America’s relationship with the United Kingdom is one of the deepest in the world, but in the face of changing interests and new geopolitical pressures, how important will the UK be to the future of American statecraft? UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made it clear that London will not choose between the U.S. and the EU. But navigating this delicate balance isn’t easy. Where is the “special relationship” between London and Washington heading? Does the UK have what it takes to safeguard Europe’s security, with less help from America? Can the U.S. and the UK agree on China?
In this episode of Pivotal States, Christopher S. Chivvis explores the U.S.-UK relationship with Jeremy Shapiro, Research Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Transcript
Note: this is a rush transcript and may contain errors.
Chris Chivvis:
I am Chris Chivvis. Welcome to Pivotal States, where we examine the strategic challenges and opportunities facing the future of American foreign policy. Today I'm talking to Jeremy Shapiro about the U.S.-UK relationship. The history of this relationship is deep, but how important will it be for the mid-twenty-first century? Is it possible that we hold the relationship to too high of a bar? And how will the relationship between Washington and London fare under the Trump administration? Let's get going.
I'm really excited to have one of my favorite foreign policy analysts with me here, someone I've known for, I think, believe it or not, two decades.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Seriously?
Chris Chivvis:
Jeremy, you're a wonderfully known figure in the think tank community. We all greatly admire the work that you do. You have a great sense of humor and also-
Jeremy Shapiro:
I need it.
Chris Chivvis:
You have a great sense of humor and also are not afraid to speak truth to power and to call out inconsistencies or the illogicalities of our foreign policy debate here or discussion here in Washington – something needless to say of which there are many. So you've had a lot of opportunities to do that. Thanks for being here to talk about the United Kingdom today.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Sure. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the fact that you're willing to conduct a building-wide search to find me and I'm really glad to be here.
Chris Chivvis:
Jeremy, what's your specific title with the European Council for Foreign Relations?
Jeremy Shapiro:
I'm the director of research at the European Council on Foreign Relations, but I'm also the head of the Washington office, which is co-located here in the Carnegie Endowment Building.
Chris Chivvis:
And you've spent decades working on Europe, but also several years living in Europe, working for the European Council on Foreign Relations, some of which was in the UK.
Jeremy Shapiro:
That's right. I've been at the ECFR for nine years and the first six were in London and then a little over two years in Berlin and I've been back here in Washington for the last year or so, all with the ECFR.
Chris Chivvis:
And that comes on top of the time that you spent in the U.S. government and also at the Brookings Institution.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yeah. Boy, now you're making me feel old Chris. Yeah. In fact, I've been working on this Europe-UK account, if you will, for about 25 years. As I say that, it's making me question some of my life choices, but is in fact my background. So I'm going to have to live with it.
Chris Chivvis:
Great. Well, we're lucky to have you here in the building, as you say at Carnegie, and also to have you here to talk about what was once considered America's most important foreign relationship.: its relationship with the UK. And I think the question is today, I think we can probably begin by agreeing that it's not America's most important relationship, but the question is it still important at all? And if so, why? So that's how I want to focus our discussion, at least to begin with, before we get into things like UK military power, the economic relationship, and of course the question of how the UK is going to fare under the new Trump administration here in Washington DC. So I thought it'd be interesting to try to compare, to start off, America's relationship with the UK to its relationship with a couple of other countries. So let me start by asking you. You know Europe really well. Is America's relationship with the UK more important than its relationship with Germany or less important?
Jeremy Shapiro:
Well, I think it's less important. This is difficult. I have to say I got myself in big trouble when I was living in London on this question. I was at this Cheltenham festival and they asked me this typical question, is the U.S.-UK relationship still a special relationship? And I, reflecting on my time in the Obama administration, laughed it off and said, "That's something that we say at press conferences, but not something that is really very important to American officials." And the idea that there is a special relationship, it's very convenient for the politics on both sides, very important particularly to the UK. But it's never been – well, not never, but it hasn't for many decades – been something which really animated the U.S.-UK relationship in my view.
We did this survey of European countries first in 2009, again in 2017, and we asked them, do you have a special relationship with the United States? And around 14 of the originally 25 and then of 27 EU countries said, "Yeah, we have a special relationship with the United States." So special has a different meaning depending on which side of the relationship you're on. I think that the U.S. and the UK have an important relationship to both sides. They have a good relationship with both sides. It is useful to both sides, or at least it has been until very, very recently. But it's not really that special anymore. It was in World War II, but that was a long time ago. I think that the one area that remains special is the one that we can talk about the least and know the least about frankly, and that's the intelligence relationship.
