Influence After Empire: Is Britain Still a Great Power? (Professor Brendan Simms)

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2:47Hello and welcome to Radical, conversations about the underlying forces reshaping our world and the radical ideas that could define the future. I'm Sophia Smith-Gaylor. I'm an author and journalist back with you this week on Radical to talk about something that comes up on this podcast quite a lot. The state of the nation, the problems facing our country and whether we can reasonably call Britain great. The dominant discourse about the UK's place in the world is that we are a much diminished force on the global stage, no longer the military and economic power of our imperial past, reduced to an onlooker or even victim of global affairs and power struggles, rather than an influential agent capable of shaping the world.

3:33But my guest today takes a view that runs contrary to much of this received wisdom. Brendan Sims is professor of the History of European International Relations at the University of Cambridge, and he argues that the UK remains one of the world's great powers, alongside the US, China and Russia. He argues that the UK has underestimated its own strength in the world, and although its influence has declined over the decades, it is still possible, and in his view, desirable, for the UK to keep its place at the top table. He's made his case in a new book called The Return of the Great Powers, which, as the title suggests, also claims that great power politics in general has returned as the dominant force shaping the world today.

4:22So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Professor Brendan Sims. Brendan, thank you so much for joining us on Radical. Thank you for having me. My first question for you is, how was it that you arrived to this thesis of the UK still being this great power? Well, my criteria for great power in us are fourfold. You have to have the resources, the reach the reputation and the resilience the so-called four hours as i call them now if you look at those four criteria obviously they will be satisfied to a greater or lesser extent across different powers but in the case of the uk if you take resources the uk is certainly in the top five or six largest economies in the world the uk is a nuclear power it is a member a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

5:22It has probably the second most capable intelligence services in the world. Actually, the Russians think the UK's intelligence services are probably better than the CIA. That's maybe an exaggeration, but certainly they are among the top two intelligence services in the world. So in terms of resources, the UK is pretty strong. When it comes to reach, The UK has got bases across parts of the world. It's got bases in Gibraltar, in Cyprus, in Falkland Islands. So it has the reach, which is also reinforced by its expeditionary capabilities through the carrier strike force. It has reputation. It is highly regarded.

6:07So if you take, for instance, when the Swedes and the Finns were applying for NATO membership in the summer of 2022 after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there was a period between the application point and the kicking in of the Article 5 NATO guarantee where essentially they were defenseless in case the Russians took umbrage. And in that situation, they asked for and were given unilateral security guarantees by the UK, which is a sure sign that they really rated, as we would say nowadays, the UK as a military power. The UK is the commander or the leader of the joint expeditionary force in the Bolting High North, so is a leading force in that regard, and is in general regarded also as a strong force in terms of soft power, cultural reach, English language, the BBC, of course, the monarchy, many other things that give Britain a kind of reputation in the world.

7:11And then lastly, when we come to resilience, there are many problems in the UK, undoubtedly, but it does have over hundreds of years an unbroken tradition of being a single state, of being a union state, which, you know, if you were to compare it, for example, with France, with Germany, with Russia in particular, even with China, that's absolutely not the case. So for all those four reasons, I classify the UK as a great power. What was the initial reaction when you first made this claim? I think it's fair to say the reaction was mixed. There was a fair bit of support. There were quite a few people who thought this was plausible.

7:53Reviewers, individuals within the elite, former head of MI6, for example, said to me that I got it basically exactly right. But then there was another head of MI6, Sir John Sawyers in the FT, who, although he wrote a very respectful and friendly review overall, did take issue with my classification of the UK as a great power. So there was skepticism. And as you might imagine, there was a lot of hostility on the French side. In fact, there were a number of newspaper articles in France criticizing the book. And I did a number of interviews defending my position. So it is true to say that not everybody rolled over and accepted my argument.

8:31Can I clarify there, was that because the French were infuriated that they were not a greater power or were they arguing that neither the UK or France were great powers? I think it was a little bit of both. There was quite a lot of umbrage being taken that France was left out for reasons I can go into, even though I do think France is a very important power, just not as strong as the United Kingdom. But there was also questioning of the UK's role, arguing that the UK is essentially a puppet of the United States, that it's a doggy that's had its day, and all the various arguments that you might imagine.

9:05I'll go into the four R's now and I'll start with resources. I couldn't help but notice in all of those four R's, the military showed up quite prominently. Is military might really as important today as it perhaps was in the past? I'm thinking right now of economic power, technological power, where I think the UK is far more behind. Well, as I said at the outset, the UK is actually still the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world. And if you take some of those economies that are ahead, which would be really just Japan and Germany, those, of course, are not nuclear powers. They're much more limited in the military sense.

