British Foreign Policy: Crises, Conflicts and Future Challenges [1 ed.] 0745651143, 9780745651149

Citation preview

British Foreign Policy

British Foreign Policy

JAMIE GASKARTH

polity

Copyright © Jamie Gaskarth 2013 The right of Jamie Gaskarth to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2013 by Polity Press Polity Press 65 Bridge Street Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK Polity Press 350 Main Street Malden, MA 02148, USA All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5114-9 ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5115-6 (pb) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset in 9.5 on 13 pt Swift Light by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Group Limited, Bodmin, Cornwall The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate. Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition. For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.politybooks.com

Contents

Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

vi viii

Introduction: analysing British foreign policy The actors in British foreign policy How is British foreign policy made? Self-identity and British foreign policy Britain in the world The ethics of British foreign policy Defence and British foreign policy Economics and British foreign policy Conclusion: future challenges

1 12 41 59 81 96 120 145 175

Notes Bibliography Index

185 223 261

v

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank a number of individuals whose help and support in the writing of this book have been immense. In the first place, I am grateful to Louise Knight of Polity Press for asking me to undertake this project, to David Winters, who has given me the space to see it through, and to Fiona Sewell for her patient attention to the manuscript’s preparation. As an outsider trying to understand the bureaucratic and political processes that feed into British foreign policymaking, I have relied heavily on the generosity of officials in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence, past and present, who have given me their time and advice freely. To preserve their anonymity I cannot name them here, but their assistance has spared the author’s blushes on more than one occasion through corrective readings and conversations on the manuscript. I am also truly thankful for the opportunity to interview former ministers, including Lord Owen, Lord Howe, Lord Hurd, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Tony Lloyd, Chris Bryant, Margaret Beckett, Bill Rammell and Lord Malloch-Brown. For me, the fact that they were prepared to give their time to speak to a lowly academic speaks volumes about their kindness. A series of academic colleagues have been extraordinarily generous in reading parts of the book, offering advice or observations or forwarding useful readings, including David Allen, David Armstrong, Klaus Brummer, Jim Buller, Dan Bulley, Stephen Burman, Malcolm Chalmers, Stuart Croft, Oliver Daddow, Theo Farrell, Ian Hall, Patrick Holden, David McCourt, Kai Oppermann and Paul Rogers. A special mention has to go to Mark Bevir, who graciously sponsored my Visiting Scholarship at Berkeley and read far more chapters than I was expecting him to, and whose comments improved the text immensely. The two anonymous reviewers also offered trenchant criticisms which I have sought to address, and the book is certainly much better for their insightful comments. Accurate and patient research support was afforded me by Aneta Brockhill, Nichola Harmer and Ben Nutt – who expertly prepared the diagrams. Nichola and Ben also read chapters and provided perceptive advice. Thanks to you all! I also need to express my deepest gratitude to colleagues at Plymouth University for all their help and support over the years; in particular, to Phil Megicks and Kerry Howell for approving the sabbatical that enabled me to vi

Acknowledgements

complete the manuscript. It is easy to moan about the bureaucratic tangles of academic life, but Plymouth is a hugely rewarding place to work, and if this book has any strengths they are due to the time, space and encouragement Plymouth offers its staff. In addition, I would like to thank my students on the Foreign Policy Analysis module who have challenged me to think more deeply about many of these issues. Needless to say, any errors made in this book are the author’s alone and should not be attributed to anyone mentioned above. Last but not least I have to thank my wonderful family and friends for all their patience and support: my wife Ellie, who is the most lovely, inspiring and beautiful person you could ever meet; my brothers, Mark and Glyn; sister Delphi; sister-in-law Lynne; friends Ian, Ed Brett and the rest; but most of all my mum, to whom this book is dedicated, with love.

vii

Abbreviations

The following list gives abbreviations and acronyms used more than once in the book, other than very widely known ones such as UK, US, EU etc. APM ARRC BIS BRIC CAAT CAEC CAP CFSP CHOGM CIDT COBRA DFID DTI E3 + 3 EC ECOWAS EDL EEAS EEC EFTA ERM EU3 FAC FATA FCO FDI FPA GAB GCHQ GDP GNI viii

asymmetric power model Allied Rapid Reaction Corps Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Brazil, Russia, India and China Campaign Against Arms Trade Committees on Arms Export Controls Common Agricultural Policy Common Foreign and Security Policy Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment Cabinet Office Briefing Room A Department for International Development Department of Trade and Industry Germany, France and the UK plus the US, Russia and China European Community Economic Community of West African States English Defence League European External Action Service European Economic Community European Free Trade Association exchange rate mechanism Germany, France and the UK Foreign Affairs Committee Federally Administered Tribal Areas Foreign and Commonwealth Office foreign direct investment foreign policy analysis General Arrangements to Borrow Government Communications Headquarters gross domestic product gross national income

Abbreviations

GTMO ICC IISS IMF ISAF MFN MOD MNCs NGO NIC NSC NSID ODA ODP OECD OPEC OPM PAC PPP PSA PUS RIIA SAS SDR SDSR SFO SIS/MI6 SyS UAV UKTI UNAMIR WMD WTO