Chris Chivvis:
And I want to get to that. And I also want to talk a little bit about the history and the question of continuity and change. Because it was certainly a special relationship. But let me just come back to the question of compared to Germany, another key country. You seem to say, if I understood you correctly, maybe the relationship with the UK is a little less important than the relationship with Germany. What would be a couple of your top reasons why you would take that position?
Jeremy Shapiro:
Well, Germany is a bigger economy, a more influential country.
Chris Chivvis:
A trillion dollars if memory serves.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Has a lot more potential influence in the world. And, I say this very advisedly, is in the European Union. Britain ipso facto became a much less important country to the United States when it left the European Union. And that's something that American officials haven't wanted to say to the UK, certainly not in public, but it's very clearly the case. It was something by the way, that President Obama warned them about right before the referendum. But for the UK's own reasons, it went ahead with Brexit. That hurt them on the international stage and it hurt them with the United States. Germany has a real potential to exercise leadership in Europe and in the EU and that is something which is quite attractive, at least to American presidents who are interested in Europe, which is perhaps not this one. So I think in that sense, if you look at the way that the Biden administration approached Europe, it was certainly very interested in the UK. It certainly worked hard to have a good relationship, but the pivotal state for its European relationship was Germany and frankly secondarily France and the UK was probably third.
Chris Chivvis:
It's almost as if we want to have this relationship with the UK because we like the idea of it. But as we look at these big measures of international political power that you already mentioned, GDP, we're going to talk about military part of the equation. Obviously the UK is today a more important military player than Germany is. Whether or not that will change over the course of the next decade is of course one of the big questions of European security. But let me ask you another question of comparison that I was thinking about. The international order is changing. The importance of the transatlantic relationship is changing in a broader context. The world is becoming more multipolar not only because of the rise of China, which we talk about a lot, but also because of the growing importance of a range of other powers around the world. Brazil, for example. Saudi Arabia is flexing its muscles, spending a ton on defense and then also India. So I wonder whether or not the U.S.-UK relationship that we used to refer to as the special relationship is more or less important in your view to the United States than America's relationship with India?
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yeah. Again, I don't love this question because important is such a difficult word to translate in that context. On a cultural level, in terms of what countries the diplomats would rather show up in or be in an embassy in, I think that the UK is more important. We love the royal family and it turns out that at roughly three-quarters of the actors on American television are actually British. So the cultural links are very close and that's very important to people. But in the geopolitical sense that you mean it, I think the UK is not nearly as important as this emerging relationship with India. Again, the U.S. has an easier relationship with the UK. One of the things that's been great for U.S. diplomats about the UK since basically 1945 is that it's relatively easy to get them to do what you want. India is more or less impossible. So in that sense, again, it's a little bit of an easier relationship and it gets used in that way.
But in terms of the geopolitical weight that you can bring with a relationship with India, which frankly has 1.5 billion people and it's the biggest country and population in the world. It's an obvious counterweight to China. It has an unbelievably strategic location, so it brings a lot more assets to the table. So it all really depends on the way that you measure it. But I think if you look at the behavior of the last several American administrations, you see them saying kind words to the British, always showing up at some point in London, having plenty of British leaders in the White House. But if you look at their geopolitical priorities, they're much more focused on India, on China, on Germany, and even on France than they are on the UK and that reflects certain realities.
Chris Chivvis:
But the UK obviously does still matter, and as you've said, we have-
Jeremy Shapiro:
Matter is a low bar, but it certainly does.
Chris Chivvis:
It matters a good deal. And I wonder sometimes if when we think about it as this special relationship, when we think about it in terms of the relationship that it was say 50 or 75 years ago, we're setting the bar maybe a little bit too high and making an unfair comparison because it is still, even though it's economy and defense spending actually both are lower depending on how you measure it than India's today, it is still the sixth-largest economy in the world. It still does have some military capability that's valuable, very important in Europe and potentially valuable elsewhere in the world. And as you say, there is not only a tradition of working together, but also it's more likely that we're going to be able to come to a common view of major world problems with the UK than we are with a partner like India. So I really like your distinction between different types of importance. I think it might be interesting to talk a little bit about the history of the U.S.-UK relationship because there's obviously a lot there.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Can I comment on what you just said a little bit?
