If Britain’s Labour government is looking for it, there is a gaping door back into a new relationship with Europe—defense cooperation.
By Gregory F. Treverton and Tom Arms
If Britain’s Labour government is looking for it, there is a gaping door back into a new relationship with Europe—defense cooperation.
And this door has the added advantage that increased defense cooperation between Britain and its European NATO allies is becoming essential to counter growing American disillusionment with Europe.
Whether it is a MAGA-fied isolationism or a pivot to Asia, it is clear that foreign policymakers in both the Democratic and Republican parties are questioning America’s commitment to Europe.
For those on both sides of the English Channel this creates an opportunity to start to repair the damage of eight years of Conservative Party Brexiteering. It could also strengthen European defences and, ironically, help to retain the American nuclear umbrella.
Europe faced the problem of American isolationism and problems with Asia before—in the run-up to the creation NATO and within a year of its founding. When the idea of linking America to the defense of post-war Europe was first mooted, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, leader of the Republican-controlled Senate, insisted on proof that the Europeans were jointly committed to their own defense.
This was proven by British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin with a 50-year Anglo-French Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance in 1947 and then a year later with an extension of the mutual defense pact to include Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Vandenberg and the Republicans were impressed, and on April 4, 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty was signed.
A year later Europe panicked when North Korea invaded South Korea. What if the Soviet Union took advantage of Korea to attack Europe? Could America afford to fight on two fronts? Which was the more important to Washington—Europe or Asia? The result was the Pleven Plan (named after French Prime Minister Renee Pleven). It proposed strengthening the European arm of NATO with a European Army headed up by a European defense minister.
The Pleven Plan was killed off by the French National Assembly and Europe grew increasingly dependent on the United States, especially its nuclear umbrella. Now—nearly 75-years later—Europe faces a similar set of circumstances. A populist Donald Trump is questioning the value of NATO and threatening to refuse to defend members who fail to spend at least two percent of their GDP on defense. On the other side of the political aisle, the Democrats are as obsessed with the Chinese threat as the Republicans. The Asia Pivot started with Barack Obama. Meanwhile, Russia has invaded Ukraine and Europe worries that Moscow’s success there will lead to attacks elsewhere.
Britain has played a leading role in chivvying the West to defend Ukraine and the EU has more or less matched the Americans in the supply of aid to Kyiv. But the wider issue of defending European NATO remains in the balance and Britain can play a crucial role in resolving the problems.
Read: What Can the New Government’s Proposed UK–EU Security Pact Achieve?
The key is Britain’s nuclear weapons which must remain in place if Russia is to continue to be deterred. Britain has 250 nuclear warheads based on four Trident nuclear submarines. They are already committed to the defense of NATO, but they are under the operational command of the British Prime Minister. Britain should investigate ways to further commit its nuclear arsenal to Europe, perhaps in coordination with the French.
There is already a nuclear Anglo-French cornerstone which can be built upon. In 2010 David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy signed a deal which established cooperation on nuclear issues starting with a joint simulation center for the testing of nuclear warheads. It was a first, and both sides recognized it as a starting point. At the time there was even talk of joint nuclear submarine patrols.
Anglo-French cooperation would double a European nuclear deterrent. It would still only be one-sixth the size of the Russian nuclear arsenal and there would need to be a shift from the policy of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) to MIND (Minimum Deterrence). But then the Chinese will able to hold off the Soviets with only 300 warheads at the height of the Sino-Soviet split. To insure the success of a MIND policy A European NATO would have to agree to threaten a conventional weapons attack by Russia with immediate nuclear retaliation.
But that may not be necessary. Even a MAGA-fied America probably wouldn’t break its long alliance with Britain. In the early days of the Common Market, Europeans fretted that admitting Britain would also let in a fifth-column—the United States. This time around, they might find that column useful if it gave a European NATO continuing access to American capabilities.
Britain could be out of the EU but connected to Europe through membership of a European NATO and most likely allied to America by a separate treaty. An attack on a European country would draw in Britain and the follow-up attack on Britain would draw in America. It would not be the clear diplomatic chain of command of today’s NATO, but, at the very least, a Vladimir Putin couldn’t be confident that the US would do nothing if he attacked Europe.
And at the same time, Britain’s military links would have secured a vital link with Europe which could become the basis of a new, wider relationship.
World Review
The Kamala Harris bandwagon continues to gather momentum. Going into this week’s Democratic National Convention “The Economist” poll tracker put her three points ahead nationally. The convention dividend should add another two to three points easily.
Kamala’s rapid rise, however, has less to do with her policies and more to do with vibes. Her main attributes are that she is younger than Joe Biden, pro-abortion and anti-Trump, which, for the Democrats, is more than enough.
In her 40-minute conference speech a few foreign policy hints slipped out. On the Middle East she supports Israel while sympathizing and empathizing with the Palestinians. On NATO she is pro-Alliance. As for Ukraine, she is anti-Putin and on China Kamala Harris remains a bit of a mystery.
Ms. Harris’s recent speech in Philadelphia on Kamalanomics failed to impress the professionals. Her plans to end price gouging with federal regulations; raise child tax credits by $4,000 and hand-out $25,000 to first time home buyers, was derided by most economists as inflationary left-of-center crowd-pleasing populism. It was not, however, as Trump claimed, communism.
