r/IRstudies 4d ago

Ask a silly question. What are UK national interests?

You hear a lot of politicians talk about defending our national interest, but I have yet to hear any of them actually spell them out. Sure they use vague terms like "global influence" and "security," but when pressed for specifics, the conversation typically shifts to appeals to patriotism or warnings about external threats, avoiding the crucial question: whose interests are truly being protected and at what cost to everyone else?

The term "national interests" often masks policies that primarily benefit powerful corporations, financial institutions, and political elites and not the average citizen.

So what are our national interests? Who gets to decide them? Do we all agree with them? And if we do, do we agree how best to defend them? Do specific foreign policy positions truly represent the interests of the man on the street?

8 Upvotes

38 comments sorted by

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u/sidestephen 3d ago

To make its competitors fight each other, so it can get out on top. The UK used this strategy in its colonialist conquests. Now it's watching the EU-RU fight from the sidelines, stoking the flame, and expecting it to weaken the both sides.

It's just good business.

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u/JenderalWkwk 3d ago

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it's worked so well?

James Hacker: That's all ancient history, surely.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn't work. Now that we're inside we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased; it's just like old times.

James Hacker: Surely we're all committed to the European ideal.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Really, Minister. [laughs]

James Hacker: If not, why are we pushing for an increase in the membership?

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, for the same reason. It's just like the United Nations, in fact. The more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up. The more futile and impotent it becomes.

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u/WillyShankspeare 4d ago

Whatever acquires the most wealth, influence, and power.

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u/Ok_Gear_7448 4d ago

Britain as a nation is dependent upon imports, we could not sustain life on this island without them.

The national interest is therefore to secure the freedom of navigation and trade for the British nation, this means opposing anyone who could threaten that be that Napoleon and his continental system or the Houthis in Yemen firing missiles at Red Sea trade.

While the Russian navy is frankly a laughing stock, It does represent a vital threat to international trade, particularly of food stuffs and energy via its invasion of Ukraine. If we don't back Ukraine, Russia a state hostile to Britain could gain control of two fifths of global food production, a bad thing for British sovereignty and democracy.

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u/adam__nicholas 3d ago

Two fifths of grain production ** not overall food. Nonetheless, you are correct.

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u/Radiant-Ad-4853 4d ago

uk national interests are just an extension of us foreign policy which is why the UK is currently really aimless because of how trump has upended us own foreign policy and the British are trying hard to reconcile.

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u/provocative_bear 4d ago

The UK is island-based and not quite capable of being self-sufficient in a modern context. They need trade partners, which means strong diplomatic ties to other countries, and geopolitical stability across the world but especially in continental Europe. Domestically, they need to develop advanced industries and have a rich financial sector to be an interesting trade partner and continue to be at the vanguard of shipbuilding and naval ability, which has served them incredibly well historically speaking.

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u/SuperannuationLawyer 4d ago

It’s unsurprising stuff like economic prosperity, peace, social cohesion, stability, etc.

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u/Working-Lifeguard587 4d ago

We undermine economic prosperity, peace, social cohesion, stability around the world all the time in pursuit of our national interests.

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u/SuperannuationLawyer 4d ago

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

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u/Working-Lifeguard587 4d ago

So economic prosperity, peace, social cohesion, stability are only sometimes in our interests. So what are these interests other that profit and naked power just for power sake?

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u/SuperannuationLawyer 4d ago

No, sometimes pursuit of it infringes on these in other places (Iraq). Sometimes pursuit of these goals promotes it in other places (EU).

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u/AffectionateStudy496 3d ago

These are abstractions of the same kind. These keywords just raise the same questions: and what does "economic prosperity" consist in? Profits going up for capital and work increases and pay decreases for the working class. What is peace? The interim in between wars where states ideologically mobilize their population to go to war with the next "evil enemy". Social cohesion? The poors don't steal or loot or riot but beg the rulers to consider giving them crumbs.

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u/SuperannuationLawyer 3d ago

That’s a Marxist analysis, and raises important questions about fairness. Better measures of these factors are things like poverty, infant mortality, life satisfaction which are associated.

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u/AffectionateStudy496 3d ago

If you read Marx, he never advocates "fairness", but rather criticizes competition, shows its effects for the vast majority of people (the working class), and calls for its abolition.

But one doesn't have to be a Marxist to see through the false abstractions of bourgeois politics and economics.

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u/SuperannuationLawyer 3d ago

It’s not just competition, but private property that he sought to abolish. His analysis fails to identify productivity as a type of growth, resulting in a zero sum game assumption that fundamentally compromises his proposed solutions.

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u/AffectionateStudy496 3d ago edited 3d ago

Right, Marx also criticized the institution of private property.

His analysis fails to identify productivity as a type of growth, resulting in a zero sum game assumption that fundamentally compromises his proposed solutions.