Chris Chivvis:
Yes. Please.
Jeremy Shapiro:
I think that you're absolutely right. I agree with all of that. It's just that we create this higher bar for ourselves when we call in a special relationship. We create this notion on both sides, on both the U.S. and the UK that somehow this is a relationship that moves the world, that this is a relationship which over and over again is going to win the second world war. And I think that that creates the wrong standard for this day. Even as you're pointing out, I think very accurately, this is an important relationship. It matters to the U.S. It matters even more to the UK and it can be quite productive. I think the other thing to say – and this is a bit of a perverse point, but as you said, I like to make those. The UK has a problem when it comes to the United States that it's too easy.
Chris Chivvis:
The UK is too easy, in what sense?
Jeremy Shapiro:
It's too easy to get agreement. It's too easy for the U.S. to get what it wants. And there is this unfortunate thing in both love and geopolitics that if you give the other side what they want every time, they don't respect you and they don't appreciate you.
Chris Chivvis:
Why do you think that is? I understand what you're saying about the UK being almost too willing to please sometimes, and I've seen it at certain points over the course of my career as well. Why do you think the relationship is that way?
Jeremy Shapiro:
I think it's because the UK made a decision a very long time ago that they needed, absolutely needed, it was the fulcrum of their foreign policy to have a close, tight, special relationship with the United States. And they've prioritized that to such an extent that it has become a bit of an end in itself. And it means that when they enter into any negotiation or discussion with the United States, foremost in their mind is that they can't be seen to be distant from the United States. This is the “hug them close” theory that Tony Blair was famous for. The very fact that they walk into any discussion with the United States with this idea that they can't afford to have any daylight means that the United States takes them for granted. And it really debilitates them. And that's why in some sense, even though the UK has a better relationship with the U.S. than most other countries, it doesn't have a more productive relationship with the United States than most other countries from its own standpoint.
Because if you're sitting in the State Department or in the White House and you're like, "Well, we have this tough choice to make. We could screw the British or we could screw the French." Someone will say, "Well look, if we screw the British, what are they going to do about it? Nothing. They'll thank us for it. So let's screw them." I can't tell you how many times I saw decisions like that. It's a perverse incentive I think, but it really does operate. Until you demonstrate to the counterparty that there's a price for being a problem, for creating a problem, then they will continue to create problems.
Chris Chivvis:
This is very interesting because it's true across both of the major political parties in the UK, you mentioned Tony Blair. A pivotal moment in the special relationship insofar as there is one, was obviously UK support for the Bush administration in the invasion of Iraq.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Absolutely.
Chris Chivvis:
And that was a Labour leader. That was Tony Blair.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yeah, sure.
Chris Chivvis:
So it is really striking when you think about it from that perspective. But haven't they left themselves with very few other options after leaving the European Union? If they don't have the special relationship, what's the other alternative from a UK point of view?
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yeah. No. I think you're absolutely right. This is a situation that they've gotten themselves into over the course of decades, since Suez roughly in 1956, but particularly as you point out since Brexit in 2020. And it's strange because if you look at pretty much every other country around the world, especially outside of Europe, every single one of them is looking for a diversification strategy. Every single one of them is thinking, I don't want to depend too much on the United States or China or India or any country. I want to have a diversity of relationships, which gives me leverage with even more powerful states. The UK, and there are a few other European countries that do this too, is one of the few countries in the world these days which isn't pursuing a diversification strategy and it's really hobbling its capacity for diplomacy.
Chris Chivvis:
I guess the flip side of the coin is if we say that the UK is not getting a whole lot out of the relationship with the United States, or maybe it's not optimizing the amount that it might get out of it, the question would be, here we are at a moment of a low point in U.S.-European relations. The last couple of months have been one after another major shockwave in the relationship. The question is will the UK end up fairing a little bit better? It's felt a little bit less of the shock maybe than some of the other major regional powers in Europe. Or, regardless of the close relationship that it has with the United States, is it going to end up in the same bucket as so many other European countries?
