Future foreign policy
Daniel Korski 1:33pm
If the Tories win power (still a big “if” these days), William Hague will walk into King Charles Street, be greeted by the FCO’s Permanent Secretary Peter Ricketts, meet his new staff and be briefed on the Office he will lead and the foreign challenges Britain faces. There will be plenty on his plate. Calls from foreign dignitaries, preparations for forthcoming summits, a discussion of key priorities, and suggestions for how to reorganise the machinery of government. There will also be a need to prepare the FCO’s contribution to a cost-cutting exercise.
But there ought to be an early discussion about how the world is changing and the new context of Britain’s foreign policy. The world is still experiencing the most dangerous financial and economic crisis since the 1930s. But as the FT’s Martin Wolf has said, “it is also a crisis for foreign policy: a deep recession will shake political stability across the globe.” Here are a number of key trends that any new occupant in the gilded Foreign Secretary’s office ought to consider.
i) A smaller US. The most important change is the “minimisation” of the US and its credibility across the world. It will force the US to look inwards, and has in some ways already done so; it will mean a more realist conceptions of interests (see links with China and Russia) and it will undermine its role as a proponent for free-market capitalism (and perhaps even laissez-faire economics).
ii) The rise of the lynchpin states. These are the middling powers, the sub-BRIC strata of states, that are becoming increasingly important in the international systems, vital even to solve many problems, and certainly able to block progress. They include Chile, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Korea.
iii) The return of “hard” security. The world was meant to be focused on risks, and trans-global issues, not state-based threats. But with the collapse of the Copenhagen negotiations and, as Richard Gowan says, rising nationalist and populist forces at home, hard security issues are coming back, while the odds for preventing inter-state competition (whether in Central Asia, Latin America or the Gulf) are diminishing.
iv) The creation of the “Turkosphere”, a virtual empire, mapping on to the Ottoman Empire, that stretches from the Balkans, Central Asia and the Middle East – and into the EU – where the Ankara government is exercising increasing influence and promoting businesses, and championing its brand of Islam.
v) The death of Gaullism. The most resonant piece of evidence for the death of Gaullism was the feebleness of the resistance against France’s full return into Nato’s military integration. As Thomas Klau notes: Sarkozy is the final nail in Gaullism’s coffin, Dominique de Villepin its last hurrah.
vi) Germany’s introspection. For decades, Berlin’s steadfast Europeanism was a given, while the country slowly but surely normalised its international role. This has now seemed to stop. Germany is turning inwards, reverting to its erstwhile pacifism, and no longer seems interested in promoting EU solutions.
vii) The retirement of Japan. Some states are in decline, others are rising, but Japan is simply retiring. Tokyo is simply withdrawing from world affairs (see for example the withdrawal of forces from the Afghan theatre) and is accepting the future shape of a post-American Asia, dominated by China.
vii) The explosion of SAHEL. The ungoverned/misgoverned territory stretching from the Horn of Africa to the Western Sahara's Atlantic coast is emerging as tomorrow’s trouble spot. Drug-smuggling, underdevelopment and misrule in Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania, makes the region ripe for Al Qaeda.
ix) Mosaic multilateralism. The formal, institutionalized nation-state multilateralism, which has characterized much of the Cold War period is disappearing to give way to a new form of multilateral cooperation, which accords more power to the BRICs, includes non-state actors like the IPCC, and will see the return of “coalitions of the willing” inside formal organizations like NATO.
x) The re-birth of exportism and foreign economic policy. Not quite neo-mercantilism, the economic crisis is making states focus their foreign policies on encouraging exports and national industries and reap the benefits that accrue. France’s arms deal with Russia is a good example; it was a commercial decision dressed up in strategic rhetoric.
xi) The end of value-promotion. The realism brought about by the economic crisis in the West, the vicissitudes of the War on Terror, the undermining of democracy in several EU member-states, and the global attractiveness of Russia’s “Sovereign Democracy” and China’s authoritarian capitalism means that it will be harder to promote liberal values, including democracy and human rights concerns.
xii) No "rogues". Finally, as Nader Mousavizadeh noted, the world that created "rogue states" is gone. The idea of "the rogue state" assumed the existence of an world community, unified to support certain values and interests, and different than the renegades who broke the rules. But this community has disappeared. The "international community" as defined by Western values is a fiction, and that for many states the term "rogue" applies to the US and Britain as much as to Venezuela.
