Rishi Sunak: A 21st-Century Democratic Alliance
More defense spending is necessary but not enough. We also need cooperation on trade and technology.
By Rishi Sunak
Illustration: Chad CroweThe next decade will be one of the most dangerous yet most transformational periods the world has ever seen.
Democratic market states must seize this moment and shape it.
If they don’t, it will be the axis of authoritarian states—China, Russia, Iran and North Korea—that takes advantage of this opportunity.
The international order that has existed since the end of the Cold War is gone and won’t return.
Electorates have rejected it, and its limits have become all too apparent.
Technology is transforming the world. Old-fashioned great-power competition is returning.
In China the U.S. faces a credible economic, technological and military rival for the first time in 40 years.
Economic, security and technology cooperation must go hand in hand in this environment.
Neither standard free-trade agreements nor 19th-century-style military alliances are sufficient to the moment.
We need to create a partnership that spans all of these areas, and I am delighted to be working with my colleagues at the Hoover Institution on this issue.
The U.S. must realize that no country on its own can face down the axis of authoritarian states.
But together, democratic market economies can outcompete any rival coalition and deliver peace and prosperity for their people.
We can’t expect to benefit from our friends’ protection if we don’t contribute ourselves.
Europeans must be willing to make greater sacrifices for our own security.
So the keystone of this new partnership must be for everyone to increase defense spending.
Nearly all members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are committed to spending 5% on national security by 2035.
But we need a broader arrangement—one that spans the Indo-Pacific as well as the Euro-Atlantic.
And defense research and development is as important as ordering military equipment.
By itself the U.S. can’t rearm at the pace needed; the Jiangnan shipyard in China has more capacity than every U.S. shipyard put together.
But South Korea and Japan are the second- and third-largest ship producers in the world.
A combined allied production strategy would be able to compete with China.
In a time of stretched public finances in nearly every country—governments in the U.K., France and Germany have all fallen over budget in recent years—this increase in defense spending will be possible only if our economies grow more quickly.
That’s why we need minimal trade friction—both tariffs and nontariff barriers—between democratic market economies.
So the second plank of this new partnership should be free, reciprocal trade among countries that contribute to our collective security.
The economic might of democratic market states is the most powerful tool in our arsenal.
It is one way to persuade key global swing states to side with us rather than China and Russia.
The economic boost from greater trade among allies would also help reduce the economic pain from the need to decouple from China in strategically important areas.
In an era of full-spectrum competition, we can’t trade with rivals the same way we do with friends.
This derisking must be the third element of our new partnership.
Covid showed us how China regards trade as an instrument of coercion.
China controls the supply chain for dozens of critical goods—and not only minerals.
More than 1 in 4 essential medications, including more than 80% of antibiotics, rely on Chinese-sourced ingredients.
It is unrealistic to think that any country can be self-sufficient in every strategically important resource.
But collectively, the world’s democracies could achieve this goal.
The fourth element must be technological cooperation.
To guard against and slow technology transfer to rivals, members should agree on a joint approach to export and investment controls in sensitive sectors and to research protections.
Countries that fail to do this or leave themselves dependent on Chinese technology should be excluded from reciprocal free trade.
Hard alignment is required here—there can be no tolerance for hedging on frontier technologies.
More positively, the U.S. and its allies should share and develop intellectual property with one another when it enhances national security.
If China overtakes us in artificial intelligence, it will gain not only economic but strategic primacy, given its potential military applications.
Xi Jinping has been clear that “advanced technology is the sharp weapon of the modern state” and that he is prepared to use asymmetric means to achieve this.
Again, alliances are required to enhance our security and prosperity.
The semiconductor supply chain involves critical companies from Europe, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, not only the U.S.
It’s telling that the Chinese have tried to take advantage of the current discontents in the trans-Atlantic relationship to push the Netherlands to relax export controls on lithography machines.
The fifth pillar is energy, the economy’s lifeblood since the industrial revolution.
Given that AI is an energy-intensive industry, the importance of cheap, reliable power is only increasing.
The U.S., through ingenuity and determination, has achieved energy independence.
But this isn’t true of many allies, which creates risks.
Vladimir Putin thought he could break the West’s will by driving up energy prices.
Our strategic rivals know the importance of energy: China will be the biggest operator of nuclear power by the end of this decade.
Beijing is ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to commercializing fourth-generation nuclear technology.
We should launch a new civil nuclear partnership to lower the costs and spread the benefits of the technology and learn from the successes of countries like South Korea.
Talk of a new economic, technology and security architecture among allies inevitably sounds abstract.
But it is really about providing peace and prosperity for people.
We face a choice about what I call the short 21st century.
Democratic market states may come together to outcompete every potential rival coalition and deliver decades of astonishing economic and technological progress.
Or they may fail to adjust to these new times and let an authoritarian axis shape a new world order where might makes right, where technology bolsters authoritarianism and curtails individual liberty, and where trade is a weapon of coercion.
The choice of future is ours—for now.
But we must act quickly and decisively to ensure that the coming decades deliver a secure and prosperous future for our citizens.
Mr. Sunak served as Britain’s prime minister, 2022-24, and is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.
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