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yeah definitely the second thing. I think Donald Trump's career is laced with people who thought that they could create a close relationship with him and then use that to their advantage. And all of them have been wrong. He doesn't have close relationships, in fact with anyone apparently, even with his own family, and no one has ever been able to parlay a close relationship with him into actual material gains. And it's confusing to me why anyone counts on him anymore, but people still do. And the UK as a country seems to be counting on somehow that their Prime Minister's relationship with Trump and their country's relationship with the United States will, if it comes down to Trump having to make a difficult choice, count for something. And I just think that there is a pile of evidence that shows that it never will. Now, could the UK emerge from all of these troubles relatively unscathed? I suppose it's possible if it gets lucky, if Trump is more focused on other things and if it's just never in Trump's interest to cross the United Kingdom, and that might happen. But the idea that the special relationship or Keir Starmer's relationship with Trump is going to be the source of that advantage is I think beyond mistaken. It's delusional.
Chris Chivvis:
It's interesting to me that the UK is one of the few major countries with whom we have a trade surplus, and yet nevertheless, we have imposed tariffs on it.
Jeremy Shapiro:
It's extraordinary. They were crowing in the UK about the fact that they only ended up with a 10% tariff and no reciprocal tariffs when that emerged from the formula that the United States and Trump administration-
Chris Chivvis:
So we shouldn't interpret that as evidence that they are getting more out of this close relationship than other countries. It's really just a fact of the underlying economic realities.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yeah. Absolutely. The UK mostly trades and services with the U.S. It has as you pointed out, the U.S. has a trade surplus. Why is there a 10% tariff? It's insane and it should be seen as a failure of UK diplomacy, even though it's a failure of everybody else's diplomacy too. And yet somehow they're in such a position of dependence vis-a-vis the United States that they're willing to say, "Well, gee, they didn't punish us as much as they punished the EU, so therefore we're in somehow a better situation." This is a bizarre idea.
Chris Chivvis:
It's hard for the UK because after they exited the European Union, they intended to, or one of the ideas was that they would recapture their former role as a truly global power by no longer being tied to Europe. It seems to me that their interest in maintaining the relationship with the United States is in part a consequence of trying to prove that yes, indeed they are a global power, and that somehow by having a closer relationship with Washington, this image of the UK as really acting on the global stage will at least hold some water.
Jeremy Shapiro:
I don't quite understand that. This is like some little brother concept of global power.
Chris Chivvis:
Yeah, but I think it is.
Jeremy Shapiro:
I don't know. Perhaps it is, but I would say perhaps that's how certain people in the UK think about it. To me, that's high. Honestly, if the UK wants to exercise influence, it needs to understand – and certainly its history prior to World War II indicates that it used to understand such things – that it needs to be able to exercise independent influence. The way that you exercise independent influence is that you use the strengths you have, you establish diverse relationships, and you don't depend on any one country or any one person for your influence. I think that that's a basic lesson.
Chris Chivvis:
And it helps to have a lot of political and military power. And so I want to talk about that a little bit. There was a time when the UK was by far the world's most powerful politically, economically and militarily. Those days are far behind us. They ended, I think you could say, with World War I, but nevertheless, it is still important economically, politically, and militarily. So how do we begin to unpack that and get a sense of what the relative significance of the UK's military, for example is. When you think about the UK's weight in world affairs, where does the military angle come in for you, Jeremy?
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yeah. Well, it's difficult because the UK is a traditional military power and it has a military culture, which is very rare in Europe or even in the world today in the sense that it's a country that defines itself as using its military abroad and using its military almost in a global role. Really, there's not many countries that think that way. There's the United States, the UK, France, certainly those are the only countries in the West. And clearly Russia and China think that way to a certain extent in their regions. But beyond that, there aren't many or any. So that's important, and that's one of the reasons why you see Keir Starmer in the UK with the French at the vanguard of this idea of deploying European military power to a post-ceasefire Ukraine. And in a European context, the UK military is amongst the most formidable, probably the most formidable after the French. But at the same time, there has been a really quite dramatic decline in UK military power, and it's not really just since 1945, it's really in the last 20 years. And today the British Army would not fill Wembley Stadium.
