The United Kingdom and Its Future Contribution to the Defense of Europe

Abstract

The role that the British governments have played in the United Kingdom in recent centuries has been to favor a balance of powers in continental Europe favorable to their security and aggrandizement. Currently the United Kingdom (UK) has decided to separate from the European Union (EU) of which until now it was part. This decision is undoubtedly based on political reasons, but also influenced by an imperial idea that has not yet disappeared completely and by a peculiar and close relationship with the United States, from which the British expect a very high level of cooperation. However, neither the EU can do without British military capabilities in its Common Security and Defense Policy, of which the UK so far was a part, nor can the latter do so in the commercial relations and technological development programs that currently connects their companies with the defense industries of the rest of the Union. In summary, two sectors focus the interest of the UK in maintaining a close relationship with the European Union in the field of security and defense: mutual defense against a common enemy, which Britain sees mainly within the framework of NATO and under the leadership of the United States (USA), and the research and technological development of armaments and commercial relations with the industries of this sector in the Union. Regardless of their departure from the EU, the UK and the EU will undoubtedly reach an agreement in the specific field of security and common defense, and this agreement will undoubtedly be assumed by the USA and NATO. The agreement will surely be effective for the defense of Europe, but it will foreseeably affect the Union’s capabilities to provide itself with an adequate level of strategic autonomy in terms of its defense in order to achieve the role of global actor on the international scene that has long been pursuing.

In: A Shift in the Security Paradigm—Global Challenges: is Europe ready to meet them? Edited by J. Martín Ramírez, and Jerzy Biziewski. © 2020 Springer International. Submitted: November 16, 2019; Accepted: January, 6, 2020.