The British Empire is scheming to redesign the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship” into what appears to be, though not described as such, a dual containment strategy against both Russia and China, with the British taking the lead against Russia, while the U.S. aims at China—but each supporting the other. The London-based Council on Geostrategy released a report on June 26 laying out that strategy. It recommends “repurposing” the special relations by, among other things, creating “a new vision of the future of the international order” to include the following steps:
• Explore ways of establishing a new geoeconomic order, designed to reinforce the prosperity and resilience of free and open countries, which seeks to limit the ability of adversaries to compete at the geoeconomic level;
• Strengthen the alignments between the U.K. and U.S. scientific and technological bases to generate collaboration on regulations for emerging technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Quantum technologies, behind which like-minded partners can follow.
• Plan for a modulated multi-theatre posture: ... To mitigate the impact of an American reprioritisation away from Britain’s primary theatre, the two governments should:
• Work together—and within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)—to create a clear timeline for the move of key U.S. assets from Europe to the Indo-Pacific theatre over the next five to ten years. … ;
• Prepare for the U.K. to provide leadership and enhanced deterrence in Europe;
• Reinforce U.K. support for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) in the Indo-Pacific;