The British Army is smaller than the U.S. Marine Corps. The various austerity budgets going back to 2010, particularly since the financial crisis, deeply starved the UK military to an extent I think that wasn't very well acknowledged by the UK political class and hasn't really penetrated into UK culture in a certain way. And so that there is this sense that, not that they have the military of 1945, but maybe that they have the military of 1991 when they were able to field an entire division and really be an important participant in the U.S.-led Gulf War. They can't do that today. There was a general disillusionment from the U.S. military standpoint with the UK military as a result of Afghanistan and to a lesser extent Iraq, because – and it's not a question of their professionalism or their bravery or anything like that – it was that they were really being starved for resources and have been dramatically starved for resources. So at this point, what you have is a bit of a hollow military. You have this very strong culture. You have a much greater willingness on the part of the government and the society to consider the use of military force. Again, these things are somewhat rare. But you don't really have the capability to back that up that you had even 20 years ago, much less 80 years ago.
Chris Chivvis:
And I think it's important because so much of our conversation is focused on East Asia right now, which is just an area where I think it would be wonderful if we could have countries like the UK supporting U.S. objectives in East Asia, but I often think there's a lack of realism in our conversations about what even a country like the UK that has these aspirations in this culture is going to be capable to bring, when you really look at the magnitude of the military challenge that we have there.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yeah. I would have much more modest hopes for the way that the UK and Europe in general can contribute to global security and to Western security if that is still such a thing.
Chris Chivvis:
Yeah. So that's great. So what should we be asking? Well, what from your perspective would be the ideal outcome for the United States to see in the future of UK security contributions? Would it be primarily in Europe/ entirely in Europe? Would it involve some of the Middle East?
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yeah. It would be almost entirely in Europe and certainly in the immediate European neighborhood, which might include North Africa, but it probably wouldn't include the Levant or the Persian Gulf. If they can be a force for security on the European continent in the Black Sea and on the Mediterranean Sea, I would be super happy. And that would be a massive contribution to global security, Western security, and to the United States, which is not the reason to do it, but it's still true. And I think that that is achievable, not by the UK alone, but I think that the UK could be an important leader, maybe the most important leader, in achieving that through cooperation with like-minded European partners. I think that the struggle they have right now is the one that we were alluding to in the first half, which is that they believe that their way of being a global power is to operate through and in conjunction with the United States, and that's at odds with being the type of leader in their region that they conceivably could be.
I think you've seen just in the last three months since Donald Trump took office, maybe a realization of this from the UK government in the ways in which they’re forging this much stronger relationship with France than they've had in the past several years and going out and trying to be at the vanguard, at the forefront of European security initiatives. This is early days yet. And Keir Starmer has been very careful to say, "Well, actually what we're doing is in conjunction with the U.S." He's not willing to say we're doing this because we can't really count on the Americans anymore in the way that Macron is willing to say. But nonetheless, he's doing it and I think they've made quite a bit of progress in this in terms of their relationship with the French, which seems to me would be the core of a nucleus of European vanguard on security.
Chris Chivvis:
And obviously to achieve this objective of being a major leader in providing for Europe's security in what is a deteriorated European security environment on account of Russia's aggression and one that is likely to become more risky. We don't know exactly how much yet, but as the United States shifts its focus or continues to shift its focus elsewhere, they obviously need to spend more on defense like many countries around the world. And Starmer has promised to increase defense spending up to 3% by 2029. It's going to be hard for them to get there though based upon some of the people that I've talked to. Already economic growth is not very high. Tax burden has gone up in the most recent budget. They're cutting public services. Do you have thoughts about the likelihood that they'll actually be able to pull this off? I think it's something from an American perspective we would love to see, but are they going to be able to do it?
Jeremy Shapiro:
Well, I'd like to back up a little bit, in part because I don't really know the answer to that question and so I was hoping to avoid it. But maybe more constructively, I think that while it is true that it's a good idea for them to spend more money on defense, the more important aspect of what they need to do is in the relationships that they have with their European partners. It doesn't matter if they get to 3% if they haven't taken the hard diplomatic efforts and made the integration moves that they need to make particularly with France and Germany, but also countries like Poland, and created a greater capacity to present a collective defense.
Chris Chivvis:
It's interesting because one way to do that is obviously within NATO and the UK could choose to play a much stronger leadership role within NATO. Traditionally, it has looked to the United States and tried to follow the U.S. lead for all of the reasons that we've talked about. Even if only temporarily, certainly for the next few years, the United States is going to take more of a backseat in NATO and that creates an opportunity for the UK to try and step in. Whether or not it would be comfortable doing that is very hard to say. The alternative which you've been sketching is for the UK to really deepen its relationship with the EU on these security and defense issues. Also a good option, but one that maybe is a little bit difficult politically within the UK given the decision for Brexit and then also given the level of interest from key partners within the EU itself, above all France.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yeah. I would certainly agree with all that. Look, to be honest with you, I think there are many ways for them to achieve greater integration with their European partners, and I could be personally fairly agnostic about the route that they take.
