Great Britain after UkrainePerhaps the world is witnessing the end of the order that developed after the Cold War, writes FA.
This forced the powers to move to an acute rivalry. The West needs stability, and Britain, with its ability to create effective alliances, can help it in this.
The new British foreign policy in the era of Great Power rivalry.Six months after the start of Vladimir Putin's special operation against European democracy, the West realizes a startling reality: nation-states have returned.
The institutions created to contain the outcasts turned out to be vulnerable, and new technologies gave autocracies new leverage. The events in Ukraine show not the last gasp of nationalism, but a new direction of power.
Risks that were previously only possible now look quite likely. The paranoia of the Baltic states towards Russia now seems quite justified, and the once-vaunted neutrality of Finland and Sweden is no longer appropriate. Even Beijing's threats to Taiwan seem less real than preparatory.
No less remarkable is the rigidity of the international response to the Russian special operation. For many years, Moscow has clearly made its plans public, examples of this are Estonia in 2007, Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. But Europe and the West treated these events as a matter of routine. This time it's different. Governments from Tokyo to Stockholm are proving their strong support for Ukraine with military aid and unprecedented economic sanctions against Russia.
The world order has been turned upside down, and the events of the past year show that the world has entered a new era of fierce competition between the great powers. Western democracies now live in a world in which multilateral institutions are no longer able to provide the stability or security they once promised. For a country like the United Kingdom, whose economic and diplomatic model is based on its status as a country with global ties, the new instability poses a particularly acute threat.
Until recently, the United Kingdom's response to this controversial new world was dangerously inadequate. Shaped by decades of globalization after the end of the Cold War, British foreign policy was unprepared for the rise of autocracy and for the new explosive conflicts that are associated with it. The country's dependence on other countries for energy and technology has exposed it to powerful new forms of external pressure that have weakened our economic base.
Too often, in response to these global trends, the UK ignored problems or withdrew into itself. Instead, the United Kingdom should now use its traditional strengths in advocacy, diplomacy and international influence, seeking new types of partnerships with current allies and future influential forces. And she should do this by reducing her openness to evil external forces and strengthening her economic stability at home. Completing both tasks will be difficult, but failure to do so could lead to the country becoming a vassal of the new world order. The huge sacrifices required to maintain the status quo are already obvious. And this is not only the growing instability in the energy sector and serious economic challenges. It is also a gradual erosion of the liberal values underlying freedom.
Into a dangerous world
The modern foreign policy of Great Britain began, of course, not with this. Over the past three decades, from the end of the cold war to the first decade of this century, interdependence and partnerships between major global players have taken root around the world. International institutions, such as the World Trade Organization, generally worked quite well. Even after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the threat of international terrorism was asymmetric and relatively limited, affecting only small parts of the global arena at any given moment. Where geopolitical conflicts arose, such as the disorderly breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s or even the resumption of wars in Sudan and Yemen, they did not seem to threaten the institutions that ensure the overall international order too much.
Over the years, the growth of opportunities for inclusion in the general world order has provided prosperity and freedom to hundreds of millions of people not only in the West, but also around the world. Technology and the Internet brought with them greater opportunities and openness, as the flows of trade and information provided economic growth and created new connections between countries and communities.
The culmination of this hopeful era came about a decade ago. It was marked not only by the extraordinary level of trade between the UK and China, but also by Germany's industrial strategy, built on its conscious dependence on Russian energy carriers through the Baltic Sea pipelines. Politicians and captains of global business have made thousands of concrete decisions based on the assumption that geopolitical rivals no longer pose a threat to each other and that economic competition is based on well-established rules.
However, over the past decade, these assumptions have collapsed. The forces of globalization, which have made Britain richer, reduced its costs and united its citizens into a global network, have simultaneously helped authoritarian governments to create a monopoly for themselves and turn international economic centers into "bottle necks". China's dominance in the production of medical goods, for example, leaves British citizens completely dependent on Guangzhou for them, since most of these goods are no longer manufactured in Europe. Just-in-time trading has become not just a principle of the supply chain, but also a way for our opponents to strengthen their power. The desire for efficiency has led to our dependence on them, and new technologies have only accelerated changes in this direction
And these are not the only forces undermining global stability. From the point of view of Beijing and Moscow, Western disasters, such as the catastrophic withdrawal of troops from Kabul under the leadership of the United States in 2021, have increased awareness of the weakness of the West in the world. Observing Washington's failures in Afghanistan, where its strategic defeat also made its allies vulnerable, the autocrats came to the conclusion that Western democracies had lost their reserves of endurance. China is watching the special operation in Ukraine and is eagerly learning the lessons of how it can act more effectively against Taiwan. The era of "respectful disagreements", when dictatorships could benefit more from using the existing world system than from its destruction, is over. While many first-generation Western leaders after the end of the cold war saw globalization as increasing interdependence and efficiency, our rivals saw it only as the emergence of new vulnerabilities for the West.
