In an April 27 speech to the Lord Mayor’s 2022 Easter Banquet brazenly titled “The Return of Geopolitics,” UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss laid out the British intention to use the war in the Ukraine–which it intends to ramp up—"to reboot, recast and remodel” the current international security and economic architecture along the lines of the British empire. This, she outlined, is to be imposed through generalized sanctions and war, and enforced by a global military and economic NATO and associated ad hoc alliances, dubbed “a Network of Liberty.”
Truss was clear that the UK intends to expand the war against Russia to include China, not later, now. Bragging that the UK, unlike others, armed and trained Ukrainian troops “long before the war started,” Truss insisted that the same now must be done with Taiwan.
She explains: The UN and G20 have failed because Russia is involved. “We now need a new approach, one that melds hard security and economic security… one that recognizes that geopolitics is back….
“The war in Ukraine is our war.” Ukraine’s victory, “a strategic imperative,” requires ramping up production of heavy weapons, tanks, airplanes. But, “we need to go further… This has to be a catalyst for wider change. We must also apply this tough stance to the threats that are emerging beyond Ukraine.”
Those include not just beefing up the Polish military, as the UK is doing, and doing the same with the Western Balkans, Moldova, Georgia.
“We also reject the false choice between Euro-Atlantic security and Indo-Pacific security…. We need a global NATO. By that I don’t mean extending the membership to those from other regions. I mean that NATO must have a global outlook, ready to tackle global threats. We need to pre-empt threats in the Indo-Pacific, working with our allies like Japan and Australia to ensure the Pacific is protected. And we must ensure that democracies like Taiwan are able to defend themselves.”
