BRITAIN is increasingly “paralysed and bewildered” as it tries to respond to differences between Europe and the United States over defence, a senior Whitehall official has said.

The Government is putting its defence links with America at risk in order to enhance its credentials with the European Union and particularly France, which is keen on a superpower alliance with China, the official has said. Britain should reject attempts to turn the EU into a defence bloc that opposes US foreign policy in principle, the official says. “Britain’s defence strategy has been confused by the lack of a coherent vision and the desire of political elites to be part of the European project.“

The warnings come from a senior foreign and security policy official in a report published by the New Frontiers Foundation think-tank. He has spoken out on condition of anonymity; sources say he has been at the top of policy-making.

He reveals a new risk to transatlantic relations over the development of Galileo, the EU’s space-based navigation programme “which has been poorly thought through and practically ignored”. The Americans, he says, are rightly concerned about the consequences should a future adversary get control of the system, for which collaboration with China is being proposed. Britain is campaigning to stop the system being used for military purposes.

The official says that the shift towards a European defence system threatens to lead to French domination of key contracts and a world power split, with Britain locked into a European alliance with Russia, China and India.

The report says that the EU’s attitude towards defence is driven by the hubristic desire among some European elites to rival America as a global power. Yet despite the posturing, Europe is spending less and falling well behind America. “It cannot be argued that the UK should attempt to follow US spending but neither should it be assumed that the only alternative is to follow France.”

Britain’s interests are said to lie in closer ties with America — the present approach of going along with European policy, spending less and pretending that EU-US tensions do not exist will destroy the “bridge” that the Prime Minister is trying to maintain.

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