, future US political leaders – those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me – may not consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost.
Europeans, Britain included, have continued to hold their military spending down, however, even as the threat from Russia grew direct and acute. They continued to free-ride on American goodwill. That goodwill has come to an end; America has other priorities. The threat posed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to American interests in the Pacific and beyond is so great that even the world’s superpower needs to focus its efforts.
This leaves the UK with a generational dilemma. For starters, Britain’s commitment to Ukraine’s victory has been strong: it has had robust bipartisan support since Russia’s full-scale invasion of February 2022. The UK has sunk £12.8 billion into arming, training and supporting Ukraine and is engaged in active defence cooperation at the level of both state and civil society. Britain has, in short, invested significant political, military, financial and moral capital in defence of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. In keeping with this approach, the Labour government encouraged the US to allow Ukraine to undertake deep strikes into Russian territory during Autumn 2024, and signed a 100-year partnership agreement with Kyiv in January 2025. Consequently, beyond Ukraine, Russia sees the UK as its principal rival – even enemy – in Europe.
More generally, the UK has continued to see the Euro-Atlantic as central to its geostrategic efforts. Even during the phase of ‘Global Britain’, His Majesty’s (HM) Government made it clear that ‘the Euro-Atlantic region will remain critical to the UK’s security and prosperity.’ To reinforce this, the new Labour government has made ‘NATO First’ its watchword in alliance building, where – notwithstanding its commitment to AUKUS and other measures to enhance the British presence in the Indo-Pacific – it has refocused British attention on Europe. In October 2024, Britain signed the Trinity House Agreement with Germany, and is preparing a new defence treaty with Poland. An update to be Lancaster House treaties with France is also planned, as well as a comprehensive security agreement with the EU.
Thus, Trump’s decision to begin negotiations with Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, over Ukraine upturns not just years but decades of established British policy.
Thus, Trump’s decision to begin negotiations with Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, over Ukraine upturns not just years but decades of established British policy. Though there are still a wide range of geopolitical outcomes, in the worst case scenario, Trump may attempt to negotiate with Putin over the heads of Ukraine, Britain and the key European powers, while withdrawing support for Ukraine’s resistance, in order to compel Kyiv into accepting the American line. He may then threaten to reduce the American military commitment to Europe to force London, Warsaw, Berlin and Paris into accepting the new reality. Under these circumstances, it may be impossible for Britain to agree with, publicly align with, or even legally endorse, the actions of the new administration in Washington.
But all is not lost. For one, the US will remain Britain’s most powerful and important ally and the Americans are right to rebuke European countries for their inadequate levels of defence spending. For another, the UK was in a similar situation immediately after the Second World War. Back then, the US was at the height of its power: it was not clear whether the Americans would remain committed to European security, or whether they would withdraw and shelter under the atomic bomb, over which they held a monopoly.
Ernest Bevin was Foreign Secretary at this time. His geopolitical nuance helped him to become the most successful foreign secretary of the 20th century, if not all time. This is because he found a solution to Britain’s enduring European quandary: how to smother geopolitical competition on the European continent for good, without creating a financial burden so great it would cripple the British economy.
With the world wars, it was clear that Britain’s established approach to maintaining order in Europe – ‘offshore balancing’ – no longer worked. The new industrial giants, namely Germany and Russia, could overrun much of the continent before Britain had a chance to mobilise a countervailing coalition to stop them.
To prevent another major European war, Bevin realised that the UK would have to embrace a permanent continental commitment to deter Soviet aggression and deactivate a future German push for hegemony. This task would be cheaper if American power could be harnessed, but Britain would need to lead. First, Bevin pressed the Cabinet to develop a British atomic bomb, without which neither the Americans (nor Soviets) would take the UK seriously. He understood the vast cost of such a programme, but he also knew that it was a necessity for Britain to remain a serious power.
Next, he set about creating a new security architecture to harness American strength by organising Western Europe into a new defensive posture. He began by issuing France with a defence guarantee in 1947, before offering the same to the Low Countries in 1948. This resulted in the Brussels pact, or Western Union, which was central to proving to the US that Europeans were serious about providing for their own defence. It worked. The Americans agreed to establish NATO the following year, into which the Western Union was subsumed.
So how would Bevin handle Trump, Russia and Ukraine? To begin with, he would use Britain’s weight to provide forceful geopolitical leadership.
So how would Bevin handle Trump, Russia and Ukraine? To begin with, he would use Britain’s weight to provide forceful geopolitical leadership. The UK and its major continental allies cannot simply rely on America to solve European problems. They need to state clearly to their populations the gravity of the situation; persuade electorates that have enjoyed strategic US protection since 1945 that they now have to provide such protection for themselves; and face down any domestic pro-Russia lobbies which seek to disorganise European security – a task that Bevin himself carried out with gusto from the mid-1930s to the 1950s.