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base International Criminal Court International Institute for Strategic Studies International Monetary Fund International Security Assistance Force most favoured nation Ministry of Defence multinational corporations non-governmental organization National Intelligence Council National Security Council National Security, International Relations and Development Cabinet Committee Overseas Development Administration Overseas and Defence Policy Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries overseas price mechanism Public Administration Committee purchasing power parity public service agreement permanent under-secretary Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House) Special Air Service Strategic Defence Review Strategic Defence and Security Review Serious Fraud Office Secret Intelligence Service Security Service (MI5) unmanned aerial vehicles UK Trade and Investment United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda weapons of mass destruction World Trade Organization

ix

c h a pt e r one

Introduction: analysing British foreign policy

Why bother with a book on British foreign policy? Hasn’t Britain had its day? That was certainly the feedback I received whenever I took a taxi in the United States, as I was writing this book. ‘The sun has set on your Empire’, one driver told me with undisguised relish. The twenty-first century is destined to be an ‘Asian’ century, when the ‘rising powers’ of China and India forge a new locus of influence and remake the world according to their own interests and values – with Brazil and Russia contributing to the balance against the former dominance of the United States and Western Europe. ‘The West’ is in decline. Europe is an ageing, fattened continent made lazy on generous welfare systems and living off the wealth and memory of its past industriousness.1 Meanwhile, Britain is a little island with a big history, borrowing its remaining status from the United States in return for unwavering support. At least, that seems to be the received wisdom. It is an even further folly, perhaps, to wish to analyse foreign policy. Political scientists have been sounding the death knell of that field of inquiry for over forty years now. Regionalism, multilateralism and globalization are supposed to have weakened territorial boundaries, undermined governmental attempts to impose sovereignty, and promoted identities and political consciousness above and below the state – leaving the idea of ‘foreign’ and ‘domestic’ as quaint, archaic labels. It is a compelling narrative and may well turn out to be true. However, if we stop to analyse the world as it is rather than seek to prejudge how it might be in the future, a different picture emerges. The recent record of British foreign policy does not imply Britain is an irrelevant anachronism. Indeed, it could be read as suggesting that the UK is a significant actor in world politics. From Tony Blair’s militarism, via Gordon Brown’s leadership of the G20 and the global response of 2008–9 to the financial crisis that began the previous year, to the coalition government’s actions in Libya, Britain has arguably occupied a leading role in world affairs. In each case it coordinated its policies with other actors, but this need not diminish our sense that Britain was acting and that its actions made a difference. International politics is a social activity and unilateral behaviour in this sphere is costly. If the UK perceives a problem as affecting its economic, 1

2

British Foreign Policy

military or ethical interest then it is likely other states will too, and that they will want a say in how policies are made and then implemented globally. The fact that states act in concert with others does not mean that their individual contributions are irrelevant. The British government retains the capacity to make political choices and these decisions have important effects.2 To deny this, and suggest that the actions of states such as the UK are determined by impersonal structural forces, or by more powerful states, may have the comforting benefit of pricking the pomposity of politicians and their self-aggrandizing statements. However, it also denies the observer the opportunity to critique the political choices and actions of these individuals and, hence, any chance of holding them accountable. This book takes a different approach, one that is unapologetically statist – in the sense that it views states as the primary actors in world politics – and governmental – i.e. its main research focus is the British government’s formulation of foreign policy. In exploring the making of British foreign policy, this book does not disregard the importance of non-state actors, or ignore the policy weakness of the UK government in frameworks where sovereignty is shared or the government’s power is constrained. Rather the book is interested in examining how policymakers adapt to these setbacks and reinterpret their policies in response. Before outlining the structure of this text and proceeding with my analysis, this introduction will begin by exploring in more depth why some analysts have questioned the importance of the state and governments in world politics, and critiqued the idea of foreign policy as an appropriate subject of analysis. The introduction will then go on to defend the continuing emphasis on these concepts despite the social, political and technological changes that have arisen in recent decades.

All change? One of the most fundamental challenges to the idea of the state as the primary political actor in world politics is the contrary notion that other forms of political community are now more important, either in terms of their power, or in their attraction as expressions of political identity. This conceit has emerged in successive waves of scholarship on international affairs. In 1962, Arnold Wolfers posed the rhetorical question: ‘are not national territorial units outdated today and on the way out, now that the age of nuclear weapons, long-range missiles, and earth satellites is upon us . . . ?’3 Critics of the idea of states-as-actors highlighted the significance of ‘non-state corporate actors’ such as the United Nations and the Communist International.4 By the early 1970s, the global energy crisis provoked by the cabal of governments in the multinational Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)5 led some to see individual states as being at the mercy of markets and supranational organizations – particularly when this crisis was combined with the growth in multinational corporations (MNCs).6

Introduction: analysing British foreign policy

In the decades since, the power of individual states has been perceived to be eroded by the forces of multilateralism, globalization and regionalism.7 Multilateralism has resulted in a proliferation of supranational forums for coordinating policy, and with it a profusion of international treaties and commitments that constrain state behaviour.8 Liberal institutionalists argued that international organizations set up to conduct multilateral diplomacy were capable of having an independent effect on policy outcomes and so constituted actors in their own right.9 A transnational class of bureaucrats and politicians was emerging to staff these corporations and they identified with transnational, rather than national, communities and goals. Globalization, or the freer movement of people, goods, services and capital across borders – in part spurred by international cooperation and multilateralism but derived too from technological advances in travel and communication – eroded territorial boundaries. It also highlighted the global nature of many policy challenges, including those surrounding climate change, poverty, economic stability, crime, disease and terrorism. These have been described by Peter Hain as a ‘growing domain of interests that we all share – interests that affect every human being regardless of nationality’.10 As a result, Hain sees ‘new linkages between people’11 and a ‘globalization of responsibility’.12 Narrow, national identities bound up with the state are being challenged by transnational forms of political community that would previously have been impossible due to geographical distance. The development of new social media and digital technology is facilitating global protest movements, religious revivals and even acts of terrorism in ways that bypass state structures and control. It is also leading to a growing sense of ‘humanity’ as a community and identity that trumps nationalism. Added to these processes is the increasing significance of regionalism, particularly in a European context. The member states of the European Union are now tied together in ways that cut across former boundaries of sovereignty, from defence and foreign affairs to fiscal and monetary policy. Such linkages arguably undermine the fiction of states as unitary actors, capable of independent action. Robert Cooper sees European states as increasingly ‘postmodern’, in that they appear to reject the trappings of the modern statessystem, from unified national identities and strong militaries in balances of power, to the norms of sovereignty and non-interference in their domestic affairs.13 Coinciding with these changes is the rise to prominence of non-state actors.14 The number and scope of international organizations have increased in the post-Cold War era.15 European agencies and frameworks of governance have deepened and extended their reach beyond the immediate oversight of member states. A nascent global civil society, formed of international pressure groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), is shaping the agenda in forums such as the G8, G20 and United Nations.16 At the same time, individuals and small groups have achieved political prominence in

