When one looks back into European history, it is logical to pay more attention to the most significant turning points, rather than the long-term, almost imperceptible, incremental changes that occurred. It is easy to overlook the critical relationship in these apparently dichotomous forms of change, but they are inextricably linked. Equally, it is easy to miss the continuities that were not disrupted by those sudden incidents of history. The British referendum in 2016, where a majority of the population voted to leave the European Union, caused evident shock and confusion in the continentâs 27 member states. It appeared, at the time, to represent one of those pivotal moments in European history, producing dire warnings of similar separations by other nations. But the Brexit decision was the result of a much longer development, dating back to Britainâs membership of the EEC in the 1970s. The shock was the result of years of complacency among an elite that seemed to have forgotten, ignored, or deemed irrelevant, the views of working class voters. Educated figures expressed anxiety about the threat to liberal internationalism, and there were exaggerated references to Brexit as one of several challenges to the worldâs international order, but while most commentators referred to economic consequences, far fewer examined the implications for the defence, security and integrity of Europe. Indeed, the EU and the UK initially assumed these would be unchanged. There was severe criticism when Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, seemed to suggest that defence and security would have to be taken into consideration in Brexit negotiations, a view widely interpreted as Britain trying to use security, especially counter-terrorism expertise, as a bargaining chip. This tells us much about the degree to which European defence had been taken for granted over the long sixty yearsâ peace.
The developing concerns about defence and security occurred amidst four significant crises facing the European Union. The first was a wave of migration from Africa and the Middle East, driven in part by conflicts, but also by economic motives, which had elicited protests from European citizens about a lack of integration, threats to wage levels, housing shortages, cultural differences, and a rise in crime. The second crisis was the effect of the international banking crash of 2008, which had crystallised the fiscal crisis of indebted countries like Greece. The consequence for Athens was a severe austerity programme, limits on spending, and impositions by the European Central Bank that created deep resentment. The reason the Greek crisis had such resonance was that all European countries were affected to some degree and forced to curtail public spending, but in Britain it resurrected fears that member states of the EU could be coerced by directives from Brussels.
The third crisis was the greater military assertiveness and rearmament of Russia, which annexed Crimea by force, deployed troops and armaments into eastern Ukraineâs Donbass region, engaged in cyber-attacks on European institutions, and made threatening rhetoric about its willingness to use force, including nuclear weapons, in defence of its national interests. Russian military modernisation appeared all the more threatening when, at the same time, European defence seemed to be in a parlous state, and where interoperability, once the significant achievement of NATO, appeared to have declined.
The fourth crisis was the fractious relationship with Turkey, a country which linked the other factors together. Turkey had hoped to join the EU, but the protracted talks and conditions demanded by Brussels remained unresolved, and the migration crisis reversed Turkeyâs previously weak negotiating stance: it was in a position to control the flow of migrants reaching Greece and the rest of the EU. Russian military intervention in Syria, and the shooting down of a Russian jet, caused some concern in Europe because of NATO commitments to Ankara, but within months, after a failed military coup, Turkey appeared to shift away from its Western NATO partners and towards Russia. The change was wrought by shared interests over Syria.
Like the United States, Britain had an active air campaign over Syria to defeat the terror group, Daesh, and it sought to maintain close ties with Turkey. Britain plays a leading role in European defence and security, as evidenced its maritime and air commitments, its leading role in counter-terrorism and cyber security, in the Joint Expeditionary Force (which has a strong focus on northern and Eastern Europe), and its promotion of the Northern Group, a sub-stratum of NATO and its associated Scandinavian defence co-operation.
But there have been a number of significant changes in British perceptions of European defence and security in recent years: Russia is increasingly regarded as a risk, even a threat to European integrity, and there are doubts about the level of American commitment to the defence of the European continent. The Nordic, Baltic, and Central European states are looking to Britain for leadership, but the impact of cuts makes the capability of Britainâs armed force look very uncertain. A succession of terrorist attacks in Britain and Europe has pushed political leaders towards a more overt counter-terrorism posture, despite the absence of any existential threat, rather than prioritising national defence. In addition, Britain is in the process of leaving the EU and this introduces uncertainty about formal cooperation in security and defence with European states. It raises the possibility that bilateral relationships and ad hoc coalitions will become increasingly important.
It is often assumed Brexit will play a key role in determining Britainâs future leadership role in the continentâs security and defence, but it is not clear where the continuities will be maintained or the changes made. Alliances are, by their nature, multilateral arrangements, but, in effect, they represent a national interest for their signatories. Many assume that Britain will reduce its continental commitment as the EU seeks to increase its defence role, but it is just as likely that Britainâs position will continue unchanged or even be enhanced through its NATO membership, its close working relationship with France, and its leadership in capability. Britain is certain to put major emphasis on strengthening its role in the alliance and in its partnerships or coalitions as a consequence of leaving the EU, but the co-operative spirit on which the alliance depends could be affected. EU states may help and support each other in NATO and in other international organisations, something which is not uncommon, and it could be that Britain will reach some new understanding with the EU in this regard.
