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The writer is the editor of the FT
There are questions about British national security that does not become ignorant even in the secret corners of Whitehall. The answers could be too painful. Donald Trump’s contempt for European allies throws such a query. As far as I can say, no one dared to ask, so here. What would the Government do if the US president decided to exclude his nuclear rockets trident?
The more you have to lose, the greater the temptation to avoid admitting that things could become bad at risk. Human nature collides here with cold logic. The more potential shock is more serious, the more important it is to think that it is unthinkable.
This is the view that Sir Keira Starmer’s government is found in the efforts of Trump’s administration to achieve a two -sided Ukrainian peace agreement with Vladimir Putin. She would have released Russia, with Ukraine to renounce the territory and refused NATO security guarantee. The European Allies Washington would be on the side during this former redesign of the continent safety architecture.
Trump’s message – a fundamental rejection of NATO -Ai US security guarantee that has held peace on the continent since 1945 – is painful for all Europeans, especially for the earlier communist states sitting opposite the rematch of Russia. The unique vulnerability of Britain lies in more than half a century of unquestionable Atlantism, thrown into the brightest possible relief by its self-employed departure from the EU.
Ever since Suez’s debacle sounded the last trunk of the Empire, British security has rested on a “special relationship” with Washington. The armed forces are configured to fight wars together with Americans, and the intelligence services of the two countries are intertwined. Nuclear energy remains just because it now supplies trident rockets to wear atomic warheads. When ministers talk about the defense strategy rooted in NATO, they mean now.
So no one should be surprised that Starmer, who goes to the White House next week because of what once had to look like a privileged audience, tried to put a brave face on Trump’s belligerent one -sided one -sided. It is completely in the tradition of British relief towards Washington. There is nothing at the proposal from Downing Street that Starmer could act as a “bridge” between Trump and other European leaders. The metaphor is unhappy. When Tony Blair threw his Lot with George W Bush to overthrow the Iraqi Saddam Hussein, he found that the bridges were crossing.
But then Blair once told me that he saw it as a “duty” of British Prime Minister to continue with the White House traveler. For Starmer, it seems that the choice between turning the Alliance can somehow improve and admit that Britain needs a whole new foreign policy. There is nothing else for now, they say officials, a former relationship.
As for the nuclear distraction, he was never truly independent. Because of this, generations of British politicians have insisted that they always call themselves that. When John F Kennedy in 1962 agreed to supply Polaris to the Government of Harold Macmillan, he attached the conditions. The rockets that launched the submarines would be assigned to NATO. As for independence, the best Macmillan could have reached an agreement so that Britain could recover them in extreme emergencies.
The same applies to the updated trident, on which the government intends to spend tens of billions of pounds to prevent the distracting of operational for several decades. The Prime Minister may have a thoughtful right to “Press the button”. But only Americans can maintain the system operative. Britain builds up the heads of war, but missiles rental from American stocks. So, if the US president does not have the key to “exclusion” of Trent, he could disable him.
All of this remained completely hypothetical, of course, as long as the distraction was part of the common commitment to NATO as an anchorage of Western security. And, to be clear, I have not heard any hint that Trump will consider the transmission in a favorable drive. But the world has changed. Nothing can be considered an impossible president who elected Putin as an allies and wants to install Canada as 51.
The trident was a symbol of the “peculiarity” of relationships. But sitting on the fundamental pillar of the NATO Alliance to crack. Someone has to ask an unpleasant question. And in formulating the answer they should start with a geographical. European and British security are indivisible. They were always.