Is Britain Back?
By Jack Berry
A power vacuum is appearing in Europe, and should the UK plays its cards right, it could see itself well poised to step into the gap left by receding American power. Since Donald Trump ascended to the White House for the second time in January, his foreign policy has followed an “America First” doctrine. Consequently, the international institutions, conventions and norms that have underwritten American supremacy for the last 30 years have sustained considerable damage.
Principals that previously defined the USA’s relationship with the rest of the world since the end of the Cold War are now being called into question. Doubt has been thrown on American commitment to NATO. Since its inception, the alliance has been the USA’s primary method of power projection across Eurasia. During the Cold War, as the United States ideological partner, Western Europe acted as a continental counterbalance to the power of the USSR. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, holding almost full responsibility for European security has allowed the USA a tight grip on the agency of the continent. It is for good reason that Russia and many European citizens view European strategy and foreign policy as an extension of American will.
Yet now, the treatment of Europe by the Trump administration, such as VP J.D. Vance’s scolding of European leaders at the Munich Security conference (1), Trump’s comments that the EU was, ”formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States”, (2), and his unforgiving pressure on Ukraine to capitulate to Russian demands by suspending military aid and intelligence sharing (3), have shaken the foundations of transatlantic trust. European states are scrambling to future proof themselves for a world where the USA can no longer be trusted to uphold the security commitments which have been the backbone of the transatlantic alliance since the end of WWII. Germany just passed a historic change to their tight deficit spending rules; any military spending exceeding 1% of GDP will be exempt from the constitutional debt break, freeing up €500 Bn for defence and infrastructure (4). Poland has hinted at the possibility of developing nuclear arms (5), and, crucially, the United Kingdom has hosted military leaders from over 20 different countries making up Kier Starmer’s, “Coalition of the Willing”, to develop plans to support Ukraine. We are watching the European pillar of NATO, long derided for its impotence, grow teeth in real time.
I argue that in making Britain the origin point for Europe’s strategic policy over Ukraine, Keir Starmer is manoeuvring it into a leadership role in this changed, independent and strong Europe. The European response to America’s unreliability has been one of panic. The call for rearming across the continent has been a knee jerk reaction to the death of trust in US security guarantees. In gathering European states into a “Coalition of the Willing” Starmer has created a focal point around which to coordinate new European defence policy in an impressive feat of statesmanship and diplomacy.
European strength has always come from unity. Individually, states like Germany and France exert middling influence over global affairs by merit of their large economies and nuclear deterrent respectively, but through collective EU institutions, the European continent is capable of wielding unrivalled financial and economic power. As the largest export market in the world, the EU’s trading partners, the USA included, match their food production standards to EU policy so that they can continue to enjoy access to its enormous consumer market. Europe has provided more in Aid to Ukraine than the USA has, at approximately €132 Bn versus €114 Bn respectively (6), despite the fact European economic output is considerably smaller than that of the USA, €17.1 Trillion (7) and $27.36 Trillion respectively (8). Starmer knows that in a world of Great Power competition, the only way for weaker states to retain their agency is to cooperate. His diplomacy, if successful, will herald a new era of ever closer European integration, staying true to the central principal of EU integration; that Europe is stronger together. The development of a common defence policy, for perhaps even a new EU institution dedicated to coordinating European military operations, will allow Europe to put its money where its mouth is when it comes to defending its interests and security from a revisionist Russia to the East, and an unpredictable USA to the West.
Britain has watched a steady degradation of its international influence for decades, accelerated after it took a wrecking ball to its European partnerships with Brexit. If Keir Starmer continues spearheading the European commitment to Ukraine, and nurtures his Coalition of the Willing into a strong and lasting institution, his legacy could be that of the prime minister who made Britain the birthplace of a truly independent Europe, a Great Power in its own right.
Bibliography
(1) Mike Wendling, “How JD Vance sees the world – and why that matters”, BBC, 11 March 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly82yx09zeo
(2) Natalie Sherman & Faarea Masud, “Trump threatens 200% tariff on alcohol from EU”, BBC, 13 March 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c984pnedd6do
(3) “Three weeks that changed the world: How Trump turned against Ukraine and Europe”, Rueters, 10 March 2025, https://www.reuters.com/investigations/3-weeks-that-changed-world-how-trumpturned-against-ukraine-europe-2025-03-10/
(4) Sebastian Shukla and Nadine Schmidt, “Germany’s Merz wins vote to massively expand borrowing and super-charge military spending”, CNN, 18 March 2025, https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/18/business/germany-merz-borrowing-military-spending-intl/index.html
(5) Gideon Rose, “Get Ready for the Next Nuclear Age”, Foreign Affairs, 8 March 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/nuclear-age-proliferation-trump-nato-gideon-rose
(6) “Three weeks that changed the world: How Trump turned against Ukraine and Europe”, Rueters, 10 March 2025, https://www.reuters.com/investigations/3-weeks-that-changed-world-how-trumpturned-against-ukraine-europe-2025-03-10/
(7) https://www.statista.com/statistics/279447/gross-domestic-product-gdp-in-the-european-unioneu/