9:50and so they're ruled out. That's the first point. And secondly, I would say that what we've seen over the last few years has been the revival of the importance of the military factor. I mean, if you just think of the case of the Russian Federation, the only reason why we include Russia among the great powers, apart from maybe energy supply, is of course its vast nuclear arsenal and its military capability and its propensity to attack its neighbors. So in many ways, the military factor has actually returned in a way that perhaps did not seem likely or possible 20 years ago. And that's, of course, why I have entitled the book The Return of the Great Powers, because the phenomenon that many thought we had overcome by the year 2000.

10:40You mentioned there that in theory, if you looked at GDP, for example, Germany and Japan would be head of the UK. You've pointed out you'd rule them out because they don't satisfy the military criteria for being a great power. When I was looking at the GDPs earlier, it was astonishing to me, perhaps unsurprising as well. you're speaking of the great powers this this set of four being the united states china the uk russia you're looking at 32 trillion dollars for the us 20 trillion dollars for china just for just a little four trillion for us this big disparity between the uk gdp and us and china I'm thinking of resources and economic power.

11:28You can also look at our speedily rising borrowing costs. We've now got the highest borrowing costs in the G7 at 5%. Overall government debt has risen from about 40 % of GDP before the financial crisis in 2008 to about 100 % today. If our debt interest was a government department, It would be the second biggest spending department behind health. We have all of these drains on these resources. So how can we be a great power with all that in mind? So let me first take your very valid point that there's a huge gulf between, on the one hand, the United States and the PRC and then the Russian Federation and the UK economically.

12:14And that is absolutely irrefutable. but historically the great powers have greatly varied in weight and size so in the 18th century which was a classic period of the great power system everybody knew that Prussia was considerably weaker than France or even the UK so Prussia was very much the weakest of the great powers but it was a great power so the idea that that the great powers will be different in strength that's absolutely plain and that there will be large differences is also accepted. Now, you're right to say that the UK is under challenge in its great powerness. And that's the reason why on the cover of the book, at least of the UK edition, I've got four flags, but only two of those flags, the US flag and the PRC flag are pristine.

13:05And then the flag of the Russian Federation, as you'll have noticed and the union flag are frayed, quite considerably frayed at the margins. And what I was trying to suggest by that was exactly what you're alluding to, which is that the UK's position cannot be taken for granted. But what I would also say is that we shouldn't, and this is really as an historian, something that I insist on, is that we shouldn't be too fixated about a particular moment in time. So if we were to say, look at, you know, 50, 60 years ago, the UK, you know, in the mid 70s, 1976, you know, there's an IMF bailout of the UK, you know, rubbish is mounting in the streets, the whole country appears to be falling apart, and so on and so forth.

13:52And yet you had then a change of approach, you had Thatcherism, whatever you think of that, but there's a definite revival of UK power. So I think it's important not to think of this moment necessarily as defining the UK for all times. If the present trend persists of the last two or three years, then yes, if that continues for the next 10, 20, 30 years, then I think the time of the UK as a great power, that's over. Those days would then be numbered. But I don't believe that for a minute. I think there will be a change. I think defence expenditure will rise and it will also improve in quality.

14:32And we will see a return to the position that we had five or ten years ago. How does this bleed over into your reach category? Well, I think it is certainly affected in terms of the Chagos deal, if that were actually to go ahead, even though they are leased at the moment to the Americans, that would be a change. If there were to be talk of giving up Gibraltar or the sovereign base areas in Cyprus, and there are voices that are arguing for that, if that sort of approach persisted, then of course one would have to revise one's position on reach. But for now, that's not the case. Could you describe again what you qualify as reach here?

15:18Because again, it's military. Well, the military reach is easy to describe. So you're talking about heavy lift expeditionary capacities with all the problems there are around the carriers from time to time, all the problems around the number of ships that could be deployed recently in the Iran conflict and so on. Nevertheless, the UK is one of a small number of major actors which still has that capacity. But of course, reach can also be economic, it can be cultural, it can be diplomatic, it can be through the intelligence services. But across that spectrum, even though the FCDO is again in a little bit of a crisis, nevertheless, in diplomatic terms, the UK is seen as one of the really big players in the world.

16:05So the reach is not simply military. I'm reflecting a bit on what you said about your book's reception in France and of our reputation internationally. Is our reputation, especially when you leave the Anglosphere, does it really remain that of a great power? I think it remains certainly one of a very important part. just to give you an instance the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania a couple of weeks ago conducted a poll of 15 ,000 adults from 33 countries so not just from the Anglosphere and they asked them the question which are the most powerful countries in the world and interestingly enough I'm not saying these 15 ,000 people read my book but they all said the four most important powers were the United States the People's Republic of China the Russian Federation and the UK.

