Less than a month into President Trump’s new administration and the change to international norms is astounding. Well-established practices on tariffs have been upended, alterations to national boundaries called for, alliances challenged, and aid spending thrown to the wind. This is only the beginning for a president determined to rewrite the rule book. His shakeup comes on top of the systematic efforts by China and Russia to reimagine the world order. ‘Right now there are changes – the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years – and we are the ones driving these changes together,’ said President Xi to President Putin as far back as 2023.
We are, in short, seeing the biggest strategic reorganisation of the international order since the second world war. It is increasingly a dangerous time too, with more than 110 conflicts going on around the world and the looming threat of war over Taiwan. It is, however, unclear if the British government recognises the full scale or consequences of this change.
Years of cutbacks, coupled with military support for Ukraine, has left the Armed Forces hollowed out
The fate of the Chagos Islands is a case in point. The UK controls this asset which sits at the heart of the world’s most important trade routes. The islands are a strategic prize that China or Russia would love to have – and yet the government is trying to pay to give them away. It is a decision which draws directly from thinking embedded in the liberal, globalised world of the 1990s and 2000s, when North London lawyers were able to promote their progressive views as ‘universalist’ values.
This liberal world order is clearly on its way out. What replaces it is currently being decided upon, and as is always the case with change, there will be winners and losers. Countries that recognise these new threats and deal with them will protect themselves. Those that seize the opportunities thrown up will secure advantages for their people for generations to come.
Making the most of this change requires the British government to have a joined-up, strategic approach. Unfortunately, what we have instead is a mishmash of policies that strategically compromise each other. This muddled thinking is failing to prepare the country for the emerging reality.
Take the policy on China. The previous Conservative government identified it as the ‘biggest state-based threat to the United Kingdom’s economic security’. The fundamentals that led to this announcement have not changed. Beijing has not altered its position as the main disruptor of the liberal world order that the UK has so benefitted from. In fact, China is pushing even harder with its agenda, setting up new programmes like the Global Security Initiative that are clearly aimed at creating a more Sino-centric (rather than Western-centric) international order. What’s more, the US under Trump is promising to go after China even harder than before, most likely forcing countries to take sides. This is exactly what they have done to Panama, forcing it to quit China’s Belt and Road initiative after strenuous political pressure.
And yet the current Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has actively sought investment from China. Not only does this undermine our relationship with the US, but it also opens the door for more Chinese economic influence over the UK – which cannot be a good thing.
But it isn’t just the threat from China that requires a more cohesive strategic approach. Many would argue that we also need better energy security. Labour’s vaunted GB Energy company is designed explicitly to help with this. But, as Kemi Badenoch said last week, the government won’t stand up to ‘eco nutters’ to make optimal use of the billions of barrels of oil and gas left in the North Sea which could meet the country’s requirements for years to come.
In the nuclear sector, one of our leading companies, Rolls Royce, has developed a new type of reactor that could not only revolutionise our energy supply at home, but lead to hundreds of billions of pounds worth of British exports. Yet Treasury red tape has delayed the approval process for these small modular reactors (SMRs), forcing Rolls Royce to move abroad for its first developments. This has given time for foreign SMR companies to position themselves more strongly when bidding for contracts in Britain. If these foreign businesses are successful, this would damage one of our most strategically important companies and make us further dependent on foreign suppliers.
We also need better food security. This makes eminent sense when the geopolitical situation continues to crash; trying to starve the UK in the event of war is a tried and tested approach by our enemies. And yet the current government is arguing that we now need a 9 per cent reduction in farmland, risking national food production, to meet our climate targets.
Above all, we need a stronger military defence. Russia is already targeting the UK with cyber and other greyzone attacks, and Nato has stated that we need to be ready to defend the alliance. But years of cutbacks, coupled with military support for Ukraine, has left the Armed Forces hollowed out. The Defence Secretary John Healey has admitted that we are not ready to fight a major war.
Yet even as Sir Keir Starmer calls on our European allies to shoulder more of the defence burden in the face of Russian aggression, the government won’t commit to a timeline for increasing defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP. It claims straightened financial circumstances, but at the same time is willing to spend almost £65 billion on disability and incapacity benefit (compared to £54 billion on defence). How the Treasury will deal with Trump’s demand that Nato members agree to a target of 5 per cent defence spending is unclear.
The strategic situation is not, however, all bad. There are those in government who are trying to move in the right direction. Revising the planning rules to ease the building of small modular reactors will, according to Rolls Royce, ‘pave the way for the UK to re-establish itself as a global leader in nuclear’. The new announcement on ‘turbocharging’ artificial intelligence recognises the importance of the UK dominating this fundamental technology of the future, even if the money to pay for this is not yet apparent. And the new China audit being run by the Foreign Office, due to be published in the coming months, should lead to a more joined-up approach in dealing with Beijing.
There is, though, a lot more that needs to be done to make sure the country is embracing the international paradigm shift. The most important step for the government to take is a mental one. Ministers and civil servants alike have to recognise that the liberal order of old cannot be the north star for policy making anymore. The world will look very different in five years, let alone fifty, and being a leader of this change rather than being wholly subservient to it is absolutely in the best long-term interests of the nation.
The political establishment may not like it, but the primacy of national interest is back. It is time to put Britain first, both conceptually and in practice. Because if the government doesn’t, then no one will.
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