Description
In this paper, we assess the meaning of the increasing framing of UK foreign policy in terms of geopolitical necessities. This ‘geopoliticization’ of foreign policy draws an explicit linkage between geopolitics and an earlier emphasis on a values-led foreign policy. In this, the UK participates in a broader European trend, showing how much it remains embedded in pan-European dynamics after Brexit. Importantly, it also illustrates the persistence of imperial imaginaries in British and European foreign policy. ‘Geopolitics’ is a naturalizing trope, suggesting natural and unavoidable factors are driving foreign policy. In contemporary European discourse, it is used to claim a reactive turn to geopolitics in the face of Russian aggression. This however erases the way that geopolitical imaginaries are connected to specific ideological choices with particular genealogies. Both in Britain and the EU, geopolitical imaginaries have long-standing connections to imperialism and nationalism. As this paper will argue, the current ‘geopoliticization’ of UK foreign policy needs to be understood in this context and points to continuing imperial legacies now feeding into a current turn to reactionary nationalism. Rather than a natural necessity, the turn to geopolitics shows how the current ideological moment co-produces foreign policy choices.
