Introduction: The UK’s Tilt to the Indo-Pacific

Abstract

This special feature emerged from a workshop on the UK’s tilt to the Indo-Pacific, organised by the Open University and the Council on Geostrategy and involving academics as well as UK government officials. It aims to unpack the assumptions of the 2021 Integrated Review and to offer practical insights into the opportunities and challenges of the UK’s future engagement with the region. British foreign policy post-Brexit has characteristically focused on partnerships, minilaterals and looser forms of multilateralism. This feature examines the practicalities of this approach, in terms of the networks with which the UK is engaging, its bilateral partnerships with three key actors in the region (the US, Japan and Australia), its security commitments in the region, and relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). As such, the authors aim to provide a broad assessment of how the ‘tilt’ is operating, and its future prospects, from networked, bilateral, minilateral and multilateral viewpoints. In my piece, I argue that what underpins much of the strategic logic and effort of the Indo-Pacific tilt is the existence of networks in world politics. The Integrated Review’s stated aims and objectives are reasonable but to achieve them will require a more sophisticated and rigorous analysis of the social dynamics of regions such as the Indo-Pacific, as revealed by social network analysis. John F Bradford provides an analytical history of the UK tilt to the Indo-Pacific from a US perspective. He traces UK engagement with the US in the region to 2007, when a Royal Naval officer was brought into its Pacific Command HQ, and charts how this deepened as the UK began to engage more with Japan. Early involvement was focused on naval cooperation, scaling up to the deployment of the Carrier Strike Group in 2021. According to Bradford, this has been welcomed by the US as making an important contribution to gap filling during the Afghanistan evacuation; but he argues the tilt has not been sold to US policymakers by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and there is still a level of ignorance about what it entails. Ian Hall’s contribution looks at UK–Australia relations, particularly the prospects for AUKUS – the new agreement between Canberra, London and Washington. Hall sees the chance of a ‘substantive strategic partnership between Australia and the UK, underpinned by shared concerns about China’. His historical account notes a deep-seated fear of abandonment and insecurity in Australian strategic culture, which still taints relations between the two countries. From 2011, AUKMIN dialogues have provided an annual forum for discussion and AUKUS has accelerated technological cooperation; however, Hall notes that political will and conscious effort will be needed to identify and build links between the two countries.