The Pentagon hopes that the British military will focus more on Europe than Asia, a major policy shift from the Biden administration that prompts European allies to promote activities in the Indo-Pacific region and send a strong signal to China.
According to five people familiar with the matter, U.S. Department of Defense policy deputy secretary Elbridge Colby told British officials that the Trump administration believes the British military should focus on the European Atlantic region.
Colby, the third-highest Pentagon official, also expressed concerns that London would send its HMS Prince of Wales Prirscraft airline to deployment, including time in the Indo-Pacific.
He has long believed that European countries should take more responsibility for the security of their regions, especially in the war in Ukraine, to free up the U.S. military to focus more on China and the Indo-Pacific.
The push marks a 180-degree hub for the Biden administration, and the rival believes that strengthening Europe's military presence in Asia will help resist radical Chinese military activities in the region and help prevent President Xi Jinping's decision to attack Taiwan.
In recent years, European countries including the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Netherlands have traveled across the South China Sea due to opposition from Beijing. In 2021, the Pentagon welcomes the "historic" deployment of Queen Elizabeth Airlines in the UK to the Indo-Pacific.
In pushing Europe to do more in the Pacific region, in the first half of the Biden administration, White House Indo-Pacific Tsar Kurt Campbell argued that the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Theater were linked.
"This decision shows that the Trump administration will try to link the two, which may make allies in both regions more focused on the prospect of continued U.S. regional participation," said Zack Cooper, an Asian security expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
The new policy is aggravation by Europe as Beijing launches a charm offensive against Europe in an attempt to reverse previous U.S. efforts to boycott European countries in opposition to China.
One familiar with the issue said the UK “has been active globally, including working closely with the United States on Europe-Atlantic priorities” but “take care of its own interests and partnerships around the world, both in Europe, the Middle East or the Indian-Indian-Pacific.”
While U.S. military officers will generally like to have more European military presence in the Pacific, the Trump administration’s civilian policy team at the Pentagon wants countries to focus more on their own regions.
Colby said this week that increasing defense spending to 5% of GDP was "critical". As part of his push for investment in defense investment, he recently told Congress that Japan should spend more than its planned target and said Taiwan should spend 10%.
“It is natural for the Trump administration to see that it focuses on the European subcontinent and Russian threats (rather than in Asia or elsewhere). “It is a luxury to deploy peacetime naval diplomacy to other regions, and I just believe Europe can afford it these days.”
But critics say the rising cooperation between Iran, Russia, North Korea and China means the United States should seek help from allies outside its region.
"Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific theaters have always been closely linked," said an official from an Indo-Pacific country. "But security today is more inseparable than ever - especially because the global axis of powerful authoritarian revisionist power resurfaces."
The UK Ministry of Defense said, “Because it will work closely with our U.S. and Indo-Pacific allies later this year, in the strike group deployment of our operator strike group with the HMS Prince, this is due to exercises conducted later this year”.
The Pentagon declined to comment.