Neil Brown is Commodore RN (Rtd), Geopolitical Strategist, Deltroit Asset Management, Distinguished Fellow, Council on Geostrategy.
A member of the London Defence Conference organising committee maps out the terrain being explored at LDC 2025 and poses the key questions we want our expert panels and delegates to address.
The increasing, and increasingly connected, threats of China, Russia, Iran, and the DPRK (the “CRINK”) represent the greatest long-term geopolitical challenge to the political West. It is a challenge too big for any single state, but participation in alliances is complicated because it demands commitment and compromise. Even NATO, “the world’s most successful military alliance”, has a poor record on commitment measured by defence spending. Recent improvement is as much a result of uncertainty over the commitment of NATO’s most important member as it is over the threat of its primary adversary. Many US allies around the world, seeing the emergence of an alliance of autocrats, are asking if this US administration is on the verge of stepping back not just from Europe but from Pax Americana. They are asking what they should do just in case.
In the UK, the gutting of military capability was embraced by successive governments eager to cash in on the peace dividend post-1990. For some, it was as if peace had been secured forever and the economic growth that surged during the period of post-Cold War hyper-globalisation was the new normal. The Gulf wars and the insurgency/counter terrorism operations after 9/11 were prioritised, but wider conventional capability was sacrificed in successive defence reviews which compounded the damage started in 2010. Defence spending was increasingly driven by in-year spending rules implemented despite the obviously worsening geopolitical outlook. Commitment to alliances was seen as a nice idea, but not a need to do.
This has left the UK military dangerously hollowed out. That was the view of the current government. The new PM in Washington in July 2024 called for NATO defence spending to increase to 2.5%, before instigating a Strategic Defence Review that is now completed. Given the scale of the challenge, this can only be a start.
Western Europe is in an even worse position. In most states, major military capabilities and alliance commitments were effectively abandoned. Those that were kept, were kept on little more than life support. NATO, not brain-dead, was exposed by the war in Ukraine which highlighted long-forgotten lessons of the demands of large -scale, high intensity warfare.
Two key drivers explain the current refocusing on alliances. The first is the scale and character of the threat of the CRINK, whose actions continue to show that the warnings of key partners in Europe, the Gulf, the Indo- Pacific, and the US, were not exaggerated and should never have been ignored. The second is rising anxiety over US leadership and commitment, including whether even NATO’s Article 5 has become conditional, notwithstanding the requirement for Senate approval of withdrawal.
All eyes are on Ukraine. Beyond the rhetoric which suggests at times a “reset” on Russia, the Oval Office meeting with President Zelenskiy and the Critical Raw Materials “offer” to Kiev, on top of interruptions to US military and intelligence assistance, left many US allies wondering if there are now limits or conditions on US support. Many military ties endure, but for how long?
Mixed messages perplex America’s old friends and partners. Some in Washington, while not supportive of Russia, clearly believe that China is the priority. Some, also not supportive of Russia, demand that Europeans finally do their fair share. But some do appear strangely aligned with Moscow’s narrative. Taken together, uncertainty is forcing many US allies to wonder if Israel alone can be confident in the US as an ally. The US commitment to its allies will also be weighing on the minds of leaders in Moscow, Tehran, Beijing and Pyongyang and influencing their risk-reward calculi.
Allies of the US would much prefer to fight alongside the US military but are being forced to contemplate alternatives, operating with limited US assistance, or operating independently of the world’s leading military power and its nuclear umbrella that has until now prevented global nuclear proliferation.
From these challenges flow pressing and difficult questions about procurement, the deployment of capability, and military and diplomatic posture. As the world changes fast, will new alliances emerge or nascent partnerships grow stronger? How will the European pillar of NATO develop if America draws down deployments and cuts funding? In the Gulf, time will tell whether NATO and CMF (Combined Maritime Forces) Bahrain for example endures or evolves along the lines of the JEF (the Joint Expeditionary Force). The FPDA (the Five Power Defence Arrangements) featuring Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom may evolve. Then there is AUKUS – the pact between Australia, the UK and the US on nuclear submarines and defence technology.
