CANZUK should become the new leaders of the free world
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I propose that British foreign policy should have CANZUK as an aim, for if we hit this target we can become the new bastion of liberty and hope in a world that will struggle to find its next USA.’
The world is changing, and to spare you the rest of the Lord of the Rings quote, it will not necessarily become safer because of it. The peace of the world has long relied on the domination of the United States of America to maintain itself; and the status of the USA as first among equals is swiftly disintegrating. The viability of the US as a global hegemon is falling apart, the country itself is not in a good state domestically, and the inevitable erosion of its power is only exacerbated by an undesirable and incapable leadership.
Those countries, such as Britain, who have long since relied on US support on the global stage will need to look elsewhere for allies, and throwing ourselves at the mercy of some of the emerging powers of the world seems like a truly terrible idea.
As it stands we are not as important as we think we are, and economically and militarily not as powerful as we may need to be; we have let our defences become eroded and our capacity for independent operations has rusted. The inevitable decline of the USA may catch us out and we cannot allow that to happen. So what solutions are there?
The best option, in my opinion, is what is often called the CANZUK alliance, or Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK; although not powerhouses on their own they would together constitute a large bloc with a high population and a large GDP. A loose federation of these countries could also sustain a far larger military and more integrated military with their combined GDP then if all the nations maintained their own separate defence forces. Its greater economic clout would also act as an influential pressure to keep hostile nations in check.
So why these specific countries? Why not other Commonwealth members? Others may give fuzzy sounding reasons or play on common ties, but I have no interest in those excuses; my only interest is in the rather cold and cynical realpolitik that makes me believe that it is necessarily.
All the countries that are proposed to join this federation or economic area rely and enjoy the protection of the United States; when that protection disappears they will all be left in a rather uncertain position. The true reason for CANZUK is that Chinese incursions into the south China sea worry Australia and New Zealand just as Russian proximity worries Canada in the arctic. They will want ships, they will want help, and they now begin to wonder what will happen when they cannot rely on American ships being close at hand.
That is why the alliance is viable between only this section of the commonwealth, India won’t join because it is an emerging power in its own right; the other members of this alliance are not. The second reason is that if there are too many members in a bloc voices will clash and it will lose cohesion; simply look at the EU with all its warring member states. Most of them don’t even want to be in the EU, they simply enjoy taking its money, and now the rich contributors are beginning to refuse to cough up the extra funds the union needs. In essence it is a disorganised mess, a modern day Holy Roman Empire with less sense of purpose.
Therefore I propose that British foreign policy should have CANZUK as an aim, for if we hit this target we can become the new bastion of liberty and hope in a world that will struggle to find its next USA.
