Britain returning to the Great Game? Knocking on the Indian Gate
Will the British restart the clock of their former geopolitical greatness?
At the intersection of desires and possibilities
Let's continue what we started in the article “Is Britain returning to the Great Game? The chapter is not English" talk. This material is about the prospects of the United Kingdom in the Indo-Pacific region (IPR). Let me remind you: the reason for the conversation was a documentary film by Andrei Lugovoy "Kazakhstan break", designed in a classic style: an Englishwoman shits.
London, to put it mildly, is not our friend (really, who is it a friend to in Europe after parting with the EU). The only question is his ability to carry out activities that in the long term threaten the interests of Russia in the post-Soviet space and, above all, in Kazakhstan, which is the northern part of the IPR. And it is also the southern tip of the Heartland once designated by the father of British geopolitics, H. Mackinder. A strategically important region, in a word.
In the previous material we talked about the balance of power, goals and objectives of the leading powers in the Indian Ocean region (RIO). Without a strong shoulder in it, provided by the presence of the Navy and the presence of naval bases, an effective policy to promote its interests in Central Asia on the part of a state that does not have territories there is unlikely.
And along with the USA, which has an impressive naval clout in the RIO, London announced its geopolitical ambitions in the region several years ago. We are talking about a program document "Global Britain in a Competitive Age: An Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy".
The aged lion returns?
Half a century after the withdrawal of troops from Singapore, in 1971 the British decided to return. Moreover, it was their departure, according to orientalist E.V. Lebedeva, that led to instability:
East of Suez”, the Indian Ocean zone did not become a “power vacuum”, but turned into an arena of rivalry between several non-regional powers and large coastal states that claimed to be “centers of power” here (India, Iran, Indonesia, etc.).
Nothing new here: in stories There are many examples when the weakening of the former hegemon led to regional conflicts of new contenders for dominance.
Sometimes the former “center of power” managed to regain lost positions, but this happened rarely and not always in the long term.
Just a couple of examples from the military history of various regions and eras.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which almost disappeared in the Swedish Flood of the mid-1683th century, managed to revive its former influence in Eastern Europe under Jan Sobieski and even save Vienna in XNUMX. But the renaissance was short-lived. And already at the beginning of the next century, the weakening power slid downhill towards its division.
Or take Assyria. Its rise occurred under Tiglath-pileser I (1115–1077 BC). But then came a decline under the blows of the Arameans. Then a new rise in the XNUMXth century BC and death due to the invasion of the Medes two centuries later.
Will a similar fate await Britain?
I don't dare say. But it reminds me of an ancient castle, with an equally ancient inhabitant. Vigorous, but very elderly. Each room is lined with trophies and weapons - in his youth, the owner, and to this day does not take off his red uniform hung with orders, has been to many places, brought many people to the grave and seized other people's property.
This is told not only by the trophies hanging on the walls, but also by numerous black and white photographs, yellowed with time.
The owner doesn’t want to grow old even now. He's showing off. But others have long since settled in his castle on an unofficial basis. Those who asked to stay and were recklessly let in. The younger ones, who are not very eager to work - they say, the grandfather is rich, he has enough money and food for everyone, but if he starts to be stingy, we will take it away. The young guests are not averse to letting the old man's inheritance go to waste.
New owners in the future? A monument to Edward Colston is being demolished in Britain.
Neo-Victorian style
So is Britain, in its old age nostalgic for the Victorian era glorified by R. Kipling. In fact, leading English analyst Adriel Casonta sees in the “Global Strategy” a policy designed in the “neo-Victorian style”.
Its renaissance is unthinkable without a naval presence in the oceans surrounding Asia, especially in Rio, where India is the geographical gateway to the Heartland. Otherwise you won't come in.
London understands this, but so far its achievements are modest. Six years ago, the British opened a naval base in Bahrain. There are plans to build them in Singapore and Brunei, as well as in the South China Sea.
The British did not leave there completely: small units of the royal armed forces are permanently located in both the sultanate and the republic.
The only question is: will they become an instrument of Britain’s independent influence in the region?
Requiem for a global dream: the once British aircraft carrier Hermes - a hero of the Falklands and later sold to India
After all, the strategic importance of the bases must be supported by the presence of an impressive naval presence in two oceans, and the British fleet, since the 1960s, according to military expert Ilya Kramnik, relies on the support of a senior ally, which was the US Navy.
What kind of independent role and strong shoulder is there in the Asia-Pacific region, when the British themselves need it, which means they are doomed to play by someone else’s rules, which is what the mentioned author writes about:
In the event of a possible major conflict at sea, operations fleet under the flag of St. George and their outcome will be determined primarily by the priorities of the US Navy, and the forces that the Americans can (and will) devote to supporting their ally.