Unfortunately, European alignment cannot be taken for granted on Russia and China, and the procedural as well as political complexity in the EU (e.g., on defence funding and foreign policy) will have to be overcome. A “coalition of the willing” between EU member states and their closest neighbours (UK, Norway and Switzerland) may in time include Turkey. Its first test – perhaps sooner than anticipated – will be to provide support to Kiev with or without US help. European cohesion as well as US commitment will weigh on the minds of leaders in Moscow, Tehran, Beijing and Pyongyang.
Recent commitments to increased defence spending, such as the UK’s 2.5% by 2030 and Germany’s emergency circumvention of its Black Zero Policy, are welcome steps in the right direction ahead of the NATO Summit in June. That is where the US will put a “pathway to 5%” firmly on the agenda. It seems ambitious, but for states contemplating high end warfare without the US, even 5% may not be enough.
Rearming will force states to make compromises, between “fight tonight” and “jam tomorrow” capabilities, and compel countries to generate credible defence industrial capacity and national resilience. Going it alone or “splendid isolation” is not an option. An “alliance” approach is unavoidable, for reasons of affordability, even at the expense of national industrial and military capability.
“Alliance” thinking should inform economic collaboration (to counter China’s economic statecraft) and industrial collaboration such as AUKUS (Pillars 1 and 2) delivering efficiencies in time and cost. Established and emerging companies, possibly in new industrial alliances, all stand to benefit from the most important catalyst for productivity in the defence industry – firm orders – and new access to private money.
To discuss and debate these themes, this year’s London Defence Conference will feature a programme of leading international thinkers including keynote speakers from governments, military, industry and academia, and panels examining the most vital questions on alliances in the early 21st Century.
The sessions on our main stage will address the following eight core questions.
WHAT ARE THE LESSONS FROM HISTORY?
When have alliances worked by deterring or winning wars, and not, by leading to escalation, and/or defeat? What are the strengths and vulnerabilities of alliances of democracies and autocracies? Do alliances survive when the main partner steps away?
WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES FOR ALLIES IN THE AGE OF TRUMP?
What is long term US intent? Can this US administration split China and Russia or Iran and North Korea from China and Russia? How does the rest of the “political West” persuade the US to continue its vital leadership role? Can Western alliances survive if an increasingly transactional US threatens withdrawal from key elements of the global system?
HOW DO ALLIES MAKE MILITARY ALLIANCES WORK?
Should allies continue existing engagement with the US because current relationships are so deep and important that their unravelling is unnecessary or
impracticable? Or change current assumptions on when Washington will provide combat forces? Should allies optimise for US-enabled or US-free alliances like the JEF and FPDA or plan a step up from being minor partners to being framework nations just in case the US is not there in an emergency?
ARE WE ON THE CUSP OF AN ERA OF NEW NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION?
What now for the US nuclear umbrella and the UK’s assignment of nuclear weapons to NATO? What of the NATO Planning Group? Will uncertainty over the US umbrella drive nuclear proliferation in Europe, the Gulf, and the Indo-Pacific?
HOW SHOULD WE FACE THE CRINK?
How important to Russia is the co-operation of China, Iran and Korea in Ukraine? What are China, Iran and Korea getting in return? Is an alliance of autocrats emerging? Who might join them?
HOW ARE DEFENCE INDUSTRIES BEING TRANSFORMED?
Will existing industrial alliances and ways of working survive or is radical change needed to embrace disruptors, innovation and cooperation, and to attract more private sector investment?
HOW CAN THE PUBLIC DEBATE ON DEFENCE BE WON?
On the populist left and right an anti-defence argument is developing. The likely slogan is “welfare not warfare”. If the danger is defence fatigue, and voters thinking defence has already been ticked off the list, how can we educate leaders, officials, and voters of the risk and explain the responses required to deter our adversaries?
HOW WILL CONFLICT AND SHADOW CONFLICT EVOLVE?
What do we need to understand about the battlespace from the seabed to the stratosphere? Where are the new threats and opportunities? Can co-operation be delivered in and between politically and economically open nation states susceptible to malign influence, threats to elections and infrastructure, and economic statecraft?