3

4

British Foreign Policy

international politics thanks to the communicative possibilities of the internet. Comparisons are made between the economic wealth of states and those of firms, such as Darryl Copeland’s observations that: ‘51 of the 100 largest economies in the world are corporations; Mitsubishi generates more annual economic activity than Indonesia; and sales by the 200 largest firms exceeded the combined economies of 182 countries.’17 Such evidence is offered to underscore a new reality, in which the ‘old domain’ of foreign policy, the ‘management of relations between states’, is said to be ‘no longer the centrepiece of world politics’.18 As a consequence of the apparent decline of the states-system, scholars have sought to redefine the concept and practice of foreign policy. For instance, Ole Waever describes a ‘post foreign policy’ analysis, exemplified, according to Waever, by James Rosenau’s idea of a ‘post-international politics’ made up of ‘sovereignty-free actors’.19 Here the focus of research moves away from the states-system and governments to include sub-state and supranational actors impacting on the global political arena. The emergence of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) for the European Union under the Maastricht Treaty seemed to problematize the traditional view of foreign policy as about how national governments managed their external relations in a world of states.20 Once a high representative was appointed to coordinate ‘EU’ foreign policy under the Treaty of Amsterdam, the possibility of this regional organization functioning as an independent actor with an identity and policy in its own right appeared to be emerging. Yet in practice the CFSP has remained firmly intergovernmental, and attempts to strengthen the position of the high representative have been continually undermined by EU member states.21 The concept of foreign policy has been further redescribed by poststructuralists such as David Campbell, who have divided the idea of foreign policy as cultural mediation from its intergovernmental interpretation.22 Campbell posits ‘Foreign Policy’ as the official governmental management of a political community’s relations with other, geographically separate actors in international politics. He then distinguishes this from the social and political practices of ‘othering’, through which a community defines the ‘domestic’ and the ‘foreign’. The latter ‘foreign policy’ may involve the formulation of policy towards groups internal to the territory of the state but which are viewed as ‘foreign’ to the dominant culture, as in the case of Native Americans in the United States. Where common forms of consciousness are emerging in global politics, this idea of a ‘foreign policy’ separate from ‘Foreign Policy’ might also imply a ‘post-foreign’ politics, in which the separation of peoples into discrete political units is out of step with appeals to a wider political community, humanity, where the very idea of foreignness loses its meaning.23 It is important to resist denying the salience of some of these arguments altogether. There are more actors engaging in the practice of international politics today. Non-state, sub-state and supranational actors arguably do have

Introduction: analysing British foreign policy

a greater influence than at any time since the development of the modern states-system. This has led to confusion over what foreign policy is and who should practise it. However, there are also powerful counter-arguments questioning how far these new developments have changed the character of international relations, whether they really threaten the primacy of the state as the key actor in world politics, and how far they challenge traditional views of foreign policy. In the first place, it is possible to critique the impression that states were once independent and sovereign and have declined from this former position of power. The Westphalian narrative of states having sovereignty over their particular territory and enjoying the right of non-interference bears scant relation to the actual historical practice of world politics. The great powers regularly redrew the territorial borders of weaker states in Europe, and colonies in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, in the centuries after the Treaty of Westphalia was signed. Almost as soon as the former colonies achieved their independence from imperial control in the post-1945 period, they found themselves pressured to join Cold War power blocs, subject to structural adjustment programmes if they required International Monetary Fund (IMF) support and censured for human rights abuses by the international community. Meanwhile, the larger powers have been constrained by market forces and tied to other actors in relations of complex interdependence since at least the growth in world trade in the nineteenth century, if not before.24 In the UK context, British foreign policy was bound by relations of responsibility even at the height of its imperial role and allies frequently had to be consulted before action. Furthermore, prior to the advent of total war in the twentieth century, individuals could often have little contact with the state throughout their lives.25 Whilst the British state did extend its influence over the lives of its citizens in the twentieth century, its sovereignty was severely compromised by economic and military reliance on the United States during and after the Second World War. From this perspective, it is possible to question how far multilateralism, regionalism and globalization have fundamentally altered the nature of states as political communities. For Stephen Krasner, their impact will be to ‘alter the scope of state authority rather than to generate some fundamentally new way to organize political life’.26 According to his view, sovereignty was not as inviolable as portrayed under the Westphalian model, and is not as compromised now, in a globalizing world, as some suggest.27 If the idea of states as being in decline can be challenged, so too can the sense that they have been supplanted by other actors in global politics.28 As Webber and Smith have argued: ‘the state (and its principal agent, national government) still retains a primacy in international life. It is the main subject of international law, the principal member of international organizations and the organising entity of political, military, diplomatic and, to some extent, economic power.’29 For all the talk of multilateralism and

