The government’s integrated review of foreign and security policy, published yesterday, has landed surprisingly well considering that much of the Whitehall blob has been so dismissive of Boris Johnson’s concept of Global Britain. A few longstanding critics have been snippy about the new document. But no one can disagree that the review offers a genuine strategy.
In recent years, one of the most persistent ideas about the UK’s future on the world stage has been that we cannot make a go of things post-Brexit. Such ideas, so the counter-argument goes, are based on the deluded nostalgia of a ‘buccaneering’ nation, foolishly going it alone on trade and much else besides.
But the Global Britain strategy which emerges from the integrated review offers a different, more cautious and calculating approach. Instead of a swashbuckling spirit, one finds — unusually for a government document of this type — finely-tuned strategic prescriptions and a laudably clear-eyed analysis of the strategic landscape.
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