Yet it may, of course, simply be that membership of the EU has little significance in European defence: what determines whether a state is a leading security and defence actor is its military-strategic culture, operational capability and spending capacity. Practical necessity may be more important than political alignment: states that train and deploy togetherâand fight togetherâwill form partnerships and coalitions as a threat emerges. Consequently, political statements may not matter much unless reflected in real implementation in the operational dimension. Moreover, for the last sixty years, it has been NATO, led by the United States, not the EEC or EU, that has guaranteed the continentâs defence.
Brexit: Defence and Security in the Negotiations
The significance of alliances, coalitions, defence and security in the Brexit negotiations was highly uncertain in 2017â2018: Whereas the British government envisaged a âwin-winâ option by offering to collaborate with the EU in all matters relating to security and defence, the Brexit negotiations had not clarified the position on either side by 2018. 1 The period between the declaration of Article 50 (the âexit clauseâ) in March 2017 and March 2018, a critical period of negotiations before the triggering of Brexit (March 2019) was marked by much dissension between the British and the EU leadership. The EU negotiators insisted that Britain should pay much more than an initial ÂŁ20 billion offered by the British for the transition period. The EU insisted that EU citizens in Britain should be protected under the European Court of Justice, rather than British courts, a demand that caused incredulity in Britain, even amongst so-called âremainersâ. In addition, the EU insisted that the border between the UKâs Northern Ireland and the EUâs Eire should be abolished, with a âhardâ frontier starting on the Irish Sea: this proposal was completely unacceptable to the United Kingdom, since it would deprive the country of its sovereignty over Northern Ireland, where the majority wish to remain under British jurisdiction. Indeed, the thirty years of âTroublesâ had been founded entirely on this issueâand the EU proposal seemed to raise the possibility of the ugly conflict starting all over again. Similar EU proposals to hand over Gibraltar to EU, and therefore satisfy Spanish interests, met with equal levels of ire in London. These issues were debated vigorously throughout 2017, and, as time passed, neither side appeared to have any breakthrough suggestions. The EU argued that businesses would leave Britain because of the uncertainty of market access to the EU and less favourable market rules in Britain, but there was no capital flight from the City of London, and Britain attracted more investment after 2016 partly through a lower pound sterling and partly through the prospect of more open trade outside of the EUâs customs regime. It was obvious that market actors wanted predictability and that the EU calculated that it could benefit from prolongation of the pre-negotiations. As with Greece, it believed the member state would buckle and concede, but, by 2018, the improving British economy did not make the British government inclined to make concessions. The main driving force for the British government was the Prime Ministerâs political survival: inclined to compromise, May was confronted by deeply divided Cabinet colleagues, and a strong lobby of âBrexiteersâ.
The Florence speech by Theresa May in late September 2017 was conciliatory towards the EU, arguing for a gradual Brexit and offering funding for a transition period. The reactions in Brussels were quite negative. The EU wanted to create maximum uncertainty about market rules for market actors in Britainâto draw businesses away from the United Kingdomâbut it was surprising that the EU should âstonewallâ in this manner as it self-evidently needed Britain, not only as a market, but as a net contributor to the EU in financial terms, and, even more clearly, in security and defence. However, while Britain appealed for a commonsense and practical approach to the exit negotiations, the EU seemed satisfied with procrastination and hoped that a weakened British government would reach a final concessionary arrangement.