Chris Chivvis:
Sure.
Jeremy Shapiro:
I think that the NATO route that you described is one that's potentially promising. It has some obstacles as you described. The principal obstacle is the United States itself. The EU route doesn't have that problem, but it has other problems, particularly the fact that it's just not a defense organization and it's not set up for command arrangements and it has a very cumbersome decision-making process. So I think those routes both have advantages and disadvantages. I think at this stage they should be pursuing them all in a certain way. What's important is that they take one of them. By the way, a third route is a purely ad hoc one that doesn't use either of these organizations, but just relies on a network of bilateral or what they call minilateral groupings within Europe.
I think all three have potential and all three should be pursued. What worries me is that none of them will be. I'll give you an example. There was an OMB memo leaked that said the United States wants to zero out its funding to NATO common funds. If it does that, that's not a huge amount of money actually, it's just the part of NATO that-
Chris Chivvis:
It's the headquarters.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Basically the headquarters and a few very niche capabilities. The UK and other countries could step in for that funding. But of course, if they did, they would have a very strong case that it should be them that holds the position of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and not the United States. And actually maybe the United States would be open to that. The UK is 100% against that. They are 100% percent, and most other European countries are too, to be honest with you. They don't want the SACEUR position because their effort is still to keep the United States in Europe, and they think that the U.S. holding that SACEUR position will somehow bind the United States to Europe, or at least if a Brit or a French general takes it, somehow the United States will be given permission to leave by that action.
I think this is exactly the wrong way to look at it. I think that if the United States isn't so interested in NATO, that's a shame, I suppose. But it's an opportunity for Britain, for France, for other European countries to stand up and say, "Well, here is this great international organization. NATO has a lot of capabilities existing. The Americans aren't that interested in it. We can take it with its shell. The Americans will still be at least a little involved, and we can use that as a vehicle for a European security provided by Europeans." So that's a potential opportunity. But I can tell you that Europeans are not reading this OMB memo and not reading the SACEUR debate in that way at all. They're seeing it as a threat, not an opportunity.
Chris Chivvis:
I think that's great, and I agree with you 100%. I think the concern is distinguishing between the SACEUR role and the EUCOM role. It was possible to read some of that discussion as not just the United States isn't going to have the SACEUR position anymore, but actually that whole EUCOM structure, which is so integral and so important for European defense right now, could go away with it, and that would obviously be quite dangerous from a European perspective. So it's one thing to say give SACEUR to the Brits or to the French-
Jeremy Shapiro:
Fair enough.
Chris Chivvis:
Or to the Germans or to another country. And another thing to say, let's do away with EUCOM entirely, which would obviously be much more revolutionary.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Absolutely, and it's a funny fact. One European officials said to me, you can't let us choose the SACEUR because we'll fight about it ourselves and then we'll end up with a Belgian, which is a indication of the problems-
Chris Chivvis:
Just simply because it would be a compromise. Because Belgium is the compromise position for many ...
Jeremy Shapiro:
Belgium in always the compromise that they end up with. So they have their own internal problems with this, but I think the question is where do you think you're going? My read of the current situation – not just what Donald Trump has done in the last three months, but the direction of American policy for the last 10 or 15 years – is that the EUCOM structure is not forever going to be defending Europe, and it's not going to be defending it for that much longer. Maybe in the best-case scenario, could be another 10 years, but it's not going to be there forever. That means that Europeans have to start preparing for that eventuality that you said. And I agree with you that they should be worried. They're right to be worried about a disintegration of that capability. What they need to be doing is trying to think about a more gradual transition where they can take over essentially what EUCOM does in Europe. That's the work of several years, no doubt.
I think if they don't think seriously in that regard, if they don't take some risks in that regard, there will be a sudden break. Donald Trump or the next president will do that to them and they won't be ready. And if they try to defend EUCOM and SACEUR – the American ownership of SACEUR – too strongly, they will lose them suddenly instead of losing them slowly. The UK can play such a central role in this. Their goal should be an effective, gradual responsible transition instead of a sudden irresponsible one.
