John Healey, the secretary of state for defence in Britain’s new Labour government, could be forgiven for not putting the country’s geostrategic presence in the Indo-Pacific at the top of his to-do list. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the capability shortfalls that the conflict has indirectly highlighted in Britain’s armed forces will be absorbing most of his attention, as well as Labour’s wider interest in repairing relations with the European Union.
In opposition, Healey questioned the wisdom of deploying British forces to the Indo-Pacific as part of the Conservative government’s tilt to the region. But Labour winding back a recently revived British military presence east of Suez would not be in the national interest.
There is no suggestion that Labour is about to weaken Britain’s commitment to industrial and technological collaboration with Indo-Pacific partners under the distinct AUKUS and Global Combat Air Programme tripartite initiatives. Still, Healey may feel his scepticism about the value of long-range British military deployments was warranted, now that he has been briefed on the fiscal realities confronting the new government. Labour is likely to feel an additional political imperative to distance itself from the Indo-Pacific tilt as a Brexit-era initiative and from any perceived associations with post-imperial nostalgia in its framing by the Conservative government.
Yet the strategic trend is that Europe and Asia’s security storm clouds are undeniably merging, not least due to Russia’s deepening partnership with China and North Korea since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. China and North Korea are both backing Russia’s revanchist bid to buckle the European security order. This offers them a potential precedent for, and a useful distraction from, their own revisionist ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.
For now, Beijing’s support for Moscow’s war effort is less overt than Pyongyang’s. But China has steadily amped up its material and diplomatic assistance for the Kremlin, while cultivating common cause with Europe’s spoilers Hungary and Serbia. The Chinese armed forces recently conducted joint exercises with Belarus close to the Polish border. The authoritarian regimes of China, North Korea, Russia and Iran are a disparate bloc, but they are now sufficiently aligned and emboldened to be treated as a trans-regional threat of global proportions. China and Russia want to carve out spheres of influence in Europe and Asia and to impose a defensive and static strategic mindset in both regions.
Given Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Britain’s Labour government has little alternative but to continue prioritising NATO and Euro-Atlantic security, as did its predecessor. But it must be careful not to draw in its strategic horizons too tightly or to make Europe the centrepiece of its defence efforts for political reasons. Britain still has genuine global interests and responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. It should continue to adjust its strategic outlook and posture to a world where the epicentre of economic and military power has migrated permanently from the Euro-Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has done nothing to change this. If anything, it has accelerated the power shift eastwards.
Labour should therefore commit to maintaining a British presence across the Indo-Pacific that is not only diplomatic or commercial in nature but also military—not as a go-it-alone quixotic tilt, but as an integral and essential tool in Britain’s statecraft.
Defence engagement with the Indo-Pacific is not only about countering threats. It is also about Britain pursuing a share in the rewards that the region has to offer and giving something back. Economic opportunity and strategic risk are considered opposite sides of the same coin in the Indo-Pacific in ways that are still unfamiliar to Europe, despite the continent’s rude geopolitical reawakening since February 2022. One of the most commendable features of the Integrated Review under the previous British government was its appreciation of the subtle interplay between prosperity and security in statecraft. That trade follows the flag once more was apparent in Britain’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, in 2023.
To be credible in the eyes of allies, trading partners and potential adversaries alike, British statecraft in the Indo-Pacific should incorporate military facets, to bolster its diplomacy and balance its economic ambition. Otherwise, Britain risks looking more like a mercantilist interloper than a durable partner with an active stake in the region’s stability. Doubling down on industrial and technological cooperation alone is unlikely to cut it as a British contribution to supporting the free and open international order in the world’s most important region. Britain needs to put skin in the game.
As a priority, Labour should honour the commitment under AUKUS to have a British submarine operating regularly from Western Australia later this decade. AUKUS is more than just a capability initiative. The forward deployment of American and British submarines to Australia directly supports collective deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
Fielding a persistent British security presence in the Indo-Pacific is not only about counter-balancing China or pleasing the Americans. Independent demand signals for more British defence engagement are strong across the region, from Australia to Japan, including island nations in the Pacific such as Fiji and traditional defence partners in Southeast Asia, such as Brunei and Singapore. There are also fledgeling relationships—for example, with Cambodia and the Philippines. Britain’s regional defence relationships are already paying off far beyond the frugal sums involved. Dialling them back would disappoint many, spiking the country’s reputation as a reliable partner.
The forward deployment of two roving patrol ships to the Indo-Pacific since 2021 has been a novel innovation in naval diplomacy on a shoestring. Forward immersion and the embedding of small units with niche competences within the region has helped to lift partners’ capacity, but also enabled His Majesty’s Government and its armed services to reconstitute their granular knowledge of the Indo-Pacific’s diverse defence environment. Labour could expand on this momentum by committing to replace the patrol ships with frigates later this decade.
Britain’s deployments of aircraft carrier and amphibious groups are more resource intensive. But expeditionary capabilities are a more obvious fit for this predominantly maritime theatre than for European waters. They also generate opportunities to work with European partners outside of NATO’s confines and comfort zones, facilitating a multinational and better coordinated European defence presence in the Indo-Pacific. Britain’s ability to project force over long distances is limited but still confers convening power—by necessity.
The chastening reality is that Britain’s threadbare armed forces have no option but to make up for missing capabilities from allies and partners. That depends on the good will of European and Indo-Pacific countries to collaborate and to provide the necessary support. But if these habits of cooperation can be sustained and are not taken for granted, the result will be a net benefit for Britain’s interests and regional security.
In weighing his options, Healey faces an echo of the dilemma confronted by his forerunner and namesake, Denis Healey, who took the helm as Harold Wilson’s defence secretary 60 years ago. After the sterling crisis, the earlier Healey opted to cut back Britain’s strategic cloth east of Suez to fit a shrunken economic base (and to respond to Soviet pressures in Europe). As a drawing down of imperial-era commitments, it was the correct call for the times. By contrast, Labour’s new defence secretary should recognise that to keep pace with and manoeuvre in a fast-changing world, Britain cannot afford to be militarily absent from the Indo-Pacific.