Former prosecutor Kamala Harris is, however, proving adept at deflecting criticism; coming up with resonating slogans and landing punches. Two placards keep popping up at her rallies: “Freedom” and “We Will Not Go Back.”
The first encompasses a broad swathe of issues to include reproductive rights, racism, misogyny, health care, for the elderly, the electoral process, the rule of law, the constitution and democracy itself. All of which either have been, or are perceived to be, threatened by Donald Trump and his Republican acolytes.
“We Will Not Go Back” refers to the belief that Republicans want to turn the social clock back to the 1950s—perhaps even further—when Jim Crow ruled in the South and a woman’s place was in the home.
Trump is the master of the personal insult. Vice President Harris has fostered a unique method for countering them. She ignores them. Then she turns the debate on her opponent’s weaknesses. Project 2025, for instance, is a major embarrassment for the ex-president. He has repeatedly disavowed it. But Kamala Harris refuses to let it go.
Finally, there is the fact that Kamala Harris ticks almost every diversity box there is. She is a female, part-Asian, part-African all-American. Yet she rarely mentions her gender or mixed-race background. Perhaps it is time for Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream. The dream that the day will come when a person will be judged not by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.
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China appreciates Donald Trump. It is too much they say they like him. His threatened tariffs and bellicose rhetoric would undoubtedly put a strain on Sino-American relations.
But at the same time, the ex-president has shown little inclination to defend Taiwan and Trump’s transactional diplomacy could simplify relations. Most of all, Donald J. Trump is a known quantity.
Kamala Harris, on the other hand, is an unwelcome mystery.
For a start, Beijing is unhappy with the end of the battle of the geriatrics that a Trump-Biden race represented. The Chinese have their own problems with a perceived gerontocracy and Kamala Harris presents an unflattering contrast with 71-year-old Xi Jinping. Since Ms Harris emerged as the Democratic nominee, all hints of a Biden-Xi comparison have been erased from the Chinese internet.
Then there is the problem of racism and misogyny. At least America’s problem as portrayed by the Chinese Communist Party. In May Beijing published a report on human rights in America which said racism is getting worse and gender discrimination is “rampant”. Kamala Harris—in case you missed it—is female and of mixed Asian-African heritage.
It is expected that Kamala Harris’s China policy will largely be a re-run of Joe Biden’s. She will likely leave in place the tariffs imposed by her mentor and continue the commitment to defend Taiwan and attack China’s human rights record.
Read: US-China Relationship after America’s election
The choice of Tim Walz as Harris’s running-mate adds an interesting wrinkle to Sino-American relations in a possible Harris administration. He taught in China and has visited the country dozens of times. In contrast, Ms. Harris has made only the rare visit to Asia.
This indicates that Walz may break with vice-presidential tradition and have a role to play as the administration’s point man on China. Republicans are ready for it. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives have already launched an investigation into Walz’s “longstanding and cosy relationship with China”. Unfortunately for the conservatives they are unlikely to find skeleton’s in Walz’s Chinese wardrobe. His time in and out of Congress has been marked by repeated attack on Beijing’s human rights record, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by China’s state-controlled media.
Trump, on the other hand, is more concerned with trading rights than human rights. So, all things considered, Xi Jinping is likely to prefer Trump over Harris.
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Last month Moscow. This week Kyiv. What is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi up to?
The simple answer is that he is following India’s traditional policy of non-alignment. But the reality is more complex and reveals the growing importance of India on the world diplomatic stage and a transition from the past to the future.
The Kyiv visit was made to balance Modi’s trip to Moscow in July. That trip was a PR disaster for Modi because he wrapped himself in a bear hug with Vladimir Putin just eight hours after Russian missiles killed 37 children and injured 170 others in a Kyiv children’s hospital.
Modi tried to minimize the damage by quickly issuing a statement of sympathy for the Ukrainian families involved. But it didn’t work. Most of the Western governments criticized him and Volodomyr Zelensky declared: “It is a huge disappointment…to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day.”
Modi’s visit to Kyiv was first and foremost meant to balance the diplomatic scales and keep India on the non-aligned path. But there is more to it than that.
India has been gradually moving away from its historic close ties with Russia since the 1990s. At the height of the Cold War 70 percent of its weapons were supplied by the Soviet Union. Moscow is still the major provider, but it is down to 50 percent with the US, Israel and France supplying the other half.
Delhi is concerned about several things. At the top of the list is the bromance between Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping. India may be non-aligned but its chief nemesis is China and the relationship between the Russian and Chinese leaders makes Modi uneasy.
Then there is the fact that the US is India’s biggest trading partner– $75.8 billion in exports in 2023. This compares to a paltry $4 billion that it sold to Russia. In economic terms, Indian diplomats say that their country’s future lies with America, Europe and the Gulf States, in that order.
As India climbs up the economic order, trade balances will play an increasing role in their political decisions. But at the same time it must transition from past relationships to future. That could explain why Modi continues to defy Western sanctions to be the largest purchaser of Russia’s seaborne crude oil– $2.7 billion last month alone.
Read: Observations of an Expat – Ukraine: Shrewdness or Mistake?
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Greg Treverton was chairman of President Obama’s National Intelligence Council and a director of the Rand Corporation. Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of The Encyclopedia of the Cold War and America Made in Britain.
