United Kingdom on today's international stage: will the mad king ever come to his senses?

AuthorMathieu, Kenneth

Once upon a time there was a mad king that coveted the gold of a fierce dragon at the expense of an unchained princess only waiting to be released. What might appear to be a nice fairy tale funnily but sadly describes on the margins of the Ukrainian events the current relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union on one side and with the renewed Chinese-Russian pragmatic partnership on the other. While it seems more than unlikely to witness a major shift in Her Majesty's foreign policy in the next couple of years partly due to the promised referendum on British membership of the European Union, the occupant of 10 Downing Street should reconsider the strategic importance of strengthening its traditional alliances for its own political and economical survival in the coming decades.

Among the major countries of the European Union, the United Kingdom under David Cameron's government is certainly today the most characteristic of a purely economic bilateral approach towards the new emerging powers. Even if later followed by France, Germany and Italy, its recent hasty decision to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is fully symptomatic of a turning point in the cornerstones of the British foreign policy. Although the call for reform of the international financial institutions is today a necessary debate, one could also legitimately wonder how the global balance of power would evolve over the medium term given the minor role and prerogatives European countries would get in this newly Beijing-led financial institution.

Obviously, the rising economic powers are above all competitive partners, the Cold War is well and truly over and there is no debate in the need of every nation to develop extensive political and economical ties with one another in an increasingly interdependent and multi-polar world. It is nevertheless no secret that Xi Jinping's China no less than Vladimir Putin's Russia take full advantage of the divisions among EU member states, the absence of a common European- wide energy policy strategy or even coordinated positions on major geopolitical issues. Acting like a > in the new international security environment leads more than ever to the European Union being a political dwarf and on a wider scale results in the declining primacy of the western world. As the second military power of the European continent, the United Kingdom should be aware of the dangers of a unilateral business-based strategy with...

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