However, well-structured relations with India can still strengthen England’s position in RIO, albeit without the prospects of dominance.
Knocking on the Indian Gate
As we saw from the example of the previous material, New Delhi is taken into account in Washington, Paris and Tokyo, building both military-technical cooperation and strategic partnership.
London is also trying, but the results are not impressive. Thus, even at the end of the last century, Britain occupied second place in the ranking of India’s trading partners, now it is only seventeenth, which five years ago served as the basis for the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee to admit that Great Britain had lost in the global competition for India.
And the nature of relations with the former colony does not allow London to rely on New Delhi as the conductor of its interests in RIO.
India, for example, writes K. A. Godovanyuk, who specializes in British foreign policy, supported the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Chagos Archipelago, which indicates that New Delhi retains strategic autonomy from London.
Without going into details, Mauritius disputes Britain's ownership of the said archipelago, and the court sided with the former.
B. Johnson's visit to the subcontinent a couple of years ago also did not bring the result desired by the British. India did not join the anti-Russian sanctions, which was expected of it in Brussels and counted on by the then British prime minister.
One form of “soft power” for the British in India could be the arms market, where they reigned supreme seventy years ago. Until the rapprochement between Moscow and New Delhi began.
The consequence of this was the diversification of the Indian arms market. By the way, Russia is increasingly facing a similar problem, where it is being squeezed by France, and in the most knowledge-intensive and promising field.
Let me remind you that India began purchasing French Rafales instead of the Su-30 MKI (however, if I’m not mistaken, they won the tender over the MiG-35) and withdrew from the joint project with Russia to create the fifth-generation FGFA aircraft.
Cooperation in the field of weapons, especially, I repeat, in the knowledge-intensive field of advanced technologies, is identical, albeit with a number of reservations, to strategic partnership.
For example, between the USSR and India, although it was not officially established (the latter, as is known, was the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement), it was carried out in the field of military space research.
The British are trying to develop a military partnership with India; Thus, in January of this year, the Minister of Defense of the United Kingdom, Grant Shapps, announced the upcoming Anglo-Indian naval exercises, and in 2025 - the visit of the AUG to RIO. However, it will act together with the Americans and Japanese.
That is, there is no need to talk about London’s independent strategy in the region. And without it, effective influence on Kazakhstan is hardly possible.
Johnson had fun in India, but did not achieve a significant breakthrough in relations with India. The gates to the Heartland remained closed to Britain.
Here, France’s position looks preferable: the policy in RIO is more independent, and contacts with India are gaining momentum (the Indian purchase of Rafales is an undeniable success of the French military-industrial complex, and therefore of the global strategy), and with Armenia too.
The latter gives the Fifth Republic a chance to become the most influential player among European states in Transcaucasia and, possibly, Central Asia. I draw a similar conclusion, taking into account Paris’s plans to cooperate with Yerevan in the field of arms supplies.
What if we cooperate with the French?
It seems that the British are also taking into account the increasingly growing role of France in RIO. Hence their desire to find points of rapprochement with it in the region.
This could be expressed, K. A. Godovanyuk believes, in London providing the French Navy with access to infrastructure in the South China Sea, in exchange for allowing British ships to use the ports of New Caledonia and French Polynesia.
But firstly, the UK still needs to build infrastructure in the South China Sea; secondly, one should not discount the difficult nature of British-French relations - the same story with AUCUS, associated with Australia breaking a contract for the purchase of French-made submarines.
And it is worth remembering the saying of Charles de Gaulle addressed to Britain, which is not alien to part of the current political establishment in France: “The Trojan horse of the USA.” It referred to Europe, but I believe that in Paris there is reason to interpret it in a broader geographical context.
By the way, about France.
Another unpleasant touch for those who gathered to revive a piece of the former greatness of the British: according to the WDMMW rating, the French fleet bypassed Navy Royal for the first time since Trafalgar.
In addition, in the British Commonwealth itself, including in India, they see in the United Kingdom’s strategy a desire to build not so much partnerships as to revive neocolonial relations, as the leading Indian expert in the field of naval strategy S. R. Mohan writes, with this underscores the importance for New Delhi of closer rapprochement with Paris.
A firm handshake does not equate to France's readiness to help Britain in Rio and forget AUCUS
I will repeat what I wrote about in the previous article: France is strong enough for military-technical cooperation, but weak for independent domination in the RIO that threatens the interests of India.
Another nuance is not in favor of Britain.
Despite occupying sixth place among arms exporters, it itself experiences a shortage of critical types.
