Britain must not tilt back to Europe from Asia

The UK's long-term interests demand deeper Indo-Pacific engagement

Here’s my latest op-ed for Nikkei Asia:

Britain must not tilt back to Europe from Asia

Slapping tariffs on friends and foes, pulling out of international organizations and agreements, and bullying allies. Nothing that U.S. President Donald Trump has done in his first weeks back in power should have surprised anyone. He has been saying he would do all this, and more, ever since he emerged as the Republican Party presidential candidate in 2016.

And yet, in London, there is a palpable sense of panic reverberating through government offices, parliament and the broader foreign policy community. Having failed properly to plan for the possibility of Trump 2.0, there is now a growing risk of a knee-jerk shift away from Asia, as calls grow for the U.K. to refocus its diplomatic and security efforts back on Europe.

Although it must adjust its tactics, the British government cannot afford to let the discombobulation of Trump's return to the White House define its long-term strategic planning. And it must reject the call of some Trump-supporting analysts and officials for a "division of labor" on global problems, with Europe tackling Russia and the U.S. taking on China.

China represents a long-term challenge to the U.K.'s national interests across many more domains than an economically challenged and regionally centered, if highly disruptive, Russia. And the growing links between security threats in Asia and Europe, highlighted most obviously by the expanding Russia-China partnership and North Korean troops fighting against Ukraine, highlight the need for a comprehensive British posture rather than one overwhelmingly focused on our near abroad.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer wants to show both Washington and Moscow that the U.K. is standing up on European defense and can take the lead on coordination with other regional allies.

That is a commendable, if long overdue, objective. However, it would be a mistake to let British foreign policy be driven by the inter-connected challenges of managing a transactional, unilateral U.S. administration and deterring Russia.

The U.K. government needs to recognize that British global interests and U.S. global interests are starting to diverge, even if there was significant overlap until recently. The U.K. must handle Trump carefully from a diplomatic perspective, even as it prepares for an era in which it can rely much less on a confluence of interests with and support from Washington.

Before they came to power in July, senior Labour politicians such as David Lammy, now foreign secretary, and John Healey, now defense secretary, cast doubt on the previous Conservative government's "tilt" to the Indo-Pacific, suggesting it was a quixotic distraction from the need to rebuild ties with Europe after Brexit.

In office, by contrast, they have broadly continued the last government's efforts to build security and economic relationships with key partners such as India, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN members.

But, like their predecessors, they have failed to make a convincing, strategic case for why the U.K. needs to invest more resources in the Indo-Pacific. And, like the Conservatives, they have failed so far to set out an approach to China that explains how the U.K. will practically manage the standard dictum about cooperating and competing with Beijing at the same time.

With this lack of strategic clarity and the renewed push to address the real and present threat from Russia, there is a risk that the British government pulls political attention and resources away from the Indo-Pacific to deal with Moscow and assuage Trump.

In fact, it is already happening. Starmer's short-sighted decision to slash the international aid budget by 40%, to pay for an increase in defense spending, will curb the U.K.'s ability to build partnerships in the Indo-Pacific. The cut also undermines the argument that the U.K. is a dependable, constructive development partner, fueling Beijing's narrative that the U.S. and its major allies are not only unreliable but deeply hypocritical in their criticism of China's growing global role.

As one of Europe's two preeminent military powers, the U.K. will have to play a greater role in ensuring peace on our continent. But the future of the world and the multilateral systems we rely on will be shaped far more by what happens in the Indo-Pacific.

For good or ill, the major rising powers, China and India, will have a huge influence on the nature of the global order and the global economy. Other large emerging Indo-Pacific nations such as Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines will also shape the emerging rules of trade, and our approaches to climate change and AI. The influence of these rising powers will be global, not just bilateral, felt in Europe as much as they are in Asia.

The immediate challenge for the U.K. is to ensure that the announced increase in the defense budget, rising from 2.3% of GDP to 2.5% by 2027, is spent effectively. But there is a much broader battle coming to remake the global order.

Beyond pumping money into the military, the U.K. needs to carve out a more impactful role as a networked and strategic middle power that can be an influential, if not singularly decisive, player in the new global power game. The outcome of this competition for influence and power will be determined in Asia far more than in Europe.

It is foolish to make major strategic decisions based on the latest social media posts, speeches or rants by Trump or Vice President JD Vance. But the U.K. must adapt to the long-term shift to a more contested and transactional world, a trend on which Trump is seeking to capitalize, even though he is not driving it. That will require a smart, integrated and engaged approach in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.