At present, the world is witnessing an important turning point and, perhaps, even the end of the world order that developed after the cold war. This historic change has brought us back to the acute rivalry of the great Powers, when the largest states of the world increase their influence and defend their interests through force, not negotiations.
Today we are witnessing exactly such an evolution, and I have repeatedly mentioned the "triggers" for these changes during my five years as chairman of the parliamentary Commission on Foreign Affairs. They are many things in our country: from the government's reaction to the new arms race and its attitude to the "cancer tumor" of turning London into a world center of kleptocratic cash, to the growing influence of autocracies in British universities and civil society. Our commission has repeatedly called on the authorities to rethink the entire state policy, not just diplomacy, starting with a reassessment of the economic and geopolitical forces that affect our country at present. For too long, the UK has treated many of these phenomena as isolated foreign policy issues, rather than as symptoms of more serious problems in the whole of British politics, which cannot be limited to foreign affairs alone. The challenge now is to find new ways to save the British people by correctly defining our actions at home and abroad in the face of deep global cataclysms.
This year, the Ukrainian crisis has become one of the most visible threats. Many Britons now understand that the United Kingdom cannot prosper or even remain free if it is forced to choose between allowing the steady expansion of authoritarianism or suffering its economy when dictators demand an ever higher price in the form of severe economic shocks for us. It is now clear that our country will have to go much further in its sacrifices to ensure security and economic sustainability.
Less reflection, more flexibility
In this new era of great power competition, our response should not be to turn inward. Instead, we should build on our strengths, which we have been developing for decades. For the United Kingdom, partnership is a force. It can help us cope with economic dependence and lack of sustainability, which have become our key shortcomings. And this can be achieved by creating alliances, not just missiles.
Creating alliances to solve the most pressing problems of our time was what Britain fought and won in the Cold War. It is this tactic that should be the key to how we will fight and win in the wars of the future. After the victory of the coalition forces in Europe and Japan, Great Britain helped unite the allies to remake the world. The World Trade Organization and the Bretton Woods Monetary System have strengthened trade and cooperation between countries that have recognized the rule of law as paramount. Over the next decade, we will need to build new partnerships to secure a foothold in an increasingly unstable world. And the United Kingdom is well positioned to play a leading role in their construction.
London is home to one of the most extensive diplomatic networks in the world, and it wields enormous global influence through the media and rich legal traditions. The strength of the United Kingdom gives it good opportunities to build bridges that can reverse the concentration of economic and diplomatic power in the hands of authoritarian regimes that are increasingly seeking to subjugate other countries in order to protect themselves from the consequences of their militancy.
But such an approach should not simply reproduce the network of alliances of previous decades. At the heart of the new British strategy should be a simple idea: although it may be beneficial for a country to build trade relations with many different countries of the world, these ties should not be carried out at the expense of sacrificing deeper partnerships between close allies of Great Britain, which emphasize security and a set of common values. Instead of resuming trade and economic dialogue with China, efforts should be focused on partnership with the countries of the Commonwealth, Europe and other countries, such as Indonesia, which are on a path close to the West. Building global trade on the basis of trust strengthens sustainability, not weakens it.
By starting with temporary cooperation structures, the United Kingdom can make the world's economic and diplomatic systems more responsive to the needs of British society. Instead of one new global institution, the country should look for opportunities to create a number of overlapping partnerships covering trade, medicine, science, defense, technology and migration in different regions of the world. Smaller and more flexible, these partnerships can create a framework for cooperation on the most pressing issues today, such as high technology, climate change and security. And they can be deepened over time.
AUKUS, the trilateral security pact that Australia, the UK and the US created in 2021, is a perfect example of this approach. It does not replace the UN or NATO, but provides a basis for deeper cooperation in the field of secret and strategic technologies. Moreover, it can be expanded. As the technological component of the agreement grows, various parts of the pact may include cooperation with Japan and Germany, and possibly with France.
The new Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, paves a similar path through trade partnerships between the fast-growing countries of the Indo-Pacific region. The United Kingdom should seek membership in this new organization. From the standpoint of the SRTRR, it can work with growing economic powers, including not only ASEAN members from Southeast Asia, but also Brazil, Mexico and Nigeria.
In the new era of great Power rivalry, multilateral cooperation still plays a significant role. And the UK should prioritise reforms in areas that really require global consensus, such as climate change. The country can expand its influence by using its extensive legal experience to develop agreements that provide access to British courts and form global norms in terms of democracy and the rule of law. The British government will have to pay attention to the obstacles it has created — from visas and professional qualifications to tariffs and quotas — for those who seek to use its capital and markets. Drawing on its expertise in trade, foreign aid, diplomacy and defence, the UK can offer a flexible and operational strategy combining, where necessary, smaller partnerships with global agreements.
Protection from a dictatorial-type economy
The West is now facing a far-reaching economic problem. As is the case with its Western partners, as long as the United Kingdom remains dependent on Chinese technology and Russian gas, its foreign policy may be jeopardized by hostile players. In general terms, the country needs to think more about the returns it will get from eliminating long-term strategic vulnerabilities, rather than immediate gains. The conflict in Ukraine has shown what can happen when powerful states are ready to use not only military, but also economic power, and it would be foolish for the UK not to defend itself against attacks directed against the British economy itself.