The supply of weapons, equipment and Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine, notes analyst Howard Wheeldon, left Britain without the necessary stock of weapons that London might need in the event of a global conflict between the West and Russia. Most of Britain's reserves need to be held back in case of a conflict in which our forces are directly involved. The sad fact is that after providing the probably expired Storm Shadow missiles, Britain has little else to give.
In short, the return of the British to Rio is local and hardly independent. Its naval power has been lost. And without it, the global strategy is unlikely to be implemented.
In this regard, I recall the history of the 18th century and the confrontation between France and England on the Hindustan Peninsula (there was no India at that time, instead there was a conglomerate of warring states). The first one took over.
But the active foreign policy of Louis XIV in Europe, especially participation in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), confronted him with a tough choice: the kingdom invested either in the development of the fleet or the land army. The monarch chose the second.
As a result, the British secured dominance in communications in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, which predetermined their victory over the French, who had lost their positions on the subcontinent, although initially they looked more preferable than the English, and the Bourbon fleet was stronger in the second half of the 17th century.
The British, who had settled in India in the 1830s, began the Great Game in Central Asia precisely because of their control over the subcontinent. Now there can be no talk of control. And the British play a secondary role in sea communications.
Kazakhstan gentlemen's vacation
So the Indian gates to Kazakhstan are closed to them. In addition, London is forced, according to experts O. V. Grigorieva and N. O. Plyusnin, to take into account the factor of China, which it recognized as an objective leader in the post-Covid world .
But still, a few words about the adventures of the British in the republic, since Lugovoi’s film became the reason for two articles.
Their achievements in the field of trade with Kazakhstan are still modest. In particular, political scientist Sh. A. Azimbaeva writes:
Comparing, for example, UK exports to Kazakhstan with Italy's exports, we see that Italy exports three times more than the UK. German exports to Kazakhstan are almost four times higher.
And in general, according to the same author:
A UK foreign policy based on developing trade relations with Central Asia has not been a good concept, and its ineffectiveness stands out when compared to trade performance between the countries of the region and the EU.
Of course, English influence should not be underestimated.
The investment positions of British companies have always been strong in Kazakhstan, writes political scientist S.M. Yun, who specializes in Central Asia, and are actively supported by official London. The main object of their investment is the Kazakh oil and gas sector.
Today, over a hundred British companies operate in Kazakhstan and their share, according to Sh. A. Azimbaeva, is 14% of foreign direct investment in the republic.
Essential. However, the influence of British “soft power” is a kind of omission of Russian diplomacy, which, it seems, has effective levers of influence on the political establishment of its neighbor.
You know, I would compare this with the Berlin Congress of 1878, at which it was not so much British and German diplomacy that won a victory by revising the articles of the Peace of San Stefano, but rather that A. M. Gorchakov and his colleagues showed lethargy, having every chance to defend their geopolitical interests Petersburg in the Balkans and prevent the revision of the said treaty.
The same applies to Kazakhstan. Geography is on our side. At the present stage, Beijing and Moscow have more leverage over Astana and are able to negate some of the advantages of the British in the Kazakh oil and gas sector.
In the end, yes, the local establishment can receive more profitable financial preferences from Foggy Albion, but it will be problematic for them to ensure power and its transit to their descendants without Russia.
In addition, as we have seen, the position of the British in RIO is quite weak, their influence in Afghanistan is zero, and is also small in India.
Accordingly, taking into account the actions of the British not only in Kazakhstan, but also in the Central Asian part of the post-Soviet space as a whole, I would not overestimate them. Because, to somewhat paraphrase A.T. Tvardovsky: the British people today are not the same.
And the British themselves admit this: N. Winn, member of the analytical group "Britain in a Changing Europe", pessimistically notes that England, as a middle power, has neither the economic nor the military-political resources to implement the plans set out in the concept.
Accordingly, ousting the British from Kazakhstan is the task of our diplomacy, which faces a more serious competitor in the republic, economically and militarily: China.
Использованная литература:
Vlasov G. D. Indian arms market: history and prospects
Godovanyuk K. A. “Global Britain” on the eve of Brexit. – M.: Institute of Europe RAS, 2020.
Godovanyuk K. A. India’s place in “Global Britain”: a controversial partnership
Grigorieva O. V., Plyusinin N. O. Construction of the image of “global Britain” in B. Johnson’s foreign policy strategy
Zaitsev M. S. On the military strategy of India
Kramnik I. Royal Navy: search for identity
Svechnikova D. A. Asian vector of British foreign policy
Semenishin Yu. S. Anglo-French contradictions on issues of common foreign policy and politics at the stage of formation of the EU
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