Alliances hold when allies recognise their interests align, and when common enemies present a common danger. President Trump pulled the plug on Ukraine because he judges China the strategic threat to his country, not Russia. He believes the prosperous countries of Europe are free riders who rely on American defence capabilities, while benefiting from trade surpluses achieved by holding down production costs.
Trump may be coarse, and his treatment of President Zelensky merciless, but the strategic reality is unavoidable. Just as Joe Biden sought to clear the decks by withdrawing from Afghanistan, Trump has decided Europe must fend for itself. That this has surprised anybody reflects only the hopeless naivety that still prevails in European capitals including, unfortunately, London.
The Western Alliance may yet survive, if Europe takes its own security seriously, realises it too faces a grave threat from China, and accepts global trade must change – and if America remembers even with its enormous power it still needs allies.
But hope is not a strategy. Britain may well be on its own, and that requires hard-headed thinking and a ruthless focus on our national interest. Unfortunately, neither has been in evidence so far as the Government – having refused to increase defence spending while increasing overall spending eight times more than it promised – rushes towards a new defence policy.
The PM says he is prepared to send British troops to guarantee Ukrainian independence once the war is over. He took that position unsure of American support of any kind, and without securing the same commitment from Germany and Poland, who straightforwardly refused, and Italy, Norway and Spain, who remained silent. European countries aligned to Russia, like Hungary and Slovakia, will obviously not participate.
“Peacekeeping” sounds sterile, but it requires British soldiers to fight Russians if they attack. Keir Starmer’s policy would be a commitment beyond Nato borders, yet he has no idea what we would do – with allies or alone – in the event of Russian aggression, and the Army lacks the resources to deploy in the numbers required.
Targeting limited resources on the European eastern border is anyway unwise without broader consideration of military strategy and national security. It is not obvious that we should build up our Army so we can lead in the deployment of troops in Ukraine.
Given our geography, naval and air power are more important. Investment in tech and military hardware – not just tanks, jets and ships but artificial intelligence, drones and missile capabilities – matter as much as manpower. We may need to make our nuclear deterrent independent of America.
Russia is not the primary threat to Britain, and it is not clear that conventional warfare is the greatest threat it poses. MI5 has warned about arson, sabotage, cyber-attacks, and the use of criminals to spy on us and undermine our infrastructure. With net zero policies making us increasingly dependent on electricity imports, the interconnectors that supply us are vulnerable to Russian attack. An interconnector between Estonia and Finland was destroyed by Russia, according to reports, at Christmas.
Europe pretends otherwise but China is the greatest external challenge to the democracies. It has played the West by abusing trading rules to destroy our productive capacity, and aims to make us dependent not only on its finance but newer technologies, often developed with stolen intellectual property, heavily subsidised, powered by dirty energy sources, and sometimes built by slaves. It conducts cyber attacks, undermines free speech on campus, and uses investment for geopolitical leverage. Yet ministers here want Chinese firms to build enormous wind farms in the North Sea, leaving Beijing in control of the tech that runs the turbines.
Within Europe, Islamism is the great danger. Almost weekly now an atrocity is carried out against civilians in the name of Islam. Yet policy veers between passivity and denialism. In Britain, with Islamists entering public life, and courts creating de facto blasphemy laws, the extremists are winning.
Just as there is no point focusing on Russia while ignoring these more direct threats, there is no point rearming without reindustrialising. Britain has big players like BAE Systems and Rolls Royce, and many nimbler, smaller defence firms, but we lack the industrial base that makes huge defence spending in America affordable. Higher spending on defence imports will make our existing problems – a huge trade deficit, addiction to foreign “investment”, regional inequality, budget deficits, and vast stocks of debt – far worse.
Reindustrialisation requires strategic policy: radically different energy policy, tax and regulatory reform, skills and training programmes, better infrastructure, and place-based initiatives to support key companies and domestic supply chains. It demands policies the Treasury hates: subsidies where necessary, buy-British procurement policies, restrictions on mergers and acquisitions, and the nationalisation of our surviving steel companies. If anybody doubts we can afford these things, there are many billions available in welfare cuts and the abandonment of Ed Miliband’s net zero ideology.
Not everything needs to be homegrown. If we buy more US tech and kit, we should pursue joint projects with British and American firms working together. If this is possible or not, we should still seek joint projects with other Western partners such as the Europeans, Japanese, Israelis, Canadians and Australians.
Britain must be strong enough to defend itself and contribute to collective security. But we need to be judicious in our choices. We should not carry a burden Europeans closer to the Russian border are unwilling to bear. Our security contributions should be considered amid our wider relationship with Europe. And we must avoid knee-jerk tactics, and think strategically and far ahead.
For reality has knocked and the old homilies have been shown to be absurd. There is no rules-based international order. Soft power means little versus hard power. Nothing – security least of all – comes for free. We must put our national interest first.