I have probably missed a number of trends, while others have not yet become apparent. There are those people who will accuse me of being too state-centric – I’m guilty as charged. But, while there are plenty of transnational issues and actors to contend with, I think nation states remain the dominant player in world affairs. Others will say I have missed some cross-cutting issues, like energy and climate change. Perhaps, but these are already well-known, high on the Tory agenda and dealt with in the FCO.
The big omission – and answer to what Britain ought to do about all this – has been consciously omitted for a very simple reason: I have no clue. But the Foreign Office should know which trends a new British government should row with, which ones they should oppose and which new ones they should seek to encourage. I can already see the shape of the Foreign Secretary’s first request to his new department.
Previous
Roller
March 3rd, 2010 2:11pm Report this commentBritish foriegn policy is paying the price for Labour being indecisive in terms of its role in the world. The debate of whether we should focus on the EU, United States or both has now led to a confused position on the world stage. Nobody seems to know what Britain is good at in terms of diplomacy.
I am suspicious of the rise of China - they have different priorities and not all of them are good. Therefore, Britain should focus its efforts on the English speaking world, who by and large, embrace the free market ideology - 'anglo-saxon economics' - Thus, with a strong support for India's economy, Britain can retain a crucial role on the world stage and have its destiny decided by Britain and not outside events.
Of course, we have to rebuild our shattered economy first before we advocate the cause of the free market ideal to the world.
Richard
March 3rd, 2010 2:13pm Report this commentI think the only foriegn trips William will be taking are his holidays when the old tory grandee's are finished with him for his falsehoods and mis-speaks on Ashcroft.
He is regarded as a bigger joke in Europe than Nigel Fararge.
Totally out of his depth as a Foriegn sec well even out of his depth in a paddling pool. Only good Trip thing would be to get him in a snatch land rover crossing Helmand province eating a pork pie while reading the gay times.....Hehe!!!
Bring on the TV debates. Bring on Paxo, William will be minced especially after the Tories are threatening to expose his salary
Sir Graphus
March 3rd, 2010 2:45pm Report this commentDon't see how (xii) can be said with any confidence. There's a list of potentials a mile long.
Chris
March 3rd, 2010 2:45pm Report this commentWhat Britain ought to do, for a start, is avoid like the plague letting a self-important intellectual lightweight like Hague anywhere near the Foreign Office.
Piers Fallowcherry
March 3rd, 2010 2:51pm Report this commentBlimey Mr Korski.
How little I know, never mind understand. Will pay attention from now on – here and elsewhere. Promise.
Piers
Verity
March 3rd, 2010 3:27pm Report this commentRichard and Chris - I hope the scars from your prefrontal lobotomies are healing nicely.
General Zod
March 3rd, 2010 3:42pm Report this commentI find it most amusing that a Labour apparatchik like Richard can write that Hague would be out of his depth after the succession of pygmies who have failed to fill the office of Foreign Secretary under Labour.
Margaret Beckett - who would have believed that such a person could be put forward to represent the UK? I suppose the answer is the same people who put forward Baroness Ashton (had to look up her name, as I'd forgotten already) as the EU Foreign Representative.
Occasional Ostrich
March 3rd, 2010 3:52pm Report this commentChris
March 3rd, 2010 2:45pm
You don't think he'll be an improvement on ANY of the incumbents since 2nd May 1997 (A day that will live in infamy.)?
Such as, let me see . . . Robin Cook? Jack Straw? The millipede?
Hague, however he may p*ss YOU off, at least sees the world as it, and well understands the idiocy of "A foreign policy with an ethical dimension".
p.s. Seems Jacob Zuma's got us bang to rights, them?
Occasional Ostrich
March 3rd, 2010 3:54pm Report this commentThanks, G. Zod.
I'd totally forgotten about Beckett. Perhaps an indication of how effective she was???
Sir Graphus
March 3rd, 2010 4:00pm Report this commentToo right, Zodders.
