A world of troubles for Liz Truss by Ian Bond
The new prime minister faces huge foreign policy challenges. She needs to choose her friends, her enemies and her policies carefully. The UK’s new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, is already suffering some self-inflicted wounds as a result of her economic and EU policy choices. She has also inherited enormous problems in foreign policy, which, if handled badly, will seriously damage the UK’s security. The most immediate challenge is Russia’s continued assault on Ukraine. Boris Johnson positioned himself as an enthusiastic backer of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Despite Johnson suggesting in 2016 that the EU was to blame for Russia’s 2014 intervention in Ukraine, his government was one of the first to sound the alarm in 2021 about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s preparations for invasion, and to supply weapons to Ukraine before the conflict started; and he was among the early visitors to Kyiv after the February 2022 invasion. Truss seems keen to follow his example: in her September 21st speech to the UN General Assembly she pledged to “sustain or increase our military support to Ukraine, for as long as it takes”. After taking office, her first telephone call with a foreign leader was with Zelenskyy, from whom she accepted an invitation to visit Kyiv. There are three questions that Truss needs to answer in relation to Ukraine:
What further sanctions can the UK
impose on Russia to pressure it to change course or constrain its ability to keep fighting, not just signal UK disapproval? At this stage of the conflict, putting more wealthy Russians on the sanctions list will not influence Putin’s thinking, so Truss’s focus should be on measures that target the functioning of the Russian state more directly. For instance, although the UK and EU initially agreed to deny marine insurance to ships carrying Russian oil as a way of cutting Moscow’s most important source of budget revenues, they later relented, fearing the effect on global oil prices. Truss should examine the issue again: oil prices have fallen from a high of about $120 per barrel in early March to about $80 per barrel at the time of writing.
What military aid to provide to Ukraine? So far the UK has committed or delivered £2.3 billion in defence assistance. But Putin is sending an additional 300,000 or more troops to Ukraine, aiming to renew the offensive, or at least to prevent Ukrainian forces from recapturing more territory. If the UK's objective remains that Ukraine should restore its sovereignty over all its territory, Kyiv will need more weapons and ammunition, ideally before Russia’s reinforcements arrive. Among other things, the UK could send more of its multiplelaunch rocket systems and the missiles to go with them, provided that London is willing