5

6

British Foreign Policy

globalization, I have been struck in researching and interviewing for this book by how firmly intergovernmental much of the practice of international politics remains. British diplomats continue to conceive of their interactions in international organizations as about pursuing the ‘national interest’, to see other governments as the primary actors in most situations, and to view it as possible for ministers and officials to manage Britain’s external relations, making decisions and seeing them implemented. This sense of Britain’s ‘actorness’ is perhaps borne out in the everyday practice of its foreign policy. In the post-Cold War era, the structural constraints of superpower conflict have given way to a plethora of military actions by British governments. The UK has committed division-sized forces to actions in Iraq in 1991 and 2003 as well as brigade-sized deployments to Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. As a result of Britain’s normative lead on ‘humanitarian intervention’, the international community has outlined a ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine that challenges assumptions about non-interference in the domestic affairs of states.30 The importance of state action to enforce human rights is perhaps underlined by the consequences of the failure to act in Sudan and Syria. In the absence of action by countries such as Britain, human rights abuses were able to occur with little restraint or redress. The UK has also promoted a series of other international initiatives, from the development of the International Criminal Court in 1998 to ‘drop the debt’ campaigns and calls for increased aid spending since the early 2000s.31 Britain has been instrumental in promoting climate change as a foreign policy priority, chairing the first UN Security Council debate on this problem in April 2007 and fashioning its presidency of the G8 in 2005 around climate change and development in Africa. In the economic sphere, the UK was a vociferous advocate of freer trade and deregulation of markets during the New Labour era.32 It then dramatically altered its position at the height of the financial crisis in 2008–9, spearheading extensive government support for banks and promoting economic stimuli to combat a global lack of liquidity and demand. Thus, we could argue that even states such as Britain, which is far from being a superpower, have nevertheless been able to act and exert influence on the ideas and conduct of international politics. In addition, the categories of ‘foreign’ and ‘domestic’ arguably still retain a social and political power even as new technologies and social forces encourage transnational feelings of identity and responsibility. As I mention in chapter 4, the majority of individuals polled in the UK still associate themselves with a British identity. Support for the defence of the human rights of citizens in foreign countries is usually qualified by the belief that this should not come at the cost of British lives. The traditional bureaucracy and governmental practices of foreign policy to a large extent persist, even if they have had to adapt to new media and modes of interactions between international actors. Thus, the performance of foreign policy as a governmental activity to

Introduction: analysing British foreign policy

manage and control interactions between domestic actors and international ones, external to the territory of Britain, continues.

Rationale In the light of these insights, this book aims to explore how the British government makes foreign policy, and how far this has changed or remained consistent in the face of new circumstances and new ideas about how states can and should act globally. To do so, it necessarily makes certain assumptions, the first of which is that there is such a thing as ‘Britain’. In the text, ‘Britain’, ‘Britishness’ and ‘United Kingdom’ are used interchangeably to refer to the political community formally described as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in international politics. The existence of this community is viewed as a social fact in that the UK is recognized by other states in world politics as existing, and is a meaningful community to the overwhelming majority of individuals that constitute its citizens.33 Debates about the nature of this community’s identity and how it should be expressed are explored in chapters 4 and 5, but these still assume that it is a meaningful category. The second assumption is that this entity is capable of collective action. The mechanisms by which it is so are viewed by me as overwhelmingly governmental. Individual citizens may act collectively, apart from the government’s formulation of policy, at times. One example is perhaps the outburst of charitable donations that followed the Asian tsunami in 2004, with the Disasters Emergency Committee collecting a total of £392 million in donations from the British public.34 However, for the purposes of this text, it is the formal political actions of the UK government that are the primary locus of discussion and analysis. The British government, according to this view, is still the most potent force for the expression of this community’s political will, and its legitimacy and authority to act are accepted by most of its citizens. The third assumption is that this collective governmental action, when directed at actors external to Britain’s territory, can be understood as foreign policy. Although the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) does construct policies towards UK citizens at times (as when it seeks to engage with minority groups such as the British Muslim community), and this seems to imply Campbell’s alternative view of foreign policy as the management of cultural difference, it is how the British government interacts with other states and peoples abroad that is the subject of this inquiry. If Britain is capable of acting internationally, and these actions are viewed as having tangible material and political effects, it would seem important to understand how these actions are brought about. To explore this further, the book begins by establishing some of the essential elements that help to constitute Britain as a foreign policy actor. In

7

8

British Foreign Policy

chapter 2, it sets out to describe the primary actors in the British foreign policymaking process and how they influence policy practice. Chapter 3 then builds on this framework by analysing foreign policymaking in relation to theories of governance and asks: how is British foreign policy made? Chapters 4 and 5 are concerned with the construction of British identity at home and abroad, outlining some of the mechanisms by which UK foreign policy expresses the collective identity of the British people and locates Britain as an actor within international society. In short, chapters 2–5 aim to outline the political and social background to British foreign policymaking. The discussion then proceeds with an analysis of how the British government has constructed its foreign policy in three practical contexts: the ethical, the military and the economic. These examples were chosen as the three most prominent sub-fields of foreign policy discussion. By including analysis of these contrasting but also overlapping facets of policy in one volume, I aim to provide a more holistic sense of how foreign policy is practised than a simple focus on diplomacy might have yielded. In each case, I begin by setting out some of the main theoretical arguments concerning governmental policy in the area in question and then examine how these are applicable to the British experience. As such, I aim to provide a sense of the governmentality of British foreign policymaking. Foreign policy may at times involve a greater degree of secrecy than other, domestic fields of public policy; however, it is still for the most part concerned with the management of political relations by public officials. Therefore, it is perhaps not so different to other forms of governance. Rather than see foreign policy as an inscrutable arena, it is important to highlight the issues of responsibility that arise when the UK government acts in this area. If politicians are to be held to proper account for how they conduct their foreign policy, it is first necessary to provide a fuller understanding of what British foreign policy is, how it has been constructed in the past, and how this affects expectations about how it should be devised and implemented in the future. In short, we need to set out the parameters of thought and action in this practice before locating and judging policy against these benchmarks.

