To Survive Trump, Starmer Must Think the Unthinkable

Thus far, allies like Britain have striven to moderate and deflect the Trump regime, to make its bark worse than its bite. Keir Starmer has tried many things. He has pursued close, interpersonal diplomacy. He has tried to impress Trump with displays of British “soft power” in his Windsor visit, from royal parades, a banquet with the King, and a tour of the Churchill archives. In league with France, he has tried to keep Washington in the Nato tent by committing depleted, underequipped British forces to garrisoning a post-conflict Ukraine. It is a hard balancing act: the Starmer government is coupling this charm offensive with threats to regulate Elon Musk’s X platform, even as the EU too squares up with Washington over its digital sphere. Nato Europe itself has pledged significant defence increases to buy Trump’s forbearance, albeit for a more distant future. Yet all these efforts assume, and depend upon, a precious thing Trump is now ripping away: time.

Allied efforts thus far have softened Trump in the extreme short term. But now that Trump openly prepares to move on Greenland, and thereby coerce or even attack Denmark, a reckoning with American policy is no longer theoretical. Muddling through, and charms and promises, in order to retain some version of the status quo in transatlantic relations is bound to fail.

None of Starmer’s tactical gambits have sufficed to tame the American juggernaut. Trump and his courtiers voice contempt for Nato allies’ reliability, regardless of Anglo-French proposals to stand sentry in Ukraine, and despite European allies’ loyal downpayments in blood and treasure in Afghanistan and (in several allies’ case) Iraq. One of the most steadfast allies has been Denmark, now in Trump’s crosshairs. If Washington is willing to prey on Denmark – the only country to bear a per-capita casualty rate in the Afghan campaign akin to America’s own, and an ally in Basra – it is willing to prey on anyone. “Soft power” charm offensives have not altered Trump’s preferences. Trump now litigates to destroy the BBC, supposedly the crown jewel of our international cultural influence, as well as threatening a UK public authority (Ofcom). Appeals to rules, or historical ties, will fall on deaf ears. National pageantry is no substitute for strategy.

We don’t know exactly why America threatens to take Greenland, whether via coercion or forceful fait accompli. It is not yet clear from Washington’s shifting rationales whether the operation is inspired more by the geopolitical prize of bases and sea lanes, the uncompensated theft of mineral deposits, the political acclaim that might follow from US imperial aggrandisement, a deliberate attempt to provoke Nato’s collapse, or a deliberate inflaming of transatlantic relations by the nihilistic, Jacobin Right of Maga. But the first of these objectives is fully compatible with continued Danish sovereignty under Nato auspices, suggesting that at least some of the latter motives are at work. The tempo of the crisis runs well ahead of our understanding, leaving us little time to think. In fathoming Trump’s mind, we are still in the dark.

The word “crisis” is rooted in the Greek New Testament, referring to a decision, or judgement, in an unstable moment that forces a new clarity into being. While Trump’s exact motives for his aggression in our hemisphere remain opaque, our own predicament is now clearer. It is this: such is the new emerging order around us that we can no longer muddle through, finessing Trump’s instincts, hoping for the best so governments can focus on domestic political problems. Britain must choose.

Unfortunately, while Starmer and his like prefer flexibility, postponing major decisions and avoiding entrapment, a decision is now required, and far earlier than Britain would prefer. Britain has several options with regard to what foreign policy to pursue under the new, feral American dispensation. It can bandwagon with Washington. It can pursue Gaullist continentalism in Europe. It can seek to balance against the new threat from the West. Or it can offer up a transactional bargain, renegotiate the terms of Nato and offer a major burden shift, thereby reducing the overdependency that got us here in the first place. Britain has a choice. But it has no choice as to whether to avoid the decision ahead.

Given the crisis erupts from a point of military dependency and weakness, at the same time as Europe wishes to contain Russian aggression, there is little realistic prospect of direct resistance. Thanks to the policies of successive governments of multiple states in the region, Nato Europe does not now have the industrial or military sinew to confront a revisionist United States, even if it had the political will. If Washington forces the issue, its European allies may well betray Denmark – at least some of them – and seek to keep Nato afloat (although there may be shades of difference within this, perhaps imposing economic sanctions against US industries while hoping to preserve baseline cooperation on security matters). We can denounce this, but it was effectively a decision made from weakness, years ago.

In Britain, governments of both parties chose other priorities than defence, and effectively made this policy choice. We got here via deindustrialisation, and the prioritisation of an enlarged welfare state, with sickness and disability benefits now exceeding the defence budget. We got here via the highest energy prices in Europe. We got here through the erosion of the defence industrial base, a military support sector organised for efficiency and profit margins rather than resilience and redundancy, and naïve assumptions about seamless resupply from globalised markets. More than other US allies, we depend on US goodwill for our strategic capabilities. British power rests on US support, from the servicing of Trident missiles to the software underpinning our F‑35 jets. This leaves us at a point where we cannot risk a gun fight with this potential adversary, even if we wanted to. We lack the sinew. It is equally hard for Europe to aid Ukraine without US support from munitions to reconnaissance, increasing our dependency. Clashing with Washington while acting as Ukraine’s arsenal at the same time is out of the question.

