The headlines this past week have been about further terrible events in Gaza and the desperate need for a sustained ceasefire, alongside a paradigm shift in the way the war is conducted, but foreign policy is rarely at the centre of general election campaigns and 2024 is unlikely to be an exception. However, the UK does not have the luxury of thinking that the rest of the world doesn’t matter.
This was one of the delusions of Brexit: that there is a future where our destiny depends only on our own decisions rather than on our ability to engage, incentivise, bargain with and deter others.
The danger for British policymakers was exemplified by the Johnson government, with its wishful thinking about our power and position in a world dominated by increasing global risks and muscular, transactional, adroit – sometimes predatory – nations and non-state actors, all growing in influence by the weakening of the multilateral system.
Britain still has global reach and global power, and retains hard and soft power. We are one of the richer countries and are privileged in our position on the UN security council. But we have an imperative to understand the realities of our power in today’s world.
We do not have the finance of Saudi Arabia, the EU anchor of France, the regional activism and risk-appetite of Turkey, or the demographic strength of India or Indonesia. We are one among a number of “middle powers” in the global system. Our wealth, military assets and reputation have all declined relative to others in the last decade.
Our position on critical interests, from the economy to the climate crisis, national security and international development, will get worse unless we get our act together. The reason is simple: the world is trending towards an unhealthy disequilibrium, and Britain is on the wrong side of some of the key trends.
The new world disorder is being shaped by two forces: the fragmentation of global power and the rise of global risks.
America and the west are still strong in some important ways, but a host of countries are increasingly unwilling to do as the west wants. Sometimes this is because of grievances about the mismanagement of globalisation; in other cases, there is hedging about Chinese or Russian power. This is not a stable “multipolar” world of distinct and balanced blocs. It is a “multi-aligned” world that is much more fluid and unstable.
Meanwhile, global challenges such as pandemics, migration and climate change are crashing into front rooms around the world. David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, calls these “problems without passports”. Their mismanagement represents a critical failure of this era of globalisation. What’s worse is that these global risks are exacerbated by fragmentation in geopolitics.
This leaves Britain with four critical questions that the next government must answer.
The first is about where we start. Recent UK governments have responded well to the Ukraine crisis. However, it is hard to think of other areas where we have earned credit. Our influence abroad has been badly affected by our choices.
This is in part related to Brexit, with the blithe assertion that “we held all the cards”, the inability to define a sustainable Brexit and the threats to break international laws over the Northern Ireland protocol.
There has also been ill-founded grandiosity and posturing, for example over a British “tilt” to the Indo-Pacific region. Britain’s place in the world needs to be defined by the right mindset, not just the right policy. Hubris gets us nowhere. We need some honesty about the capacity and leverage of a medium-sized country with global assets, but a tarnished recent performance.
The second question concerns what we stand for. The Biden administration believes the answer is found in the counterpoint of democracy versus autocracy. And certainly democratic values and institutions are in retreat, including in the US.
But democracy is a domestic political system, not an organising principle for international relations. We talk about a “rules-based international order” because the post-1945 global settlement was designed to establish an international legal order, not an electoral system, to prevent the abuse of power.
Impunity, from Ukraine to Gaza to Sudan to Taiwan, is the real threat to Britain’s values and interests. As the recently published Atlas of Impunity shows (I chair the advisory board), the battle against impunity and for accountability is a daily struggle across the world. With this as the guiding star of foreign policy, Britain would be on the right side of the most important arguments in foreign policy.
For example, France argues, along with Mexico and over 100 other countries, that the veto in the security council should be suspended in cases of mass atrocity. Such a move would tip the scales back towards the defence of individual rights, originally enshrined in the UN charter. The UK should be backing this movement.
The third question concerns allies and alliances. This is especially challenging given the concerns about the outcome of the forthcoming US election. But even if Joe Biden is re-elected, the warning signs about American willingness, patience and ability to provide active and continuing strategic global leadership are there.
In a multi-aligned world, Britain is going to have to play in a range of coalitions. Geography still matters, in politics as well as economics, and this is a gaping sore for Britain at the moment.
Our relations in Nato are strong, but with the EU they are almost nonexistent. And this is all the more glaring since the war in Ukraine has brought the EU and Nato closer together. In a world where the EU is shipping weapons to Ukraine, hosting six million Ukrainian refugees, is a major funder of international development, sits in the G20, and is a regulatory superpower in trade, climate and digital areas, we need our mindset to change.
A UK policy on Russia separate from the EU will be weaker and less effective. The same is true in respect of China. So the decision of the UK in 2019 to refuse a political and foreign policy relationship with the EU needs to be reversed. Structures and commitments need to be put in place to drive cooperation and coordination in our many areas of shared foreign policy, defence, security and development policy interest.
The fourth question concerns what we can afford. It’s a good thing that not everything costs money given the state of the public finances. Britain can only advocate for the rule of law if we follow it ourselves.
But money matters. Our defence budget of just over £50bn is large by European standards but very small by US standards (they spend $900bn). We could double our intelligence and diplomacy budgets for the same price as a 10% increase in defence. And substantial parts of our international development budget have been siphoned off to support Ukrainian refugees in the UK, at disproportionate cost to international reputation.
Britain has a lot to gain from, and a lot to offer, an interconnected world. The global system is in flux. We need to be at the table, not on the menu.
David Miliband is president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee and was foreign secretary from 2007-2010. He is writing in a personal capacity. This article is based on a forthcoming essay “Finding a Role for Britain in the New Global Order”, to be published in the April 2024 issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy
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