Chris Chivvis:
You're making me think maybe there ... I completely agree with everything that you just said. Maybe there is a role for the UK as a bridge between the United States and Europe on these issues and in playing the role of facilitator of a transition that a growing number of people have come to realize is necessary, where Europe takes the bulk of responsibility for providing for its own defense. The UK does seem particularly well positioned to facilitate that.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yes. I would have a minor disagreement with that, which is just that I wouldn't describe that as a bridge. The French don't need the UK to communicate with the Americans, but in some sense, the UK role in this as you're describing it, is more important than a bridge. It is a leader. They can be a leader in European security. They can be a leader in providing a European-only or majority security for the European continent, for the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, in cooperation with the French and the Germans. But in order to be that leader, they have to not think of themselves as a bridge, not think of themselves as an American dependent, but get more into the French and increasingly German mode in which they think that it is necessary to replace the United States ultimately, again, after a gradual responsible process. To date, as far as I can tell, they have not made that conclusion and a lot of their efforts are to try to keep the United States in to try to avoid having to be a leader, and that is the problem.
Chris Chivvis:
Well, I think needless to say, we agreed that it would be very much in America's interest if they were to do that. But let's talk a little bit about other areas where our interests align to some degree or maybe aren't as well aligned as we would like. And obviously one of the big ones is China. We touched on this a little bit earlier, but the UK has been through a evolution in its relationship with China that somewhat mirrors America's but maybe isn't the same. Very enthusiastic about the UK-China relationship 10 years ago then becoming very skeptical about it during the Biden administration. Now it's not entirely clear what direction they're headed to me, but it seems as though the United States is more set on, at least under the Trump administration, pursuing a very confrontational approach with China. We don't know what the strategic objective is, but it's clear that decoupling seems more and more like a potential outcome from where we are right now. So what does this mean for the UK? What if they are ultimately forced to make a choice between what is a really important economic relationship for them with China and this relationship that is traditionally the most important in their foreign policy?
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yeah. Well, I think that this relates to their position of dependence on the United States, particularly for security. They have a degree of dependence economically, but the security dependence is the main source of it. And what that means is that at the end of the day, they can't have a truly independent China policy. Because if it comes down to making a choice, given the current state of dependence and given the history of the thing, there's no question as to what they would do. They would choose the United States, and actually that's not really a choice. They would have no choice but to go with the United States. Their effort in the last few years off and on has been to avoid having to make that choice by appeasing the United States enough on the China front to make sure that the United States doesn't come to them and say, "Well, no, you can't have any relationship with China, any trade with China." And that was working reasonably well, I guess until about 10 days ago.
Chris Chivvis:
Now all bets are off.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Now all bets are off. And so my advice to them would be that I think they can have an economic relationship with China. It's true that as you pointed out, that they're following a little bit the same path that the United States and frankly a lot of other countries have had with China, which is that it always seems like a great idea at the time. But over time you become disillusioned with it. I have a lot of faith in the lack of attractive power of the Chinese, and so I'm not worried about Europeans becoming overly dependent or overly enamored with the Chinese. The only way they will do that is if the United States sufficiently alienates them and there's no reason that that should happen. So my advice to the UK would be to reduce their dependence on the United States on the security level in part, not mainly frankly, but in part so that they can try to forge their own relationship with the Chinese. In part, they can make their own decisions for better or for worse. I would have some views on what they should be, but I think that the problem that they're in right now is that under a lot of circumstances they don't get to make their own decisions about how they relate to the Chinese.
And we saw that in the 5G debate a couple of years ago, and I think we're about to see it again. There was just a shot across the bow from the U.S. about Starlink, about how it was to – which country was it to? – to Italy, I think, that they have to think about using Starlink rather than a Chinese option. I think this is the kind of thing that's increasingly going to be coming, and if the UK wants to have its own China policy, it needs to think about other aspects of its relationship with the United States.
Chris Chivvis:
We should unpack a little bit why you think that the UK is so dependent upon the U.S. for security. As we've been talking about, obviously the UK has substantial military forces of its own, even if they're nothing compared to what they were 30 years ago, let alone a hundred. But it does have certain close relationships with the United States in two areas in particular, one of which is intelligence. And having worked on that file in the U.S. intelligence community, it is a very, very special kind of relationship that the United States has with very few, if any other countries. And one which is very beneficial to the United States, although certainly more beneficial to the UK at the end of the day than vice versa. But there's mutual gain there to be sure.
