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WHERE DO BRITAIN'S STRATEGIC INTERESTS LIE?
Reviewed by ANDRE BEAUMONT
Where do Britain's strategic interests lie?
With two major global conflicts alight but perhaps best turned down to pilot light level till elections are passed, we have seen thought provoking analyses of where America's strategic interests lie but not those of the United Kingdom.
Every country necessarily has different strategic interest to others, dictated by geography.
The United Kingdom has a strategic interest in the defence of its homeland islands and their integrity.
It has a strategic interest at NATO's periphery and within it.
It has a strategic interest in good relations on the island of Ireland.
It has a strategic interest in its global alliance with America.
It has a strategic interest in Five Eyes.
It has a strategic interest in all its territories in the North and South Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
It has a strategic interest in good relations with the EU and all nations within it and surrounded by it.
It has a strategic interest in the Antipodes.
As, unlike America, it cannot control what happens in the Americas, and it is an island nation, it has a strategic interest in not allowing hostile forces to enter the North or South Atlantic.
It is not a space power but it should retain its specialisation in satellite manufacture.
The Levant beyond NATO, Ukraine and East Asia are currently outwith its strategic interests.
As this website professes no expertise in defence or security matters and has no intention of acquiring it, it can afford a slightly different take on what is strategic interest.
If a cataclysm were to befall - like a tsunami or a Three Mile Island meltdown - where might parts of the decision making leadership, the population and the defence forces seek temporarily to locate themselves?
The answer is Northern Ireland, nations of Europe with a proximate sea crossing to Britain, North America, the Falklands and the Antipodes.
The precedents are already there.
Children were sent to Canada in WWII, Belgian refugees were welcomed to Britain at the beginning of WWI, Britain's nuclear tests were conducted in Australia and so on.
For such strategy to have effect there needs to be some reciprocity put in place in advance.
This determines what we think Britain's migration policy should be. It should extend and make much easier, reciprocal visa-free, but not passport free, travel and settlement between the United Kingdom and North America, the nations of Europe with a proximate sea crossing and the Antipodes, rather than elsewhere.
Those in the EU sometimes wonder why Britain does not see its interests as identical to its but Britain is not a continental land power and for centuries has sought not to be. The post-war stationing of forces in Germany over decades was, therefore, something of an anomaly, though necessary.
So should the EU prefer an EU-wide migration deal with the United Kingdom - and the existing one is rather ungenerous on both sides - that could be a legitimate area of negotiations, once again past elections, but the scope might be a little less wide.