The UK’s interests in Ukraine

Is it worth the UK spending billions, developing an even worse relationship with Russia, to protect and defend Ukraine. It is after all, over a thousand miles from the UK, the war zone itself is quite a bit further given Ukraine’s size (as Europe’s largest country). Are we really expecting ordinary Brits to get behind protecting such an ambitious endeavour?

There’s a lot said about President Trump lacking morality in relation to Ukraine, siding with Russia, blaming Ukraine. Less is said about what our interests are in Ukraine. Below we discuss the complex set of interests, that are sometimes barely distinguishable from what others might prefer to label values.

It’s a perennial problem of international politics and history to identify interests, separated from values. The ‘school’ of Realists, so dominant in international political thinking, are only concerned with interests, they say. So, what are Britain’s interests, or put another way, why is Ukraine so important to us?

Context

This may come across as dry, or obvious to some readers. However, in light of the recent divergence between the US and the rest of the West, it could be important to re-state an understanding of the ground on which we operate.

It’s impossible to answer this question of interest without a sound awareness of the world we are living in. Specifically, the system of states, the state-system or international system which structures both the lives of ordinary people across the globe as well as the interactions between the leaders of states who control the levers of power within each, as we often call them, country. This was not always the case: until very recently, in historic terms, large parts of the world were not controlled by states and even now certain states struggle to maintain control of the large spaces encompassed by their borders. Two hundred years ago large tracts of territory, especially in Africa, were not classed as states or even controlled by empires (a now frowned upon form of state). The coming into being of a system of states has undoubtedly provided stability and security and increasingly a more peaceful world for human beings.

An additional aspect worth noting is that we live in a world rich in resources but also one in which there are many competing claims for those resources. Whether it be access to water, food, minerals and fuels, access to the sea or other territories or whatever other humans crave, there is often competitive struggle to secure these resources.

Systemic Interest

A key aspect of this system is the inviolability or sanctity of nation-state borders. It is widely recognized that these should never be changed, unless through negotiation and uncoerced agreement. Related to this understanding is the wide perception that to shatter the peace that this system of borders and order is criminal: it amounts to, in settled international law, the crime of aggression and is arguably the greatest crime, perhaps only vying with ‘genocide’ as in the public imagination of the worst transgressions humans can perform. A fundamental interest of most, if not all states, is therefore, a systemic interest in maintaining this status quo. The UK, having had an at times checkered, or at best, varied past as one of the pre-eminent historical empires, is today a major supporter of the state system. All UK governments recognize that ignoring transgressions in the form of expansionist wars is courting disaster for the world.

Ideological Competitive Interest

A second major interest for the UK relates to the matter of resources alluded to above. It is frequently forgotten in discussions of international political interaction that there exists a wider, long-running, highly-charged and competitive strategic ‘game’ – I prefer the term, struggle – for power in the world. All states are engaged in this, but the major powers are often the focus of analysis of what is called Great Power Politics – the carving up of resources and regions at the expense of lesser powers, or states, or even other great powers. This oft-overlooked feature of world politics is older than the system of states discussed above. We can easily imagine tribes in a pre-state era, fighting for livestock, other resources, to achieve dominance and in turn their own security vis a vis local neighbours. In the modern world, the wealth incorporated in any country’s population’s aggregate wealth, its industrial base, natural resources, agricultural output, etc. are a zero-sum prize in the competition between states. If Ukraine permanently loses territories holding millions of tonnes of rare earths, or billions of barrels of oil or gas, or huge highly fertile plains of agricultural land to Russia they are not shared; there is no benefit to both, one loses all, the other gains all. Specifically, if Russia manages to hold onto the territories it has taken since 2014, and since 2022 it could benefit to the tune, according to some estimates, of $15trillion. Ukraine will lose this wealth. We must throw in the multiplying effect of such an injection into any economy and the recognition that on these prizes the military strength is built on which further expansion and conquest, and acquisition of resources can be gained; it’s a clear upward spiral that has fueled most empires in history.

This power political contest – that many in the new US administration seem to see as a legitimate great power carve up of the world – has, in fact, been overlaid with a template: the democracy and human rights model on which our Western freedoms is based.

In the last decade, we have seen the rise of the authoritarian world and the relative decline of states that base their internal functioning on a human rights-based regime of rules and laws. The growing number of autocratic states led by China, Russia and Iran but including many smaller allies such as North Korea, Burma and Venezuela, seems hell bent on bringing down the democracies.