17:01So that was a poll recently conducted. I'm interested to find out why and how reputation made one of your four R's, because especially going through the first two of resources and reach, I can identify very tangible military successes, ownership, etc. Reputation feels ephemeral? Well, reputation is not just how others see us, but also whether one stands for something in the world. The reason why I use the word reputation is because I was really drawing on that remarkable, short, but very, very succinct article by Leopold von Ranke from 1833, the great granddaddy of history, if you like. And he wrote an article called The Great Powers.

17:51And he said, to be a great power, you not merely have to have the military heft, but you also have to stand for something in the world. So reputation is also for having a certain profile in the world. And I think in the case of the UK, the UK does stand in general for the defense of international law, for the defense of treaties, and is seen as a reliable alliance partner. It's not completely blameless in each of those respects, but certainly it enjoys a lot of credibility. And I think that's what you see reflected in these surveys. In 2024, the former head of MI6, Alex Younger, argued that the UK had made itself irrelevant through Brexit, that we had effectively been eclipsed by France, that Xi Jinping and Putin would have been delighted by the decision.

18:41And he also argued that although we were part of NATO, conflict is about more than war. It's now also about economics, technology, data. What do you think of his comment on Brexit in particular? Did it harm our status as a great power or leave it unaffected? I think I disagree with Sir Alex on this. I would struggle to identify many upsides of Brexit at the moment, but I don't think it did as much damage as he suggests and in some ways was almost irrelevant to the great power position. So if you take the military role, the UK was in February 2022 and thereafter for quite a long time, the most important European power supporting Ukraine and was recognized as that by the Ukrainians.

19:32So Zelensky's first visit to Europe in person when he was able to leave the country, he went first to London, then to Brussels. That was very significant. And of course, the reasons that I outlined earlier, powers, states in the Baltic and the High North looked to the UK as their natural leader within Europe after February 22, and indeed had done so beforehand, for example, through the joint expeditionary force. and insofar as they are unhappy with the UK, as they are to a certain extent, is that they're feeling that the UK should be doing more. It's their expectation that it should do more. And as I said earlier, I think it will do more in due course.

20:14So in that respect, I don't think Brexit made that much difference. In fact, if anything, Brexit encouraged the UK government to throw itself more into the defence of Europe in order to remain relevant. If it comes to the reputation of the UK within Europe, I think it's true that between 2016 and 2021, the UK's reputation did suffer, partly due to Brexit, partly due to the perceived handling of the pandemic. I think that's beyond question. But I think that what happened since then has really changed the dynamic. And I'll just give you an example here. The British Council a few years ago, I think it was 2023, did a survey of European youth.

20:58And if you compare that survey with a survey that it did eight years earlier, so before Brexit, it showed that actually European youth had a higher opinion of the UK in 2023 than it did in 2015. Now, that, of course, is not, and I stress this, is not because European youth approves of Brexit. I think we can safely assume it doesn't. I think what's more important is that European youth were able to look beyond Brexit and see that, you know, whether you agreed with Brexit or not, the UK is a very important actor and is to be admired and is to be visited. So I think the damage from Brexit can't be denied, I think, but it has been overestimated.

21:47I hope you're enjoying my conversation with Professor Brendan Sims. Don't forget you can subscribe to this podcast on BBC Sounds so you don't miss future episodes. Also, make sure you've got push notifications turned on and that way you'll get an alert whenever we publish a new episode so you'll never miss out. Now, back to Brendan Sims.

22:11I would be interested in understanding how the UK holds resilience where another country may not. So could you give us an example of a country that has shown less resilience? Well, almost all the other countries listed in the discussed in the book have shown less resilience historically. The exception might be the United States, which, of course, is a younger country. And it has had a history of surmounting difficulties. In the case of Russia, for example, you have catastrophic state failure in 1917 and then again between 1989 and 1991. So you have complete change of regime. That is without comparison in the British Isles since the 17th century.

22:58You know, we tend to beat ourselves up here in the UK. We discuss decline. We discuss all the problems. That ultimately is a healthy thing to do. Where you have to look out is in the case of autocracies like Russia, where you don't see the cracks until they're absolutely enormous. And then, of course, the regime disintegrates. So I've gone into detail on Russia. But you could say a similar thing about the PRC. I mean, it spends an absolute fortune on monitoring its own population. It is terrified of internal dissent. It is not in that sense a stable regime. You're talking about a country which again suffered catastrophic state failure in the 19th century and the 20th century.