Alliances hold when allies recognise their interests align, and when common enemies present a common danger. President Trump pulled the plug on Ukraine because he judges China the strategic threat to his country, not Russia. He believes the prosperous countries of Europe are free riders who rely on American defence capabilities, while benefiting from trade surpluses achieved by holding down production costs.
Trump may be coarse, and his treatment of President Zelensky merciless, but the strategic reality is unavoidable. Just as Joe Biden sought to clear the decks by withdrawing from Afghanistan, Trump has decided Europe must fend for itself. That this has surprised anybody reflects only the hopeless naivety that still prevails in European capitals including, unfortunately, London.
The Western Alliance may yet survive, if Europe takes its own security seriously, realises it too faces a grave threat from China, and accepts global trade must change – and if America remembers even with its enormous power it still needs allies.
But hope is not a strategy. Britain may well be on its own, and that requires hard-headed thinking and a ruthless focus on our national interest. Unfortunately, neither has been in evidence so far as the Government – having refused to increase defence spending while increasing overall spending eight times more than it promised – rushes towards a new defence policy.
The PM says he is prepared to send British troops to guarantee Ukrainian independence once the war is over. He took that position unsure of American support of any kind, and without securing the same commitment from Germany and Poland, who straightforwardly refused, and Italy, Norway and Spain, who remained silent. European countries aligned to Russia, like Hungary and Slovakia, will obviously not participate.
“Peacekeeping” sounds sterile, but it requires British soldiers to fight Russians if they attack. Keir Starmer’s policy would be a commitment beyond Nato borders, yet he has no idea what we would do – with allies or alone – in the event of Russian aggression, and the Army lacks the resources to deploy in the numbers required.
Targeting limited resources on the European eastern border is anyway unwise without broader consideration of military strategy and national security. It is not obvious that we should build up our Army so we can lead in the deployment of troops in Ukraine.
Given our geography, naval and air power are more important. Investment in tech and military hardware – not just tanks, jets and ships but artificial intelligence, drones and missile capabilities – matter as much as manpower. We may need to make our nuclear deterrent independent of America.
Russia is not the primary threat to Britain, and it is not clear that conventional warfare is the greatest threat it poses. MI5 has warned about arson, sabotage, cyber-attacks, and the use of criminals to spy on us and undermine our infrastructure. With net zero policies making us increasingly dependent on electricity imports, the interconnectors that supply us are vulnerable to Russian attack. An interconnector between Estonia and Finland was destroyed by Russia, according to reports, at Christmas.
Europe pretends otherwise but China is the greatest external challenge to the democracies. It has played the West by abusing trading rules to destroy our productive capacity, and aims to make us dependent not only on its finance but newer technologies, often developed with stolen intellectual property, heavily subsidised, powered by dirty energy sources, and sometimes built by slaves. It conducts cyber attacks, undermines free speech on campus, and uses investment for geopolitical leverage. Yet ministers here want Chinese firms to build enormous wind farms in the North Sea, leaving Beijing in control of the tech that runs the turbines.
Within Europe, Islamism is the great danger. Almost weekly now an atrocity is carried out against civilians in the name of Islam. Yet policy veers between passivity and denialism. In Britain, with Islamists entering public life, and courts creating de facto blasphemy laws, the extremists are winning.
Just as there is no point focusing on Russia while ignoring these more direct threats, there is no point rearming without reindustrialising. Britain has big players like BAE Systems and Rolls Royce, and many nimbler, smaller defence firms, but we lack the industrial base that makes huge defence spending in America affordable. Higher spending on defence imports will make our existing problems – a huge trade deficit, addiction to foreign “investment”, regional inequality, budget deficits, and vast stocks of debt – far worse.
Reindustrialisation requires strategic policy: radically different energy policy, tax and regulatory reform, skills and training programmes, better infrastructure, and place-based initiatives to support key companies and domestic supply chains. It demands policies the Treasury hates: subsidies where necessary, buy-British procurement policies, restrictions on mergers and acquisitions, and the nationalisation of our surviving steel companies. If anybody doubts we can afford these things, there are many billions available in welfare cuts and the abandonment of Ed Miliband’s net zero ideology.
Not everything needs to be homegrown. If we buy more US tech and kit, we should pursue joint projects with British and American firms working together. If this is possible or not, we should still seek joint projects with other Western partners such as the Europeans, Japanese, Israelis, Canadians and Australians.
Britain must be strong enough to defend itself and contribute to collective security. But we need to be judicious in our choices. We should not carry a burden Europeans closer to the Russian border are unwilling to bear. Our security contributions should be considered amid our wider relationship with Europe. And we must avoid knee-jerk tactics, and think strategically and far ahead.
For reality has knocked and the old homilies have been shown to be absurd. There is no rules-based international order. Soft power means little versus hard power. Nothing – security least of all – comes for free. We must put our national interest first.