While Sir Keir Starmer went to Washington last week to meet President Trump to discuss Ukraine, the fate of the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom began to feel like a relic from another era. From Washington’s point of view, Great Britain is a strategic partner on certain questions with an incredible soft power while having the difficult power to carry its own weight in international affairs. The United Kingdom has not been a superpower, not to mention great power for some time, but as Washington is now a superpower in an increasingly multipolar world, the power and influence of the United Kingdom will be continuously tested.
For Starmer and the members of the Labor and Conservative parties in Great Britain, it is important to remain in friendly terms with the United States and to cooperate on critical issues. Any cooperation and cordiality should not, however, be interpreted as a special treatment, and the place of the United Kingdom on the list of American model allies is now far from the summit. In addition, President Trump can take advantage of the pump and the ceremonial of a second state visit to London, but he risks becoming an element of performance art in the service of a bygone era, an invitation wrapped in forced superlatives rather than a sincere substance.
Before going to Washington, Starmer announced an increase in defense spending at 2.5% of GDP by 2027, a welcome decision, but still unless other members of the NATO alliance like Poland and the Baltic States are between 4 and 5%. In recent years, Great Britain has proven to be an essential member of NATO to defend the values of the Alliance and support Ukraine with a military kit that has made a marked difference on the battlefield. This led Boris Johnson to be more popular in kyiv than London, where the streets now bear the name of the former Prime Minister.
The multipartite position of the principles of the United Kingdom on Ukraine is undoubtedly more consistent than that of the United States, and the accommodation by Starmer of a major summit to discuss the future of Ukraine has even more weight now than Trump is back to power. The United Kingdom can claim a greater moral direction on Ukraine and European security than the United States, and it is Ukraine which now links Great Britain more closely to the continent that it has chosen to break its links with this frail referendum almost a decade ago.
A “coalition of provisions”, from states to the similar views of Great Britain in Poland and Estonia, probably in the absence of leadership or American support, will be the key to victory for Ukraine and its long-term Euro-Atlantic integration. The fundamental principles of the special relationship do not have their meaning if the world is more and more fractured and subject to ad hoc alliances on specific problems rather than a coordinated multilateral commitment. Just as the collapse of the special relationship is a natural effect of modifying the dynamics of power, the capacity of Great Britain to take advantage of its distance from Washington to improve its support for Ukraine is the result of these same forces. There is no immediate risk that the United Kingdom abandons Ukraine, and it is a huge advantage for Starmer as it seeks to sail in its place in Europe during the Trump presidency.
The United Kingdom has historically played the role of Washington’s “Bridge to Europe”, pleading for a shared set of interests on the continent and deciphering the machinations of other states such as France and Germany. Given Trump’s preference for more transactional and bilateral relations compared to multilateral multilateral relationships, associated with Trump’s disdain for the EU, Great Britain always has an important role to play in the defense of Europe without being attached to its institutions which are largely considered too heavy and bureaucratic.
The United Kingdom is now purely independent and sovereign, which Trump admires, and which is both its strength and vulnerability in a more fractured world. The same goes for Poland, becoming increasingly the closest military ally to Washington in Europe, and an “model ally” in the words of the defense secretary Pete Hegseth with regard to defense expenses. The two states are solid supporters of Ukraine and entirely sovereign when it comes to pleading for their interests in Europe while sharing a deep Euroscepticism which has deeply influenced domestic policy.
While Europe and the United Kingdom reconcile their place in the world under the second Trump administration, the healthiest ingredient for all parties is a large dose of realism. Europe can go to the plate if it has the will to do so, and the United Kingdom can help Europe in this process, not as a member of a supranational union but as an observer and partner engaged in the business of the continent whose security is imperative for itself. In the same spirit of realism, it is important to recognize that the place of Great Britain in the alliance and the scale of Washington partners is decreased in the place where it was during the previous decades. Even President Obama, who was of course with British Prime Minister David Cameron, warned that the special relationship was at risk as long as the United Kingdom has not increased its defense expenses.
To say that the special relationship does not come back and has no room during this century is not to reduce the important role he played in the last. On the contrary, the fracturing of the relationship is now a vehicle by which Great Britain can continue its interests in Europe and in the world which will continue to diverge from those of Washington. In Ukraine, London considers Zelenskyy as a modern churchill standing against a tyrannical aggressor. In Washington, the bust of Churchill symbolically presides over the collapse of the American moral authority and the strategic leadership that Trump and the vice-president Vance choose to reprimand Zelenskyy in the oval office.
So that Great Britain remains an average power in the 21stst Century, he must restore his links with Europe on critical security and economic issues and start breaking his strategic bridge with the United States. President Biden allegedly claimed that America was back when he spoke to European allies after his election, and these allies largely assumed a position of complacency under the US security guarantees. America, which is now back, is more reluctance and married to classic concepts of influence spheres for great powers which fundamentally weaken calls by less powers for self -determination and autonomy.
By examining this current dynamic, Churchill’s remark that “the Americans will always do the right thing after having exhausted all the other possibilities” remains premonitory. Currently, these possibilities are unfortunately acts of self-harm under the cover of a first agenda in America, and the United Kingdom and Europe would be wise to develop their own sphere of influence before being subsumed by a no of their own manufacture.
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