Prof John Bew, the historian appointed by Boris Johnson to write the foreign and defence security review, has privately insisted the document should not be seen as an apology for Brexit or a turning away from Europe, the charge sometimes levelled by pro-EU critics such as the former national security adviser Lord Ricketts and Sir Simon Fraser, the former foreign office permanent secretary. It is instead intended as a hard-headed look at the new collective security threats facing Britain, many of which, notably the rise of China, the spread of authoritarianism, the challenge of the climate crisis and the ubiquity of cyberwarfare, the UK would have faced in or out of the European Union. The review also insists the UK is not going to run away from Europe, even if it is lamentably short on how on how the UK will cooperate with the EU on security in future. It stresses the UK will continue to be the leading European power in the Nato alliance and the UK’s defence of the Euro-Atlantic area is unequivocal. The bulk of the UK’s defence forces will remain in this region. So the tilt to the Indo-Pacific is visible, but it is by no means a lurch to the east. The departure point for the review is not meant to be Brexit. It is the belief that the preservation of the post-cold war, rules-based international system, the system Clement Attlee – the subject of a distinguished Bew biography – constructed after 1945, is no longer enough. “The international order is more fragmented, characterised by intensifying competition between states over interests, norms and values. A defence of the status quo is no longer sufficient for the decade ahead,” it says. This new context is then defined by “China’s increasing international assertiveness and the growing importance of the Indo-Pacific; systemic competition, including between states, and between democratic and authoritarian values and systems of government; rapid technological change, climate change, terrorism and serious crime.” But the passage on China, the section most likely to be scrutinised by those Tory backbenchers looking for “a Fulton, Missouri moment”, is hardly integrated. It says China’s increasing power is likely to be “the most significant geostrategic factor of the 2020s”. It picks up on the themes of China as a systemic competitor already used by the EU and Biden, but then ends up in a hotchpotch. It maintains China and the UK both benefit from bilateral trade and investment, but China also presents the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security. The circle is squared by saying the UK wants more Chinese investment, but the UK will do more to protect itself from the security threats posed by that investment. Boris Johnson defended this stance as “balanced”. Although the review generally says UK values and its interests are well aligned around the world, nowhere is this less the case than in China. The solution ultimately offered by the review lies not in confrontation, but in greater cooperation with democratic, maritime allies across the Indo-Pacific, describing the area as the crucible for many of our most pressing global challenges. The review promises that the UK will become a more persistent presence in the region than any other European power, claims that will startle the French and Germans. It highlights the trading opportunities the region offers, holding out hope of membership of free and economic clubs and, without mentioning China directly, warns of the threat posed to UK shipping. Here the Indo-Pacific experts such as Professor Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at the Australian National University, have already urged the UK to calibrate, and not focus over much on a decisive military contribution. There are also many oddities in the reviews. It ends the goal of cutting the UK’s strategic nuclear stockpile, perhaps to divide the Labour party or assert great power status, but either way largely without explanation. Defence experts were even divided about what in practice the ambiguously worded commitment meant in terms of actual number of future warheads. The UK as a force for nuclear non-proliferation is thrown out the window. Iran will laugh – not that it matters – the next time the British foreign secretary lectures Tehran on its nuclear programme. There are also omissions. Keir Starmer, the Labour leader pointed to the complete lack of detail on the rumoured imminent army cuts. Johnson merely promised there would be no armed forces redundancies. For all the talk of being a force for good, the review takes the reader on a lightning trip round the Gulf states, spotlighting the trade opportunities, but without once mentioning the squalid state of human rights in the region. It’s as if Jamal Khashoggi is still filing for the Washington Post, and Princess Latifa not trapped in Dubai. Although the review describes the UK as a soft-power superpower, overseas aid is given no status. In the Commons, Johnson refused repeatedly to give a timescale or criteria by when the UK will return to its legal and manifesto commitment to spend 0.7% of national income in the world, resting on its longstanding formula when fiscal circumstances allow. Ministers will clearly wriggle as much as they can to avoid a Commons vote that their backbenchers are demanding. It’s a foolish international calling card for the UK to throw away, but this is a review in which the traditional advocates of hard power have crushed the modern advocates of soft power. Finally, there are some delphic references to future cooperation with Europe, including the Lancaster House agreement with Paris, but unless relations with Brussels improve in the medium term, all the ambitions for an agile outward global role as a broker and problem-solver could yet fall apart.