[sepositus]

I don't think the issue is whether or not it's obvious. It boils down to weighing the risks. It seems to me that the weight has favored dependence on another superpower for the past several decades. I'm sure everyone involved understood that the consequence of that decision was quasi-sovereignty. I'm not in Europe, so I'm not sure what the UK government has been saying this whole time, but it probably sounds really bad to admit that publicly. So, I'm sure they perform lingual acrobatics to try to reassure the public that they are truly independent when it comes to military security.

Perhaps it's a naive take, but I'm just armchairing this from the perspective of playing a 4x grand strategy game and the sort of decisions you have to make in these contexts.

[generalizations]

Anything can be called 4D chess if we add enough layers to the logic. I agree that what you're describing makes sense; but I think it's probably more in line with the bureaucratic mindset to observe this is the result of decades of kicking cans down the road.

[sepositus]

Yes, unlike the "player" in a 4x game, there's too much discontinuity in administrations between decades. Makes it very easy to kick the can down the road.