The other is the nuclear relationship and the degree to which the UK's nuclear complex is built in part on U.S. technology and sharing arrangements with the United States, which also makes it closer in that other core aspect of its security. And I think what you referenced, for example, the Huawei dispute that broke out during the first Trump administration, and I think one thing that was clear from that was that at least Trump and his advisors will not hesitate to threaten these key relationships in order to get what they want out of the UK. I think that was a very difficult moment for London and one that I imagine they have learned lessons from.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Yeah. I'm not exactly sure I follow your logic though on the intel and the nuclear relationship. Those are I think, the most consequential and important elements of the relationship, particularly for the British, but maybe for both sides. Well, the intel for the U.S., but the nuclear not for the U.S.
Chris Chivvis:
Nuclear much less important for the United States than the intel. Yeah.
Jeremy Shapiro:
So the intel relationship, this is to me the jewel in the crown. This is to me, the only part of the relationship that's truly special. But from my remove, I know you were closer to it at a certain point. It's a little bit hard to assess. Exactly.
Chris Chivvis:
It's hard. I understand.
Jeremy Shapiro:
I'm willing to believe that there is a lot of mutual benefit, and it's one of the few areas in which the U.S. has a dependency on the UK. It goes both ways I think, but the U.S. has a dependency on the UK. So on that one sure, that is perhaps a source of leverage and influence that the UK has with the U.S. maybe one of the very few. I'm not sure, because I've never really seen them try or be able to use it, or I don't necessarily know if they had. The nuclear is exactly the opposite of that. The nuclear relationship is entirely one sided. It creates a massive dependency of the UK on the U.S. on an area of sovereignty and security, which is really the kind of thing that's very surprising that any country ever would have outsourced.
Chris Chivvis:
Sure. I guess my point when it comes to nuclear arrangements and to intelligence cooperation is simply that the Trump administration demonstrated the first time around that it was perfectly willing to use these things which have been considered as sacred areas in the past. Used these things in order to as leverage, frankly, over the UK. Particularly with regard to China, but maybe also with regard to other issues.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Okay. Yeah. I was misunderstanding you a little bit. Yeah. I think that they are willing to use those things. in a certain sense, they already have because the UK's efforts to think about an independent European nuclear deterrent have been stymied, not exactly by Trump administration actions, but just by the-
Chris Chivvis:
By the nature of the relationship with the United States.
Jeremy Shapiro:
By the nature of the relationship. And so those dependencies, particularly the nuclear one, definitely limit the UK. And I think they reinforce the idea that if the UK wants to have its own China policy or foreign policy, generally it probably needs to reduce or at least even out those dependencies, make them interdependencies.
Chris Chivvis:
The Starmer government has this idea of a progressive realist foreign policy. It's one of those things that I think a lot of people were excited about when the ideas were rolled out over the course of last year. But since then, and because of the reality of American politics, I think there are a lot of questions about whether or not that really is a viable path forward for the UK. I’d be really interested to hear – Do you think that the Stammer government, that this Labour government will be able to achieve that? How are they going to manage these really difficult questions that we've been talking about?
Jeremy Shapiro:
I don't even know what progressive realism means. It's basically a paradox in a label. I always noticed that politicians love to put together two opposite things and basically put them together and claim that there's no trade-off between them. But semantics don't end the trade-offs. There is a trade-off. I don't believe that they can be both progressive and realist at the same time on the international scene. I think that the world is moving into a place where they're going to have to be realist. And frankly, the UK government is responding in that way. So I don't want to make fun of them too much because it's just a label, and I don't actually think they're following it too much. But I think that the fundamental problem they have is not figuring out a slogan that can marry values to realism, but rather figuring out how to navigate their dependence on the United States when the United States is not supporting or even opposing some of their key goals.
Chris Chivvis:
Well, great. Thanks so much for doing this, Jeremy. It's been great to have you here on Pivotal States, and I'm sure there'll be other opportunities to get you back and get your thoughts about other countries that are of great importance to the future of American statecraft. So thanks lots.
Jeremy Shapiro:
Sure. Thank you.
Chris Chivvis:
I'm Chris Chivvis and this has been an episode of Pivotal States with Jeremy Shapiro. We've been talking about the U.S.-UK relationship. We hope you tune into future episodes of this podcast where we examine America's relationship with the most pivotal countries in the world.