As such, the fact that China is heavily backing Russia in its assault on Ukraine, as is Iran with military support and North Korea with frontline military personnel is no surprise. Looking at the war as an ideological competitive struggle makes clear the much larger interests at stake in this war. Already historic opponents Russia and China have allied to challenge the West. Unlike the West however, these regimes do not really have a coherent ideological base that unites them, other than their distaste for human freedoms available to the people of the Western democracies. So, to be clear, losing the four partially conquered territories of Ukraine will be a huge loss to the West in this level of the struggle for global power and will simultaneously strengthen those forces waged against states that protect and cherish human rights. Ideology is central to this conflict, therefore. But so are resources and relative global power or the power balance. And it will be clear to the perceptive reader

Secondary interests

Related to these two primary interests are two interconnected secondary aspects, effectively lower order interests which apply to the UK and to the countries of Europe: deterrence and collective defence. The connection is obvious: deterrence – that is deterring aggressive states from attempting conquest in the overlapping systems and contests described above – will be a much easier prospect if organized in concert or cooperation with other like-minded states.

Deterrence

Deterrence is a mechanism for avoiding the need to fight a war. While democracies rarely fight each other and generally do not, in the post-45 era, launch wars of territorial conquest against other states, the same cannot be said of, especially the major, authoritarian powers but even small powers or actors. It’s important to stress this phenomenon of war is declining however the invasion of Ukraine, if unchecked, would represent a major change in this trend. Deterrence clearly was not attempted or failed in Ukraine in 2014 (where surprise and stealth were key elements in the attack) and 2022 (where major Western powers did little to prevent the evident build up to attack).

Deterrence is relevant to the Ukraine conflict still despite these failings: showing unflinching resolve to win a war can deter an enemy at war, of escalating further, and push it to find a way out. Clearly, Ukraine and Western states have so far failed to achieve such in-war deterrence. The other way in which deterrence is a vital interest to the UK and its European neighbours and other Western states, including the US, is to prevent future aggression. Knowing that the response will be robust, sustained, potentially all in, other authoritarian states remain cautious about their expansionist designs. On everyone’s lips is the situation regarding Taiwan – a jewel, again with enormous resource implications for the ideological competitive struggle – which China looks increasingly like plucking given the lack of resolve shown regarding the security of Ukraine. There are a range of other contested territories, from islands in the South China Sea, to Kosova and Bosnia in the Balkans, to India-Pakistan-China contested territories to various disputed territories in South America. Without effective deterrence the world could soon be ablaze in years, if not months.

Collective European Defence

For the UK, and other European states, and until 2025, the US, collective security in Europe has been a major, long-term interest. Collective defence or security as it is often termed, has taken a severe knock with the Trump Administration’s isolationist/America First/Transactionist turn. While there has been a strong rationale for years for Europe to do more, to become a second, quite different Western superpower, the manner of the transformation President Trump has enacted has been as alarming as it has been disappointing. It has transformed, and diminished NATO, the main institution of Western collective security. The question for the UK and European allies is, will we undermine it further by our own faltering commitment to building shared military capacities organized to defend mutual interests and values?

Conclusion

The UK has a set of strong interests in supporting, defending and protecting Ukraine; the UK’s vital interests are at stake in systemic interests in the historic, increasingly peaceful structures of states, borders and law that have developed over recent centuries, and in the ideological-competitive struggle in which all states compete for resources and relative power in the world, overlaid as it is by the ideology of human rights, actually a set of values, which define Western states such as the UK today. These interests are largely shared by all other European states. Underpinning these primary interests are secondary interests vital to perpetuating the higher order concerns: deterrence and collective European security. Regarding deterrence, the UK did much in the build up to the 2022 invasion in leading Europe by supplying weaponry that proved to contribute greatly to defeating the Russia onslaught of that fateful February. But without sufficient support from France and Germany, among others, this pre-war deterrence was insufficient and too late to be publicized fully. During the war, so far, the deterrence of further attacks and expansion has failed. Even with the US, weapons systems have come years too late to create the strength required to force Russia to sue for peace. Will deterrence come now that the Trump Administration has unceremoniously withdrawn support from Ukraine and Europe? Is the new leadership in Germany ready to step up to this challenge? Will Macron realise this may be his last chance to positively alter prospects for Ukraine? And will Kier Starmer recognize the historic opportunity this presents to meet its own interests so plainly present in the war in Ukraine, right here, right now.