US wants UK military to focus more on Europe and away from Asia

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The Pentagon wants the UK military to focus more on Europe and less on Asia, in a major policy shift from the Biden administration, which pushed European allies to boost activity in the Indo-Pacific to send a strong signal to China.

Elbridge Colby, US under-secretary of defence for policy, has told British officials that the Trump administration believes the UK military should increase its focus on the Euro-Atlantic region, according to five people familiar with the matter.

Colby, the third-most senior official at the Pentagon, has also expressed concern about London sending its HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier on a deployment that will include time in the Indo-Pacific.

He has long argued that European nations should take more responsibility for security in their region — particularly in relation to the war in Ukraine — to free up the US military to focus more on China and the Indo-Pacific.

The push marks a 180-degree pivot from the Biden administration, which argued that an enhanced European military presence in Asia would help counter aggressive Chinese military activity in the region and could help deter President Xi Jinping from deciding to attack Taiwan.

In recent years, European countries including the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands, have sailed warships through the South China Sea over objections from Beijing. In 2021, the Pentagon welcomed the “historic” deployment of the UK’s Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier to the Indo-Pacific.

In pushing Europe to do more in the Pacific, Kurt Campbell, the White House Indo-Pacific tsar in the first half of the Biden administration, had argued that the Atlantic and Pacific theatres were linked.

“This decision suggests that the Trump administration will attempt to delink the two, which could leave allies in both regions more concerned about the prospects for continued US regional engagement,” said Zack Cooper, an Asia security expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

The new policy comes as Beijing has stepped up a charm offensive with Europe in an attempt to reverse previous US efforts to enlist European countries to counter China.

One person familiar with the issue said the UK had “always been active across the globe, including working closely with the US on Euro-Atlantic priorities” but would “look after its own interests as well as partnerships around the world whether in Europe, the Middle East or the Indo-Pacific”.

While US military officers generally appreciate having more of a European military presence in the Pacific, the Trump administration’s civilian policy team at the Pentagon wants countries to focus more on their home regions.

Colby this week said it was “key” for Europe to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. As part of his push for countries to increase investment in defence, he recently told Congress Japan should spend more than its 2 per cent planned target and said Taiwan should spend 10 per cent.

“European military power remains limited if not stretched, so it’s natural the Trump administration would want to see it focused on the European subcontinent and the Russia threat [rather] than spread thinly in Asia or elsewhere,” said Eric Sayers, an Asia security expert at Beacon Global Strategies. “Deploying peacetime naval diplomacy to other regions is a luxury I just don’t believe Europe can afford these days.”

But critics say rising co-operation between Iran, Russia, North Korea and China means the US should seek help from allies outside their regions.

“The European, Middle Eastern and Indo-Pacific theatres have always been deeply interconnected,” said one official from an Indo-Pacific country. “But today security is more indivisible than ever — not least because of the re-emergence of a potent global axis of authoritarian revisionist powers.”

The British defence ministry said it was “working closely with our US and Indo-Pacific allies on our carrier strike group deployment with HMS Prince of Wales due to conduct exercises later this year”.

The Pentagon declined to comment.