[pip08456]

Interesting article in the Spectator today.

It is hard to overstate the importance of the so-called Aukus alliance between the US, the UK and Australia — and the implicit geopolitical disaster for the EU. The alliance is the culmination of multiple European failures: naivety at the highest level of the EU about US foreign policy; Brussels’s political misjudgements of Joe Biden and his China strategy; compulsive obsession with Donald Trump; and the attempt to corner Theresa May during the Brexit talks. If you treat the UK as a strategic adversary, don’t be surprised when the UK exploits the areas where it enjoys a competitive advantage.

The EU has outmanoeuvred itself through lazy group-think. While German political parties are still discussing the pros and cons of Nato, the Biden administration is moving beyond Nato towards a multipolar defence strategy. Nato remains a pillar but it is now supplemented by informal Indo-Pacific alliances. One of them is the quad: the US, Japan, India and Australia. Five Eyes is an informal intelligence alliance between the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand. Aukus is a nuclear submarine pact between the US, the UK and Australia. This is the variable geometry of the new international order — whereas the monolithic EU is stuck with its 27 veto-wielding members in the foreign affairs council.

The UK’s investment in modern defence technologies (and some of their civilian offsprings) are of a different order to other European states. It is natural that the US turns to the UK for this specific project aimed at containing the influence of China.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...f-eu-impotence