The early behaviour of the second Trump administration has forced the UK government to focus urgently on European security. The long-signalled possibility that US willingness to underwrite European defence, through solid commitments to NATO and consistent support for Ukraine, might weaken is now becoming an abrupt and painful reality. Crises in the Middle East, meanwhile, are consuming American diplomatic bandwidth and resources. At one level, there is an obvious case for the UK to prioritize Europe in its foreign and security policy.
However, as a prominent middle power with global interests, the UK does not have the luxury of focusing on only one region or problem at a time. The Indo-Pacific remains one of the world’s most dynamic and contested geopolitical arenas, and presents significant risks and opportunities for the UK. The case for an Indo-Pacific focus in UK foreign policy has been made before, and recent government strategies – including the 2025 Strategic Defence Review and National Security Strategy – maintain previous commitments to the region. But they do so at a time of considerable calls on the government’s resources and attention. The purpose of this paper is to argue how the UK’s approach to the Indo-Pacific can be updated, refined and aligned with the current government’s other foreign policy priorities. To ensure effective engagement despite limited resources, the UK must have a clear narrative underpinning its work in the region, and must coordinate its efforts more effectively with allies and close partners in both the Indo-Pacific and Europe. Most importantly, UK foreign policy must find a way to bridge both regions, rather than viewing them as competing geopolitical priorities.
The Indo-Pacific remains one of the world’s most dynamic and contested geopolitical arenas, and presents significant risks and opportunities for the UK.
This matters, in particular, because the US is shifting away not just from the role it has played in Europe, but from its global role in upholding international institutions and the multilateral agreements and rules broadly known as the post-war international order. At the same time, China remains willing to threaten global trade routes, freedom of navigation and international law in the Indo-Pacific, and to use its economic dominance to pressure the UK and the UK’s allies around the world. Even if the US picks a more conventional president after Donald Trump’s term ends in 2029, the US is likely to continue as a much more unilateral and transactional power than it has been in the past, demanding, at best, that its allies do much more for themselves.
In response to these shifting regional and global dynamics, we argue that the UK should coordinate more intensively with other Indo-Pacific and European middle powers, and organize its strategy around three broad sets of interactions with different countries. The first is coordinating with like-minded US allies, namely Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. The second, we argue, should involve focusing on economic, climate and security links with Southeast Asian nations. Finally, an effective Indo-Pacific strategy must support regional development and economic integration in South Asia, while broadening the scope of the UK’s recently upgraded but still limited bilateral partnership with India.
This paper is based on interviews with dozens of officials and experts working on Indo-Pacific issues in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, Berlin, Brussels and London. We spoke to officials from the following countries and organizations: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Australia, the European External Action Service (EEAS), Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, NATO, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam. The feedback from these interviews informed our analysis, but the recommendations in this paper are ours alone.
