Britain losing interest in leading?

Perhaps it’s a little harsh to say there’s nothing special about the UK. The United Kingdom remains an influential country in international politics, especially throughout the Commonwealth, and the capital city, London, is headquarters to some of the world’s biggest companies and home to one of the largest stock exchanges in the world.

It would seem, from glancing through the newspapers on any given day, that the UK is in a constant state of disorder, a recent news article listed the ways in which anti-social behavior was on the increase, with binge drinking topping the list. The country is also constantly ‘going to the dogs’ so to speak, opinion pieces are always littered with diatribes about the perilous future of a once-great country.

This based in large part on the nature of British people, the UK is a highly critical country, critical of those around them, and of their government. At the same time, recent opinion polls suggest that the majority of people in Britain do not care that the UK is no longer a world-power, they’re more concerned about what is happening at home.

And the politics at home is an indication of the inner-conflict of the British psyche, what happens at home influences the country’s standing internationally.

For example, Britain currently faces a brain drain, which has been brought about in part by the recession. The government is eager, due to public pressure, to close the budget deficit that has driven the country’s public debt up into the hundreds of billions, and so a number of funding projects have been cut.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, recently announced that the government would be cutting back on funding for university and research grants to the tune of $900 million, while other developed countries surge ahead with research funding.

France has increased its public spending for research projects by $47 billion, and Germany plans to spend, between now and 2013, an extra $16 billion on science and education. The massive stimulus package that the US government rolled out in 2009 had $100 billion allocated for science and research, and will be further increased by around 5% for the next few years.

When Britain tried to send an unmanned lunar module to Mars and land it on the surface, the highly-publicised failure of the project was a national embarrassment, and instead of investing more money in the project and trying again – to prove the world wrong, to prove that we could do it – the public lost interest in the project and said it was a waste of money.

Now, a recent article in Time Magazine, has examined the extent to which the UK military forces have been over-strained and underfunded for the two wars in the Middle East, leaving the UK’s defense forces in a shameful state. This is not just the government’s fault, but also the public because they recent spending money on the military when it could be spent on tax breaks or welfare services (both reasonable requests).

At the same time, the direct in which the country wants to go is confused, the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) recently called for a plan that would wean the UK off fossil fuels by 2030. But this can only be done through heavy investment in technology, such as research and development of renewable energies, but the UK will fall behind the rest of the world because funding is being reduced.

Instead, the country is focusing on the here and now, while the CAT calls for greener energy, and the rest of world tries to take steps in that direction, the UK is expanding its oil fields in the Wessex Basin, which already has Europe’s largest onshore oil field. Oil remains a vital fossil fuel for the world, but it will eventually run out, though no one knows when (forty years ago they said it would run out in forty years, now scientists are giving us another forty).

But it will eventually run out, and Britain, the first country to do a number of things, including utilizing steam power, which back in the 18^th century was first seen as expensive and useless, should at least make an effort to be the first to do a few others things, such as taking the leading steps toward sustainable energy.

Currently, only 6% of the national power grid is supplied via renewable energy.

And while countries like Russia, China and India expand their space exploration activities, the UK’s space ambitions have become something of a memory.

The UK isn’t a world power anymore, but it is still an influential country. The country is similar to its Queen: the UK has no real power of international politics, just as the Queen has no real power over the running of the government, but she remains influential, if she summons the Prime Minister to a meeting, he will certainly obey. Similarly, when the UK takes action on an issue, much of the world usually watches. The UK remains an influential leader, over the commonwealth and a number of other countries, and it should at least make an effort to lead by example.

All empires, and all moments of greatness or power come and go. The UK is part of a long list of territories that had their moment in history, the Romans, the Macedonians, the Americans, and now China seems eager to reclaim the glory taken from it during the colonial period. America will eventually become like the UK, an old country that was once a super-power. The age of empires and superpowers is over. After the Second World War, and even up until the 90s, the US was the most powerful country in the world, but its time is limited, just as the UK’s time as a world power was limited after WWII.

The US is not decreasing in power and influence; it is simply being matched by previously ‘developing countries’ like China. India, Brazil, and Russia are also on the upward trend, and may help create a system of inter-dependence in world politics.

Inter-dependence isn’t a bad thing, it was recently suggested as a solution to the crisis of the over-stretched military, a solution in which the UK and France would pair up so that our former rivals could ease some of the strain on the UK. There’s nothing wrong with admitting the country needs help, but it’s much better if we still pull some of our own weight.