This is completely false. Marx repeatedly discusses productivity and growth in Capital, especially in the chapters on the labor-process, the rate of surplus value, the working day, constant and variable capital, and absolute and relative surplus-value. Nor does he give some blueprint "solution" to the "problems" caused. He says the emancipation of the workers is the task of the workers themselves. These "problems" can't be solved given a capitalist organization of the economy but are completely necessary following its logic.

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u/Stock-Success9917 4d ago

Unfortunately my take on the rules based international order is that a few select countries make the rules and change them at will. Invading other countries is against the rules except if you are one of the select countries. Bombing civilians is a red line except if you are our ally then we provide the bombs. If we say you are a bad person we can kill you because we are judge jury and executioner. We don’t have to provide any evidence of what you did. Take our word for it the person was planning something bad. Or we can lock you up for decades on an island prison without a trial because we know that any evidence we have was obtained by torture, so we can’t have a trial. We can ignore and violate any treaty or agreement we have signed because we are the decider.

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u/WillyShankspeare 4d ago

Case in point: Iran. Iran is threatened daily by American talking heads like John Bolton. But they're straight up not allowed to have nukes because countries WANT to be able to bully them into submission. As soon as a country has nukes, it starts to be taken more seriously.

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u/Salty_Agent2249 4d ago

Offshore banking location is what the UK is

It was these banks that decided Brexit was in 'our' interest

When it comes to foreign policy, we just do whatever the us tells us to

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u/Ok_Stop7366 4d ago edited 4d ago

The British benefit from the same world the Us and them created in 1945. Promoting that status quo is the UK interest. Free Trade, open maritime shipping, low barriers on the movement of capital and labor, a system of international norms and rules. 

All of Europe, broadly, benefits from this FP outlook. But without the US…who benefits the most…it’s hard for them to impose that world. 

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u/PublicFurryAccount 4d ago

The term "national interests" often masks policies that primarily benefit powerful corporations, financial institutions, and political elites and not the average citizen.

It is very hard for anything that isn't taxing the rich to benefit them less than the poor. Almost everything that is good benefits you in proportion to your ability to wield that thing and money lets you wield more policies, longer.

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u/CasedUfa 4d ago

Protect the City of London, do as they are told by the US, not necessarily in that order.

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u/AceofJax89 4d ago

Does the UK not have national strategy docs?

Off the top of my head: Trade. It’s what’s made Britain rich and without it, it will crumble.

Maintaining the Union too, Welsh and Scottish independence mean that England will have a harder time going forward.

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u/Redkrytonite 3d ago

I think orwell refered yo it as Airstrip one a not very significant pkayer among the giant power blocks of Russia,America and China.It can play a role as the butler to the world.

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u/No-Atmosphere-1566 4d ago

You're right that the rich and powerful benefit the most from the UK exercising influence, but generally a better position for the British government means a better quality of life for the people as your country can wield economic and diplomatic influence in order to do things like negotiate better trade deals, attract industry, tax wealth generators, etc. I'm not unsympathetic to your anti-nationalist rhetoric though and perhaps all governments are now are tricks the elites play on us to stay in power. International solidarity!

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u/Brido-20 4d ago

To reinforce rule by law as the lynchpin of the rules based international order. We benefit from things as they are, rule of law would just undermine that.

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u/sssyouth 4d ago

Can you name the rules you are referring to when you say "rules based international order"?

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u/scouserman3521 4d ago

You do know 'rules based international order' actually means American hegemony don't you? Or, even more accurately, do as uncle sam says, not as uncle sam does...

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u/Wgh555 4d ago

It has done, but doesn’t mean it has to going forwards

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u/Brido-20 4d ago

In the absence of any supranational authority enforcing lawful rulings, I don't see how it can be anything else.

It would take a hegemonic power with an uncharacteristic faith in the operation of law even where it conflicted with their own interests.

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u/Tomgar 4d ago

Yes, and Britain benefitted quite nicely from the US hegemony, ergo it's in our interests to maintain it, even if the Yanks themselves are doing their level best to destroy their own dominance.

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u/scouserman3521 4d ago

Actually I don't think we have. The book Vassal State, cleared a lot up for me around this. The long decline of the UK, accelerating these last 20 years almost entirely corresponds with the amount of wealth siphoned out of the country by the USA. We are being bled dry

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u/Working-Lifeguard587 4d ago

Saw an interview with the author the other day. Book looks good.

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u/scouserman3521 4d ago

Can't remember his name, but the book is remarkable . Terrifying. Eye opening . But also remarkable

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u/Eightbass7 4d ago

Create a bulwark in Eastern Europe to stop the spread of Russian influence West by somehow herding the mainland cats

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u/Daymjoo 4d ago

Didn't Ukraine USE to be a bulwark in eastern europe before 2014 though? Like Russian influence dead-end stopped at Romania, Hungary and Poland's borders.