Due to the time factor, Britain was under considerable pressure to agree with the EU on its terms in order to get started with the actual negotiations about the future relationship in trade and services. It offered an unknown amount of money (above the much-publicized ÂŁ20 billion), gave guarantees for European citizens in Britain, seemed to accept the possibility that the European Court of Justice would continue to exert legal supremacy in the UK, and appeared to offer an âopenâ Northern Ireland border. Under these terms, it was thus agreed, in late December 2017, that trade negotiations could start. 2
Yet the troubles for the British government were not over, for at this stage it became of critical importance to determine which trade model Britain would want. Essentially there were two options: the âNorwegian modelâ, whereby the state would have access to the internal market and pay for this, yet remain, in effect, a âpassive memberâ of the EU (not having any say over legislation but having to adapt to whatever the EU decided). The other option was a regular, third-party trade agreement, often referred to as the âCanadian model.â The British position remained very unclear. The referendum implied that a âNorwegian solutionâ of passive membership was untenable, and Britain assumed that, as a major power in Europe, it could expect different terms than Norway. This would mean that the EU would agree to a mutually-beneficial solution. But it would not accept the supremacy of the European Court of Justice or free movement of persons, two key items concerning Brexit. The EU, on its side, argued that the internal market is a âpackageâ which cannot be unwrappedâone is either fully part of the internal market or not at all. This sounds logical, but there is no rule that a market must consist of four elementsâgoods, services, labour, and finance. One may, of course, agree trade in goods and not in labour, to mention one option, and all negotiations necessarily reflect the power of the stakeholders. EU trade relationships with Canada and the US, for example, did not demand the same compliance. However, since Britain was so divided over Brexit and appeared to have no agreed strategy for it, it was very easy for the EU to exploit the situation. There was major political disagreement in Britain about the way forward, with an active lobby hoping to reverse Brexit altogether. One of the activists in this regard was the former Prime Minister Tony Blair, but interestingly, his influence was counter-productive since, in the opinion of the majority of British citizens, Blair was associated with dishonesty over the Iraq War in 2003. The desire of George Soros, the financier âwho broke the Bank of Englandâ in the 2008 banking crash, to fund a campaign for a reversal of Brexit, met with an equally hostile reaction. The position of Prime Minister May nevertheless remained increasingly precarious and it was unclear whether the Labour opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn, would perhaps allow for a return to the EU, changing his mind opportunistically in order to benefit from a possible national election that could result from an unexpected defeat of the government. All these factors of uncertainty in British politics amounted to a major weakening of its national negotiating position. A lack of clarity allowed the EU to capitalize in the short term.
The EUâs position, however, seemed likely to be counter-productive, and had all the hallmarks of a zero-sum game. Europe as a whole would be weakened if Britain was weakened, and the economy on both sides could be damaged by long-term disagreements over trade. It was therefore surprising that the EU leadership continued to negotiate in such a hard-line fashion, favouring an almost punitive approach, instead of seeking a âwin-winâ solution. Where there could be a detrimental long-term effect on business and trade interests, there is also, as we shall see in this volume, severe implications for security and defence. While Theresa May spoke of a âdeep and specialâ future relationship with the EU, and while Poland and the Nordic states applauded continuing British participation in European defence, France put doubt on any future British leadership in EU missions, and wanted to keep the British in a bi-lateral posture for its own interests. Small European states, enjoying the complacent luxury of defence paid for by other, larger states, like Britain, saw opportunities to capitalize. For example Cyprus argued that Britain should be kept out of EU security missions lest it give Turkey an opportunity to argue that it too could enjoy a âpartialâ membership of the EU. Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian Prime Minister and a leading figure in the European Parliament, was another severe critic of Brexit but Belgium is hardly a major power in defence terms, and was a country itself held accountable for its failure to tackle terrorism and Islamist extremism in Brussels which led to multiple attacks in 2015â2016.
It is not only the EUâs own long-term interest to have a rich and stableâand friendlyâBritain, which suggested a different EU negotiating strategy, but it was also the likely alternatives to the governing partyâs ethos that were not in the EUâs interest. From a strategic perspective one would conclude that the EU should have sought an early âsoftâ Brexit and presented it as a victory for the British administration and the EU. However, no such intelligent design seemed to be forthcoming from Brussels, and the stalemate in negotiations in 2018 implied the greatest of uncertainty about the final settlement or any transition after 2019.
This book examines the role of Britain in the context of security and defence in light of Brexit, and the implications for its relationship with its closest strategic partners in the United States and Europe. Limits on the available space in this work preclude a fuller examination of the global relationships that Britain regards as important, and which may, or may not, flourish as a result of Brexit, including those of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and other members of the Commonwealth. The book is written at the very earliest stages of the debate. It is far too early to conclude how the Brexit negotiations, or the results for defence and security, will look in ten or twenty yearsâ time. The talks between the UK and the EU to date have been characterized by enormous uncertainty, and it seems likely that many issues will remain unresolved or contested for some time. There are, however, some incontrovertible elements to consider. Britain is a major power in security and defence in Europe, possessing an independent nuclear deterrent, being a permanent member of the UN Security Council, with a global military reach, a wealthy economy, and a global political ambition. We therefore ask: How will Brexit affect this status? And how will other major changes in international politics play a role, such as Russian revisionism and the changes wrought by the Trump administration? How will Brexit affect British perspectives on its alliance commitments and its traditional preferences for coalitions?
The EU seeks to develop what it calls an ambitious âdefence unionâ and Britain has signaled a strong interest in participating in all aspects of this as well as in all EU foreign policy. The EU needs Britain. But this neat relationship has other implications: How does France act and think with regard to the bilateral defence partnership with Britain post-Brexit? Does France seek to âreplaceâ Britain with its own âspecial relationshipâ with the US as it emerges as the major ...