Richard
March 3rd, 2010 4:18pm Report this comment@General Zod,
I think you will find Milliband is held in very high regard and even his beloved Sleazy Tory party acknowledge Robin Cooke was a man of real stature.
@Dorothy
The scar is healling fine Dot but not the one you think.... the one when I had my Conservative membership card surgically removed from my wallet The day Norman Lamont told us it was a sad day that he had to announce we were to leave the exchange rate mechanism and he was sorry to have wasted billions of pounds proping up his economic ineptitude.
Richard
March 3rd, 2010 4:21pm Report this commentCorrection last post should read @verity and not Dorothy.....sorry thinking of the wizard of Oz at the time perhaps...
General Zod
March 3rd, 2010 4:40pm Report this commentNo, Richard, Miliband is not held in high regard. Just type "Miliband India trip" into google for an example of the many occasions on which he has embarrassed the country.
Sir Graphus
March 3rd, 2010 4:42pm Report this commentI would imagine you'd be keeping quiet about Cook, Richard; a fine man of principal, too principled to hold that office under Blair, and then too principled to take part in the Labour govt, so he resigned.
oldtimer
March 3rd, 2010 4:54pm Report this commentA useful list. I am not very convinced about the inclusion of the IPCC - apart from the welcome collapse of the Copenhagen conference, the IPCC seems to have got itself into something of a pickle over the quality of the evidence it employs to promote its cause.
The key to all this is the significant relative decline of the UKs economic power. It will take at least the life of one parliament, possibly two, for the UK to be restored to financial health. Meantime the BRICS and many of their neighbours will power ahead.
An early clue will be the outcome of the strategic defence review. Another will be the progress, or otherwise, of the EUs own foreign policy ambitions post the Lisbon treaty. Curiously you do not mention this. Is it because you think the nation states within the EU will tell Van Rompuy and Ashton to butt out? And that the EU bureaucrats will count for nothing?
djw2009
March 3rd, 2010 8:52pm Report this commentAlmost none of the things mentioned are anything to do with the UK. We cannot attempt to strut round the world stage for ever, and should not try to. Daniel Korski is actually shilling for the Foreign Office and the attempts of its mandarins to continue embezzling public funds. The whole thing should be drastically cut back. Who gives a damn about Mauritania? If we don't allow immigration from that country, its problems won't become ours.
Lear Berlin, Germany
March 4th, 2010 12:09am Report this commentThe comment sounds like it was made in a Cold war era, where singular nations have acted on a sovereign basis.
In a world with a globalized economy, globalized media (internet), globalized climate problems and supranational politics (EU) this perspective seems very outdated.
Its probably Britains insular position without neighbors which is still responsible for this perspective and probably the reason why this country is so disorientated in a highly interdependent world.
2trueblue
March 4th, 2010 12:39am Report this commentAs we all try and get ourselves out of the worst reccession since the 1930's it is interesting to note that India is powering away in more ways than one. They have the highest number of young educated workers in the world. The rest of us have a growing number of our population that are older. On that basis alone could it be that India will be more important?
Fuel might also be the driver of diplomatic alliances as everyone tries to see that they are able to get their share.
Richard,
Millie 1 could not even learn the customs and manners for his trip to India and put his big foot in it.
Millie 2 has no idea about the real world. We all have to get out of the recession and windmills are not going to do the stuff, so climate change will take a different track. Some real intelligence needed here.
Derek Pasquill
March 4th, 2010 12:14pm Report this commentThere is only one question to ask: is the FCO committed to protecting the UK's interests or is it intent on promoting a Pax Islamica in alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood?
All the evidence points toward the latter - resulting in a sort of cataplomacy (from the Greek, cata: breakdown, loosen)inevitably leading to a catapax.
Perhaps Hague could offer an amnesty to those officials willing to revoke their ideological commitments - the rest should feel the full force of the law.
Mark Bicknell
March 4th, 2010 12:33pm Report this commentMichael Gove said on Newsnight the other day that Lord Ashcroft has provided less than 1% of total Conservative funding over the last 10 years. As it is asserted that Ashcroft has given at least £15million in that time that implies that the Conservative Party has received about £1.5 billion over the last 10 years or £150 million a year. Clearly nonsense. Anyone any idea of the true figure?
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