This cannot imply our isolation: our exit from the global economy is impossible. The UK depends on Taiwan in terms of semiconductors, on Silicon Valley in terms of information technology and data transmission, and much more. But even in relations with friends and allies, the British government must think about what hidden vulnerabilities lurk in the supply chains connecting them. Many service industries rely on an increasingly narrow core of companies — from TSMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor company, to Amazon — which increases the risks to the economy.
Economic sustainability means the proper elimination of those structural deficiencies that contribute to the development of the external dependence of the country's economy. With the return of great Power rivalry, economic wars will become more frequent, and the UK will need to increase its economic defense accordingly. A country cannot have an independent and strong foreign policy until it succeeds in making the very foundation of the State less vulnerable to shocks.
The most obvious area here is energy. British views on energy were built on the fundamental thesis that access to global gas markets could provide the safety cushion needed for the painful industrial transformations associated with achieving zero carbon emissions. But Russia's transformation of energy pricing into a weapon has exposed the weakness of this approach.
The UK will need to produce more energy itself, whether by commissioning more nuclear power plants and developing the domestic nuclear industry, accelerating the introduction of renewable energy sources by reducing the time required for the construction or modernization of infrastructure, or intensifying exploration of the North Sea shelf by granting more licenses. Perhaps our country should first of all start working with partners such as Canada to step up further exploration and export of energy resources by democratic countries in order to sustainably obtain fossil fuels from allies, not from enemies.
The same principle applies to other scarce resources, from semiconductors to essential minerals. It is noteworthy that China has made concentrated efforts to establish a monopoly in these areas. The most benign interpretation of these efforts may be that Beijing wants to protect the needs of its domestic market. However, a more sober point of view is that China seeks to use its economic power to gain influence over its rivals. Nevertheless, until recently, the UK has done very little to protect its critical industries, despite the fact that our rivals have systematically stolen British innovation and intellectual property.
This problem requires more careful monitoring of foreign acquisitions of our domestic companies. The new Law on National Security and Investments gives our country the necessary powers, and now it must be ready to use them and look not only at the immediate market effect, but also at the deeper consequences of any international transaction. This requires a more rigorous approach to international cooperation in the field of research and inter-university exchanges. And this requires a better understanding of which areas of British science and innovation deserve protection. The government's strategy for critical minerals announced in July, which defines how the country will ensure the security of the supply chains of these resources, is a good example of the approaches needed to identify strategic weaknesses and eliminate them. Now the same needs to be done in areas such as semiconductors and synthetic biology.
Lead by providing support
The UK can increase its resilience, primarily by using its strategic partnership with key democratic countries. Our partnership with the United States in the field of intelligence and nuclear technology already shows how reliable allies can increase their power and reduce their costs at the same time. Looking more broadly, we can transfer these principles to the creation of a more widely integrated trading network, reducing our dependence on unreliable sources. As history has shown, trading is not just about profit. The UK and the United States could provide a new "axis of growth" by sharing their communications and development promotion services with partners around the world, which would challenge China's "debt networks". From individual states to the federal government, such openness will strengthen the well-being of US and UK citizens and open markets for millions.
Such a policy goes beyond the borders of the group of main allies. Many countries have taken such initiatives in the face of growing threats from authoritarian regimes in recent years. For example, Lithuania has clearly and decisively supported Taiwan in terms of protecting democracy. Estonia, a pioneer in setting new standards for digital governance, is a world leader in various IT fields, from digital public services to cybersecurity. And since 2008, it has hosted the NATO Center of Excellence for Joint Cyber Defense, which allows alliance members to exchange information and develop new strategies to counter cyber warfare. For both countries, strong British support could expand the scope of such efforts and help them benefit both their peoples and the United Kingdom. By supporting other similar initiatives, the British Government could support its allies and promote stability and democratic values.
This is not just about the UK, but about the fate of democracy, freedom and global sustainability in general. The ability of democracies to adapt and rebuild is the main reason that they are stronger than autocracies. They can transform and shift emphasis, reversing the structural weaknesses that authoritarian forces bring to our intertwined economies. The core values of open societies are at stake: the right to choose and change leaders and directions, to criticize and correct, to experiment and succeed, and even to fail. This is good for any nation, no matter how it is governed.
Of course, the split of the globalized world into nation-states with new ambitions will cause friction. But with the application of new forms of international cooperation, it can be turned into the strength of world democracies, forcing them to build new partner networks based on competition and values. All this can give rise to stability, which the West needs so much now. This is the role that the UK can play, as it is able to create more effective alliances and partnerships. But we can do this only if we realize the scale of the problem and mobilize all the forces necessary to solve it.
Author: Tom Tugendhat (Tom Tugendhat) is a member of the British Parliament from the Conservative Party and chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on Foreign Affairs.