Methodology The terrain of foreign policy analysis is vast, and a host of different philosophies of research and methods is available to scholars wishing to understand how foreign policy is made. As with other areas of scholarly inquiry in international relations and politics, there is a division between those who seek to emulate the natural sciences and those who see politics as resisting such objective description and analysis.35 The former produce testable hypotheses, often measured and adjusted using quantitative data. Events in time are simplified to a few key aspects that are used as points of comparison with

Introduction: analysing British foreign policy

other situations to comprise a dataset of like examples. The aim is to produce generalizable rules about human behaviour. This approach is particularly evident in US scholarship, where an impressive array of equations is employed to explain how foreign policy actions can be aggregated to suggest a formal pattern. Efforts to collate information on the foreign policies of a variety of countries – comparative foreign policy – to build a meta-theory of action in this sphere in the 1970s were unsuccessful and for a brief period the whole field declined in popularity.36 However, other approaches, such as those analysing bureaucratic politics, political processes, groupthink and the beliefs or images of decisionmakers, have continued to be influential.37 More recently, the analysis of foreign policy decisionmaking according to the cognitive ordering principles of leaders – heuristics – has seen a renaissance.38 Whilst not wishing to diminish these efforts, I am inclined to follow Aristotle’s observation that politics is not an exact science and ‘Our account of this science will be adequate if it achieves such clarity as the subject-matter allows.’39 The use of natural scientific methods to inquire into political decisionmaking has long puzzled analysts from classically inspired schools of thought.40 Analysing human beings as if they were animals in the natural world is problematic as the subject and the object are both capable of conscious reflection and reinterpretation of their behaviour. Thus, meanings are not fixed and may shift in time. Moreover, the level of abstraction required to fit political behaviour into neat theoretical models can lead to academic work becoming detached from the messy reality of foreign policy practice.41 It is not the aim of this book to explain a particular decision in British foreign policy, or to establish a general rule of behaviour in this sphere, but rather to understand how this activity is perceived, rationalized, emoted and performed. Its approach is interpretivist, meaning that the book wishes to explore the beliefs and interpretations of policymakers and academics who study and practise British foreign policy.42 The methods employed are those of contemporary history,43 involving extensive interviews with personnel from the FCO,44 former ministers, former special advisers and fellow academics, as well as substantial reading of official government documents, parliamentary reports, newspapers, biographies, contemporary histories, blogs and journal articles. Peter Hennessey has described this approach (selfdeprecatingly since it is one he adopts) as ‘gossip with footnotes’ and avers that: ‘Political scientists have theories, historians don’t.’45 Although this text does not seek to set out or apply a testable hypothesis in search of a general (or specific) theory, it does aim to provide theoretically informed discussion; viewing theories on identity, international action, the state, ethics, the use of force and economics as themselves important to understanding how actors interpret the practice of foreign policy. Whilst it does not see theoretical precision as desirable or possible, it aims, as Aristotle suggested, to be ‘satisfied with a broad outline of the truth’,46 of which theory is an important part.

9

10

British Foreign Policy

What it does not do is apply a ‘realist’, ‘liberal’ or ‘constructivist’ interpretation to British foreign policymaking throughout. These categories are common to international relations and foreign policy scholarship and some excellent overviews have been offered of their main aspects.47 Yet they are not widely apparent in the discourses of policymakers or, arguably, the media. When politicians talk about realism they are usually aiming to convey the limits on their ability to influence events – they are asking their audience to be ‘realistic’ about what can be done.48 This does not automatically imply the realist assumptions that states are the main actors, that they define their interests in terms of power, or that success is necessarily related to the distribution of (largely material) capabilities.49 The term ‘liberal’ in British foreign policy circles implies a commitment to human rights, and perhaps free trade. It has become associated with military intervention. But it does not require an acceptance that international organizations have an independent effect, or that actors other than states, such as NGOs and private firms, are important to the foreign policy process.50 Meanwhile, ‘constructivism’ is a term for the most part unknown to the British foreign policy community. When discussing a seminar on the rising powers and international norms with an FCO official over the telephone, I was interrupted and asked to explain what a norm was.51 I say this not to belittle the importance of such international relations scholarship (or the FCO as an intellectual organization). However, if this text is to reflect the understanding of how British foreign policy is made in the minds of policymakers and influential commentators in the UK context, then these terms may not always be to the fore. Instead, I have endeavoured to use the scholarship that is most immediately relevant to each subject area, drawing on specific authors to illuminate the political processes under scrutiny. For instance, as my focus is on the governmental aspects of foreign policymaking, the political science literature on governance has proved particularly useful to my analysis, in chapter 3, of how British foreign policy is made. Undertaking research in the field of foreign policy is not easy. Practitioners deal with material that is secret and may have a bearing on Britain’s security. They are also conscious that indiscreet comments about other states may have an adverse effect on the UK’s relations with other countries. Similarly, comments about other actors in a domestic setting may be politically sensitive. My requests to ministers and officials for interviews were often ignored or politely declined. However, a significant number of individuals were kind enough to speak, often on a non-attributable basis. This has informed the discussion, particularly in chapter 2’s breakdown of the actors in foreign policymaking and chapter 3’s analysis of how foreign policy is made. I have kept anonymized citations to a minimum so that others could follow up my research and critique my interpretations if they wished. Such transparency is vital to producing work of recognizable quality.52 Interpretivism is often

Introduction: analysing British foreign policy

situated within the reflectivist paradigm in US foreign policy analysis.53 A key component of this branch of inquiry – as the name implies – is that scholars reflect on their research methods and analyses and acknowledge the contingency of any conclusions. Allowing others to see how I have arrived at my conclusions and what evidence I am able to present in defence of them is central to this process. To ensure that respondents were comfortable with the way interview data was used, I allowed them to approve a transcript and, where requested, offered interviewees the chance to see how quotations were being employed in the text and to make amendments to the contents of their remarks (though not my analysis). This process was time-consuming but vital to securing the cooperation and candour of participants.54 However, the interpretation of this data and the analysis offered in this text are the responsibility of the author alone and do not reflect the views of any individual participant or organization.

