The UK is trying to position itself as the “balancing” partner of choice for countries that are indoctrinated into believing the US’ information warfare narrative of Eurasian-wide Chinese and Russian threats to their sovereignty, but this strategy is bunk because it’s basically just a rebranding of Britain’s new position as America’s “junior partner” across the supercontinent.
The UK vs. China & Russia
The overarching theme of the UK’s post-Brexit foreign policy has been its antagonism against China and Russia, the two main drivers of Eurasian integration processes in the emerging Multipolar World Order. The author wrote about this in the following four analyses:
- 3 June: “MI6 Might Become The CIA’s Proxy For Stopping Europe From Moving Towards Russia“
- 7 July: “Britain Is Following Its Big Brother By Imposing So-Called Humanitarian Sanctions“
- 21 July: “Britain Shamelessly Bowed To Its American Big Brother By Banning Huawei“
- 21 July: “Trying To Contain China Won’t Restore The UK’s Long-Lost Asian Empire“
The global attention given to the UK’s hostile policies against these two Great Powers and their responses to these actions has allowed London to craft the perception that it’s not as internationally irrelevant as some speculated it would become after Brexit. It hopes to leverage this across Eurasia to advance its strategic agenda.
“Balancing” Basics
That said agenda is to portray itself as the “balancing” partner of choice for the countries that are indoctrinated into believing the US’ information warfare narrative of Eurasian-wide Chinese and Russian threats to their sovereignty. The UK is signaling to those comparatively smaller- and medium-sized states that it’ll actively help them thwart such “threats” so long as they strengthen relations with it. What it’s really aiming to do, however, is to take advantage of them in order to secure more preferential trade deals after Brexit. By doing so, however, it’s also going along with the US’ “Lead From Behind” strategy of outsourcing shared geopolitical goals.
The Synergy Strategy
The UK recognizes the very real limitations to its international reach, hence why it submitted to the US as its “junior partner” across the supercontinent since it thinks that their synergy in this respect will work out to Britain’s ultimate benefit. It could very well just as easily have decided to play a neutral “balancing” role between global Atlantic and Eurasian forces and would probably stand to gain even more in the long term by doing so, but various levers of American influence were pulled to ensure that this scenario would never come to fruition, hence London’s antagonistic policies as of late.
Pros & Cons
This strategy has the most realistic chances of success vis-a-vis Russia because the relevant states that have fallen for the US’ information warfare narrative are more inclined to cooperate with an internationally Russophobic UK than the Asian ones that believe in the existence of the same such threats vis-a-vis China. This is because they believe (whether rightly or wrongly) that China can impose more meaningful costs to their economies if they change their geopolitical course than Russia can. Even so, the risk that the UK runs by pursuing such a policy is that it fails to reap the expected dividends because they’re all taken by the US.
“Big Brother’s” Bidding
To explain, the US is basically the UK’s “big brother” at this point after the former colony coerced its one-time colonizer into doing its geopolitical bidding. It only wants to share the costs of this interconnected infowar-“containment” campaign but doesn’t want to share the promised benefits. The UK is attracting a lot of attention to the US’ hostile narratives against Russia and China through its latest “Russian spy report” and suspension of its extradition treaty with Hong Kong. In other words, the UK reinforces the US’ fearmongering claims but only receives a pat on the back and ephemeral Great Power “prestige” for doing so, not trade deals.
The Domestic Distraction
While these “rewards” are worthless in any tangible sense, they nevertheless satisfy the British elites’ desire to distract their domestic audiences from post-Brexit uncertainty. They’ve established a high-profile role for their country in the new international reality which they hope will scratch their people’s nostalgic itch for their long-lost imperial-era “glory”. Although the UK is an objectively irrelevant Great Power in Eurasia, it can still shape the perception that it’s much more important than it really is in order to make its population think that it’s returning back to the “good ‘ole days”. In reality, however, it’s just one of many US proxies in Eurasia nowadays.
Concluding Thoughts
Despite the UK portraying itself as a “balancing” force in Eurasia after Brexit by “challenging/containing” China and Russia through a series of provocative moves as of late, the island nation is more isolated from the supercontinent than it’s ever been. The only thing that it has going for it at this point is the influence that it still commands over the Western Mainstream Media through the BBC, which it leverages to present itself as more geopolitical relevant than it actually is. The only purpose that the UK has served since Brexit is becoming yet another of America’s many proxies, all in pursuit of distant trade deals and illusory “prestige”.
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This article was originally published on OneWorld.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from OneWorld
