The Uk’s reset diplomacy towards the EU: implications for peace on the korean peninsula in the era of polycrisis

Abstract

This article examines the United Kingdom’s post-Brexit reset diplomacy toward the European Union and explores its implications for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula in the era of polycrisis. Moving beyond the binary framing of rupture versus reversal, it argues that the reset represents a form of pragmatic diplomacy characterised by selective and functionally bounded cooperation conducted within enduring political and legal constraints. Conceptually, the article links polycrisis to a diplomatic environment in which adaptability, risk management, and issue-specific coordination take precedence, understanding it not merely as the coexistence of multiple crises but as their interaction across security, economic, and institutional domains that structurally limits diplomatic choice. Empirically, it shows how the UK–EU reset has unfolded through incremental initiatives aimed at stabilising interaction in specific policy areas, while deliberately avoiding the reopening of foundational disputes associated with Brexit. Building on this analysis, the article extends its framework to the Korean Peninsula, which is similarly shaped by interacting security dilemmas, great-power competition, contested sanctions governance, and geoeconomic fragmentation. Rather than proposing the UK–EU reset as a transferable policy model, it identifies broader analytical lessons on diplomacy under persistent structural constraint, arguing that peace and security are more plausibly advanced through multi-vector, issue-specific engagement and strategies of risk containment than through comprehensive settlement efforts or assumptions of institutional convergence.