11

cha p t e r t w o

The actors in British foreign policy

In this chapter, I intend to outline the main actors in British foreign policymaking and give some sense of how they interact to debate, formulate and decide British foreign policies. Britain pursues a series of policy objectives abroad. Each one may involve a different group of actors to a greater or lesser extent and these actors, and the policies they decide to pursue, may conflict with each other at times. Furthermore, the relationships between these actors can be conducted via a range of informal or formal mechanisms that can be seen to shift over time or according to the issue at hand. The analyst therefore needs to recognize that whilst some actors do have an ongoing influence on the patterns of foreign policymaking, these loose structures are continually being challenged and subverted by the untidy reality of international politics. Nevertheless, the British government is engaged in an ongoing effort to conduct foreign policy, and as it does so we can identify influential actors, bureaucratic structures and social forces that combine to construct this social practice. This chapter will examine the most significant actors, to provide a backdrop to the more theoretical chapter that follows, and is aimed at outlining the policy processes of British foreign policy. The current chapter begins by exploring the most commonly identified actors within British domestic politics, before going on to describe the impact of external actors on British foreign policy. The primary actors of foreign policy can be represented pictorially as in figure 1.

Domestic foreign policy actors Policymakers The monarch has an important foreign policy role to play through their constitutional position as head of state. Queen Elizabeth II, the current monarch, has been a symbol of Britain, shaping the image of the British state and its people in the minds of foreign statespeople and the general populace in other countries for decades. As Michael Clarke has noted, the queen and the royal family constitute ‘an effective instrument of formal diplomacy through [their] connections, official visits and personal interests’.1 The queen has a 12

The actors in British foreign policy

Monarch Westminster actors

(head of state)

Whitehall actors Prime Minister’s Office

Cabinet

Cabinet Office

Political parties

National Security Council/Cabinet committees

Special advisers Foreign Affairs Committee European Scrutiny Committee European Union Select Committee Parliamentary lobby groups

British foreign policy

Foreign and Commonwealth Office Joint Intelligence Committee Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ Department for International Development (DFID) Ministry of Defence (MoD) Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Civil society actors

External actors

Non-governmental

Other states

organizations (NGOs)

UN Security Council and agencies

Diaspora communities Scientific/academic experts Think tanks

Non-state actors Business Media

Commonwealth G8/G20 European Union World Bank/IMF

Figure 1 The actors in British foreign policy

regular audience with her prime minister and is kept informed of current events and British foreign policy positions. Although the queen will not speak publicly about political issues, her views are communicated via these meetings and through back channels to her government. Given how extensive her meetings with foreign dignitaries have been over more than sixty years, it is remarkable how rarely she has figured as a source of controversy. Her husband has occasionally made some ill-judged remarks, referring to Chinese facial characteristics or questioning the extent of the massacre at Amritsar in India in 1919, but the queen herself has been circumspect. Rare glimpses of her views were offered by Clarke, who noted her fury at the US invasion of Grenada in 1983.2 The queen’s invitation to all crowned heads of state to celebrate her diamond jubilee in 2012 proved controversial since the invitees included individuals accused of complicity in human rights abuses and irresponsible rule, including the king of Bahrain, Hamad al-Khalifa, and the polygamous king of Swaziland, Mswati III.3 Nevertheless, the queen’s dignity and longevity are key advantages to British foreign policy. Her trip to Ireland in 2011, which included a visit to the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin, a memorial to those who died

13

14

British Foreign Policy

fighting against Britain for independence, had huge significance for relations between Britain and Ireland. In a speech at a state dinner at Dublin Castle, the queen extended her ‘sincere thoughts and deep sympathy’ to those who had suffered in the ‘troubled past’ between the two countries, and in doing so she was seen to recognize that British policies towards Ireland may have been wrong (though no explicit apology was given).4 The loss of her cousin, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, to an IRA bomb in 1979, and her position as the ultimate representative of the British state which was responsible for considerable suffering in Ireland over centuries, gave this recognition huge symbolic importance. Whilst the monarch is the head of state and does perform diplomatic functions, representing the UK abroad and providing royal assent to international treaties and agreements, the royal prerogative powers of treaty making, going to war and conducting external relations are in practice delegated to the prime minister and their Cabinet. As the head of the UK government, the prime minister is the primary figure coordinating and deciding which policies to pursue and as such is the senior executive responsible for making foreign policy. When and how they choose to exercise these powers has historically depended on the individual office holder. Certain prime ministers, such as William Gladstone, Neville Chamberlain, Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan, have had a commanding influence on the conduct of foreign policy, as Malcolm Rifkind notes: ‘sometimes at the expense of the authority of their foreign secretary’.5 Others, including Clement Attlee, Jim Callaghan and John Major, allowed their foreign secretaries to take the lead in devising and implementing foreign policy. As a rule, the prime minister will concern themselves with the most serious affairs of state (military action, treaties, summits, etc.) and leave routine foreign policy matters to the foreign secretary and the FCO. Prime-ministerial dominance of the foreign policy agenda has been highly controversial, leading some to see the office as becoming more ‘presidential’. A number of commentators trace this belief to Margaret Thatcher’s period in office. According to John Dickie, the failure of the intelligence services and the FCO to predict the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982 led to disillusionment with the British diplomatic machinery. During and after the crisis, Thatcher is said to have treated her foreign secretary, Francis Pym, with ‘ill-concealed contempt’.6 The Foreign Office was dismissed as ‘a load of “pinkos” who only wanted to represent foreigners’7 and an institution for which ‘compromise and negotiation were ends in themselves’.8 This attitude was not confined to the FCO but reflected Thatcher’s position towards the civil service more widely, contributing to her use of special advisers and personal confidantes such as her private secretary Charles Powell and her economics adviser Sir Alan Walters.9 Nevertheless, it was the FCO that would be singled out as an obstacle to the prime minister’s policy agenda. Kavanagh and Seldon note that by the end