Next, Bevin would focus on building up national power. Just as he pushed for a British atomic bomb, in today’s context, Bevin would almost certainly press for significant increases in defence spending to generate the armed forces the UK needs to shape American preferences, deter Britain’s enemies, and generate a new European coalition to multiply British power (and simultaneously to dissuade European allies from embarking on defence initiatives over which the UK has no control).
In the current context, the UK needs to plug the gaps which will be left by a partial American withdrawal. This means Britain needs to strengthen the cobwebs of deterrence.
In the current context, the UK needs to plug the gaps which will be left by a partial American withdrawal. This means Britain needs to strengthen the cobwebs of deterrence. First, it needs to provide the heavy naval forces to dominate the North Atlantic and the maritime flanks of Europe, preventing the Russian Navy – still largely intact – from becoming more confident and assertive. Second, the UK needs to reinforce key allies and partners on NATO’s eastern front to the extent that Russia is under no illusion that if it attacks, Britain – a nuclear power – will be unable to disengage. Third, the UK may need to consider an independent theatre-level nuclear system, withdrawn in 1998, so it has options other than a full strategic response in case of Russian miscalculation.
Finally, Bevin would realign European structures – ruthlesslessly, if necessary. He would not see the EU – with Hungary, Cyprus, Ireland and others – as the panacea, though he would support Ukrainian membership of the bloc. Instead, he would almost certainly push for the UK to strengthen its role in NATO as the US reduces its own, but he would also create a new vanguard of like-minded states to assist, as he did with the Western Union. This vanguard would shore up NATO and provide security guarantees to Ukraine.
Just as he understood the significance of the Low Countries, Bevin would recognise Ukraine’s centrality to the new Euro-Atlantic order. Given the nature of the Russian threat, undergirding NATO is not enough to uphold a durable peace. As an imperialist and deeply dissatisfied power, Russia seeks to exploit every crack and crevice it can. Even if Russia agrees to a ceasefire in Ukraine, it will almost certainly resume its aggressive thrust into the country in the future. This must be deterred.
Backed by a surge in defence investment, there is no reason that the UK and its European NATO allies cannot provide Ukraine with security guarantees: even by itself the British economy is almost 1.7 times larger than Russia’s, a gulf which is only projected to increase. Although the UK has far fewer nuclear warheads than Russia, it has a guaranteed second-strike delivery system, and more than enough to level every major Russian population centre. European NATO allies can provide tens of thousands of troops, as well as modern armour and artillery, backed up with modern air forces. Given that Russia has failed to defeat Ukraine, would it really risk a major war with Britain, France, Poland and anyone else willing to join the coalition?
If the UK has lacked anything, it is political will. Here Bevin would not hesitate to provide intellectual leadership. Forceful rhetorical interventions by the British, French and Polish political leaders, supported by concrete military measures, should make the Russians think twice. They already fear Britain; they may sometimes overestimate British power, but it is clear the Kremlin takes the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ seriously.
The turning point of February 2025 has been long in coming. Its components are the economic rise of the PRC, its rapid militarisation and its stated goal of becoming a genuine superpower by 2049; the adoption of reckless ethno-nationalist goals by the Putin regime; the emergence of the CRINK and mid-ranking economies seeking to gain advantage from the rise of multipolarity; the failure of the EU to achieve strategic autonomy, and the post-2008 stagnation of much of the large European economies. Nevertheless, the strategic shift of US focus from Europe to the Pacific must rank as a shock similar to the events of 1933-1935.
With a neo-Bevinite approach, the UK, trusted by the US, could establish itself as the undisputed leader of a new European bloc. Just as Bevin and his generation had to confront a systemic challenge, today Britain’s leaders have the opportunity to tie down numerous loose ends. With a large parliamentary majority, Sir Keir Starmer’s government has the capacity to lead. Bevin prevailed not only because he organised and led an effective coalition of democratic states, but because he took the British people with him. That is the challenge British politicians now face.
Paul Mason is an Associate Fellow in Defence and Resilience at the Council on Geostrategy, and a journalist, author and political researcher.
James Rogers is Co-founder (Research) at the Council on Geostrategy.
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Only the military institutions of the Western Union (the Western Union Defence Organisation) were absorbed by NATO. The WU itself was rebranded as the Western European Union (WEU) in 1954 under the Modified Treaty of Brussels and it lasted until 2011.
Excellent article.