So, if resistance is impossible, Britain could choose to bandwagon with Trump and – pardon the expression – pay the Dane. But that will come at a price. A predatory state’s appetite will likely grow with what, at first, are a series of cheap and spectacular wins. So emboldened, they will likely demand more tribute and interfere in our domestic politics at will. America would be more empire, of an even more abrasive and oppressive character, by invitation, and we would be more of a vassal. And irrespective of which party forms Britain’s government in 2029, no delusion of British influence-via-flattery – or even an embrace of vassalage to Washington under Reform – is likely to moderate the American imperial court’s demands.

Alternatively, Britain can opt for continental Gaullism, avoiding a direct clash while detaching itself fundamentally from American patronage, to recreate Europe as a counter-power. Yet that would be expensive and could fail to carry opinion in our own polarised domestic politics, given such an approach would mean closer ties with the EU. It would suffer the peril of fragmentation. Europe has a structure but is not a nation, and greater powers could pick its members apart. Conversely, efforts to make it more “nation-like” – further confederation as a “United States of Europe” – risk further alienating Eurosceptic voters in both EU and non-EU European states (Britain included). And all of this would make it a large and costly leap for our political class – although even timid and myopic political classes can and do take large and costly leaps, on occasion, when the stakes turn grave enough.

Britain could try balancing against American overreach, seeking out enemies of the potential new enemy. That would have to mean opening a dialogue with Beijing. Such a move would yield benefits in investment plus relative capability to counter US revisionism. But would also come at a price, subordinating Britain – and other vulnerable states – to the jealous surveillance (or worse) of another ruthless imperial power. Remember Hong Kong. Tilting to China might be a cure worse than the disease. Equally, if Trump’s America turns more predatory still, the contemplation of such once-unthinkable possibilities could become necessary.

If none of this seems desirable or plausible, one hard choice remains: to offer Washington a large, reciprocal deal. Recently, Australia bought the AUKUS security pact – its accord with the US and UK to acquire nuclear submarines and other cutting-edge military capabilities – a better chance of survival, by negotiating a rare earth mineral deal with Washington. Nothing is guaranteed, but it conspicuously moved the dial in Canberra’s favour. Britain does not have such riches to offer.

But along with its European allies, it can offer something else: in exchange for time, it can develop more self-reliant strength, and offer what Trump’s National Security Strategy calls for, a region that takes primary responsibility for its own defence. This would not be founded on sentimental appeals to language, kinship or history, or the desperate assurance of more defence spending if only Washington would maintain a status-quo European security architecture that it openly despises. And it would not excuse (although would look past) America’s aggression against Britain’s small, loyal, democratic Danish allies. It would be a straight-up bargain: Europe builds up militarily while America draws down – but slower than it otherwise might.

A fundamental, transatlantic burden shift is now a geopolitical fact of life. It likely cannot be avoided – and even if anti-Trumpist forces regain power in U.S. politics in 2029 and restore a baseline of decorum to US statecraft, the genie is unlikely to go back in the bottle. The incentives for any American president to prioritise its strategy at Europe’s expense are strong: turmoil in the Middle East, plus a large and wealthy peer competitor in Asia, plus fiscal deficits and industrial crises, plus limits on public appetite for any military effort that comes at the expense of social security. America can no longer realistically aim to overpower everybody in each key theatre. The payoff of a new bargain would be to help America concentrate its power where it needs (and avoiding closer European alignment with China), while for Europe making that shift as gradual, stable, and cooperative as possible.

Contrary to speculation of a “spheres of influence” plot, Trump’s America asserts its own sphere, but evidently still believes Russia and China should be denied dominance of their respective regions. Trump’s administration would not be imposing serious, secondary sanctions on Moscow, or undertaking extensive diplomacy to settle the war in Ukraine, or pouring forces into the Western Pacific, were its intention merely to retrench to the Americas. Russia still needs some containing, Washington’s attitude appears to be – but the containment should be European-led. Rather than adjusting the status quo to placate America into maintaining its lead role in Europe, Britain and its allies should work with the demand Washington has spelled out, a European-led defence, albeit more slowly. At the affordable price of slowing down the shift and making it planned rather than haphazard, Trump and his heirs would get a big geopolitical win that he can sell to their constituency. It is possible, of course, that the nationalist bellicosity of the Trumpists – and their revelling at coercing perceivably feeble-yet-hectoring European counterparts – is simply too strong for them to take such an opportunity. Yet it could be Britain’s least-bad initial option, at least to buy time, while giving the thuggish showmen in the White House a deal to crow about.

None of this will be easy. As well as attempting to negotiate a new bargain, it will require strategic attention, political capital, and investment – all of which will require hard trade-offs with the government’s domestic priorities, from a reticence to tax wealth to a willingness to fund generous sickness and pensions benefits. But in the face of Trump’s storm, if Britain and its European allies cannot now bend, they will break.