The actors in British foreign policy

of Thatcher’s time in office, policymaking had become so centralized around the Prime Minister’s Office that her foreign policy adviser, Powell, had ‘become akin to the US President’s key National Security Adviser, dealing directly with foreign heads of government and their senior aides rather than, to the annoyance of the FCO mandarins, conducting business through them and the ambassadors on the spot’.10 As such, the FCO was often sidelined and their advice, particularly with regard to policies towards the European Community and German reunification, was ignored. When Thatcher devised her ‘Bruges speech’ in 1988, setting out her ideas on European policy, the FCO was deliberately kept in the dark about its full contents, in the expectation they would not approve. Ultimately, Thatcher was brought down in part by her former foreign secretary, Geoffrey Howe, who resigned from his posts as deputy prime minister and leader of the House of Commons over Britain’s European economic policy, and made a resignation speech that was a catalyst for a rebellion that ended Thatcher’s leadership. Her sense of betrayal was lasting. Her instructions to Tony Blair during a private audience soon after New Labour achieved office in 1997 were: ‘Don’t trust the FCO.’11 Yet, despite this negative attitude towards the organization, Thatcher did not implement any major reforms of the foreign policymaking machinery. When she left office, the FCO returned to a position of influence under her successor, John Major. Major’s more consultative leadership style resulted in his delegating the lead on most foreign policy issues to his foreign secretaries, Douglas Hurd and Malcolm Rifkind. Distracted by domestic political tensions and with a slim majority, Major was unable to stamp his personal authority on the international stage.12 Accusations of presidentialism would, however, be revived under Tony Blair. Seeing himself as a reforming prime minister, Blair shared Thatcher’s distrust of the civil service, introducing special advisers across government to support ministerial teams and driving for ‘proper coordination through the centre’ – meaning that ministers would have to clear policy announcements with Number 10 Downing Street before they were made public.13 Early in his first term, this did not have a major effect on the FCO’s authority. Blair’s two key advisers – Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff, and John Holmes, his principal private secretary – were from FCO backgrounds. Blair seemed initially uninterested in foreign affairs and left his foreign secretary, Robin Cook, to make much of the running on policies such as arms export control, human rights promotion and counter-proliferation.14 This situation would change dramatically as Blair’s tenure progressed. Oliver Daddow has argued convincingly that the key defining moment for Blair was the Kosovo intervention of 1999.15 Blair’s advocacy of military action in the teeth of domestic and international opposition, and a measure of success in compelling the Serbian leadership to end their operations in Kosovo, gave him confidence in his ability to shape the foreign policy agenda. At the height of the crisis, Blair gave a speech in Chicago outlining his personal vision for a ‘doctrine of

15

16

British Foreign Policy

international community’ without consulting the FCO about its contents – instead using the words of a senior academic, Lawrence Freedman, who was unaware that the briefing notes he thought he was providing would become a major policy statement.16 Blair’s involvement in negotiating a number of policies of international significance in his first term, such as the Anglo-French defence agreement at St Malo, the Amsterdam and Nice Treaties, intervention in Sierra Leone and the Northern Ireland peace process, led him to identify foreign affairs as an arena in which he could achieve policy aims.17 After Blair’s second general election victory, in 2001, David Owen notes that two powerful policymaking structures, the European Secretariat and the Overseas and Defence Secretariat, were located in Number 10, which ‘concentrated advice, power and executive command in the person of Tony Blair’.18 From the beginning of his premiership, Blair’s leadership style favoured one-to-one discussion over collective formal meetings in the Cabinet. Kavanagh and Seldon note that he held over three times more meetings with individual ministers in his first twentyfive months in office than Major.19 This tendency became increasingly apparent when it came to UK policy towards Iraq after 9/11.20 The terms ‘sofa government’ and ‘denocracy’ were applied to Blair’s habit of conducting informal, unminuted meetings with individual ministers and advisers at which policy would be formulated without wider consultation.21 When Britain eventually took part in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, on the basis of inaccurate intelligence, this policymaking style was seen as contributing to the failure to question information on Iraq’s capabilities and suggest alternative responses to military action. Clare Short, secretary of state for international development at the time, argued in her memoirs that ‘Blair handled the whole crisis personally with his entourage.’22 In his report on the use of intelligence in this case, Lord Butler noted: ‘we are concerned that the informality and circumscribed character of the Government’s procedures . . . risks reducing the scope for informed collective political judgment’.23 Evidence to the Iraq Inquiry has indicated that officials were at times unclear about who was responsible for overseeing postwar reconstruction planning on Iraq, and this is seen as part of a wider failure on the part of the prime minister to establish proper structures of responsibility for policy implementation.24 Furthermore, Blair is reported to have committed the UK to military action with the US against Iraq in April of 2002 personally whilst staying with President Bush at the latter’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.25 Although Blair’s relations with his foreign secretaries remained cordial, it is notable that each successive secretary of state became progressively less influential as Blair’s time in office lengthened. Dickie cites the case of a peace agreement between Uganda and Rwanda in November 2001, ‘brokered by Clare Short with the personal backing of Tony Blair’, as evidence of Jack Straw’s marginalization.26 Margaret Beckett’s policy on rejecting calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 was viewed as directed by Blair