23:42And it's the great fear of the CCP that that would happen again. And of, I think, Germany and Japan, we don't need to speak because we all know what happened in the Second World War and the extent to which that legacy still remains with them today. I appreciate we haven't had state failure anywhere near to the description you've just offered. But surely seven prime ministers in the last 10 years isn't great either, or a sign of resilience. It is obviously embarrassing. But equally, if you were to look at, let's say, the 18th century, there are periods when you've got very rapid change of ministries of prime ministers, often during wartime, and the system simply carries on.

24:26So I don't think we need to be too fixated on what I would describe as essentially a surface phenomenon. What worries me more than the number of prime ministers is the lack of sustained today and the last few years, sustained investment in the military and in other aspects. If that were dealt with, I'd be perfectly happy with a few more prime ministers. On the spending point, an MOD spokesperson has said,

25:22over£20 billion to boost army lethality through autonomous systems, long-range missiles, AI and armoured vehicles, and£8.6 billion in the Global Combat Air Programme to deliver a next-generation stealth fighter for the Royal Air Force. What do you make of that? Well, in general terms, I think it backs up my argument that the UK is a very important actor. The only comment I would have is that while all that is laudable, Of course, say compared to other states like Germany or like Poland, over the last couple of years, although defence expenditure has gone up, it has not kept pace with those states or indeed, I would say, with the overall threat.

26:07So that's welcome, but more is needed. They go on to say that the Chancellor has said the spending review will set out a clear pathway to spending 3.5 % of GDP on defence by 2035. and a target date on that path for 3%. I want to bring up some comments that were made on an episode of The Briefing Room, which is also on Radio 4. It was an assessment from General Sir Richard Barons, who's a former army general and one of the co-authors of the 2025 Major Strategic Defence Review. He made the point that the army is committed to providing to NATO a strategic reserve force of between 30 ,000 to 50 ,000 people, but that the army has not got the equipment, the training or the support to get anywhere close to delivering that yet.

26:58And so today's army, frankly, could do one very small thing. Essentially, it could seize a small market town on a good day. What's more, he added that the armed forces that we have now, because of their size, but also because of their sophistication, can only make a small contribution on land in the Air and at sea. What it cannot do is anything substantial on its own. Well, I'm a simple civilian. And of course, Sir Ritchie has enormous experience and expertise on this issue. I instinctively would agree with him on the army. I'm not persuaded that the Air Force and the Navy are unable to make a significant contribution.

27:45In fact, the general view is it can make a significant contribution, certainly in the Baltic and the High North. But yes, on the army, which as Sir Ritchie says, has been seriously under-resourced, it will obviously struggle in important respects. But at the same time, when we're looking at the opposition on the other side in the Baltic provinces with the Russians, that opposition at the moment is negligible because almost all the units that were deployed there before 2022 have been moved. Their equipment has been wrecked. Many of the cadres have simply been eliminated or injured by the Ukrainians.

28:30So it will take a while for the Russians to reconstitute a serious threat. And my hope is that the kind of issues that Sir Richard has identified will be addressed with the assistance of the monies that your statement from the MOD referred to. So that in two or three years' time, it will be a different picture. Obviously, if that's not done, then I think the army will not be able to deliver the deterrence posture. That's completely agreed. To our listeners who may accept that we are militarily a great power, what would you say to them if they responded back saying, we may well be a great power.

29:15I'm not feeling it. I'm experiencing a great cost of living crisis. Life actually feels terrible at the moment. How can two things be true at the same time? Well, maintaining a great power position is expensive. but what I would reply is say are you going to either feel any better or more importantly be any better off if the UK is not a great power if the UK is not there supporting international law defending allies helping to deter Russia if necessary keeping the sea lanes open how would not doing any of that make people in the UK a feel better and be safer I don't think it would. Do you think we're set to continue to be a great power under your for us taxonomy?

30:08Well, I stress very much the importance of history and path dependency, as the technical term is the expectation that things will continue to a certain extent in the direction once taken. So I think it would take quite a lot for the UK to no longer be a great power. But that seems to me inherently unlikely. I think that the sentiment within the country and within the elite is that the UK has an important role to play. So yes, my expectation is that 20, 30 years hence, the UK will still be a great power. I'm thinking about the US and China steaming ahead already in their great GDP reserves. And I'm thinking about technology and AI and the already sort of unfathomable tech sovereignty that those two nations have, it doesn't feel like we're anywhere near close to catching up at the moment.