The actors in British foreign policy

against the wishes of the FCO.27 Moreover, in addition to his personal control of policy, Blair deployed special envoys, such as his personal friend Lord Levy, special envoy to the Middle East, in roles that would traditionally have been undertaken by former or current FCO staff. This both created duplication of effort and further centred foreign policymaking on Blair. Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, took a leading role on the international problems of development, climate change and responding to the financial crisis that began in 2007–8. However, in the three years he was in office, it did seem as if his foreign secretary, David Miliband, was allowed to operate with a greater degree of independence in responding to crises, such as those in Georgia in 2008 and Sri Lanka in 2009 – despite the fact that Brown and Miliband did not, apparently, have a good relationship.28 Brown established a National Security, International Relations and Development Cabinet Committee (NSID) designed to provide a more consultative forum for debate on foreign policy. Yet this committee did not have a major effect on policymaking, and was criticized by William Hague in 2009 on the basis that it had only met three times in twenty months.29 Following the formation of the coalition government in May 2010, the prime minister, David Cameron, reorganized the machinery of foreign policymaking. In evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC), William Hague suggested that ‘Prime Ministers have often got into the habit of not using the Foreign Office to the extent that it should be used.’30 Drawing a contrast between his predecessors and the new administration, Hague argued: ‘it is a characteristic of this Government that the principal adviser to the Prime Minister on foreign policy is the Foreign Secretary’.31 Hague’s seniority as a former leader of the Conservative Party enhanced the status of the FCO and provided a counter-weight to other sources of foreign policy advice. The current administration has five special representatives in the ‘policy priority’ areas of post-Holocaust issues, climate change, Sudan and South Sudan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and South Caucasus. However, it is clear from the descriptions on the FCO website that the special representatives are expected to coordinate their advice to the prime minister and the foreign secretary through Whitehall departments, particularly the FCO, rather than operating independently.32 That said, the coalition government has introduced some new structures of foreign policymaking that could threaten the FCO’s position as the leading department for foreign policy advice in the long term. To improve the coordination of the UK’s foreign policy and defence strategies, Cameron introduced a National Security Council (NSC) in May 2010, which takes the place of the NSID. Cameron chairs the NSC, which meets once a week, on a Tuesday, for around an hour or two to discuss the most pressing global issues of the day. The NSC’s members include the prime minister, the deputy prime minister, the chancellor, the foreign, defence, home, international development and energy and climate change secretaries, the security minister, the chief

17

18

British Foreign Policy

secretary to the treasury and the Cabinet Office minister, as well as the intelligence and armed forces chiefs.33 This council is supported by a national security adviser, at the time of writing in October 2012 Sir Kim Darroch, who acts as secretary to the council and leader of the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office that supports the council’s work, as well as being the prime minister’s foreign policy adviser. As originally conceived, the NSC was viewed as increasing the FCO’s role by ‘binding the Prime Minister into a collective decision-making forum’ as well as giving the FCO the important task of being the lead department to provide evidence and papers for the council’s consideration.34 The first incumbent, Sir Peter Ricketts, saw his position as akin to the national security adviser role in the United States. As a former permanent under-secretary at the FCO he was not considered as someone who would wish to threaten the FCO’s status or pursue personal ambitions for greater power. His successor, Sir Kim, was appointed on the back of a thirty-five-year career in the FCO, though he suggested in March 2012 that the role could conceivably be held by an individual from another department in the future, since his deputies were from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the Treasury.35 The heightened status of this Cabinet committee was perhaps a sign that the coalition government, and its prime minister David Cameron, would be more collegial in its foreign policymaking. Yet critics have already noted that Cameron’s decision on Britain’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 was not made within the Council – though it did approve the decision subsequently.36 The national security adviser, backed up by a secretariat and acting as secretary to the council, could potentially challenge a future foreign secretary, one with less experience than the veteran Hague, for the ear of the prime minister. Furthermore, a body that only meets for an hour a week cannot really be viewed as anything more than a broad strategy forum. Operational decisions in a crisis are made by the Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (COBRA) committee – a smaller Cabinet committee centred on the prime minister and a cadre of key advisers and ministers. As the above discussion indicated, the Cabinet is often not represented as a major foreign policy actor.37 Commentators identify a decline in its influence stemming from Margaret Thatcher’s period in office.38 Peter Hennessey saw her as an over-dominant chair of Cabinet who ‘used to open Cabinet meetings by declaring what she wanted the outcome to be and defying everybody else to defy her’.39 Yet Hennessey acknowledges that she did enjoy arguments over policy. Her former private secretary, Sir John Coles, asserts: ‘Margaret Thatcher . . . who had a reputation for dogmatism, actually thrived best on argument and she knew that.’40 During her predecessor Jim Callaghan’s premiership, David Owen notes that disagreement between himself, Denis Healey and Tony Benn over whether a peacekeeping operation in Rhodesia should be run by the United Nations or the Commonwealth was decided in Cabinet.41 In contrast, Hennessey records that in his research into

The actors in British foreign policy

policymaking more recently: ‘The remarkable lack of argument in the Blair Cabinet is what struck me.’42 The decision to invade Iraq in 2003 is the most controversial example of the Cabinet’s lack of influence in external policy decisions. Commentators identified Blair’s dismissive attitude to Cabinet as a forum for debate early in his premiership, evinced by the fact that meetings were generally less than an hour long.43 As such, they were an opportunity for ministers to be kept informed rather than consulted. Robin Cook recorded in his memoirs that Blair ‘avoids having discussions in Cabinet until decisions are taken and announced to it’.44 When Iraq became a political issue of major importance in 2002, Cook repudiated the criticism that Blair sidelined the Cabinet, arguing: ‘On the contrary, we were to discuss Iraq more than any other topic.’45 However, Clare Short insists: ‘there is a great difference between the Cabinet being updated . . . and any serious discussion of the risks and the political, diplomatic and military options’.46 Short’s attempts to access further briefings about Iraq were apparently initially thwarted, and she notes that the Overseas and Defence Policy (ODP) Cabinet Committee, comprising the main ministers in charge of external affairs, as well as key senior civil servants, never met during the crisis.47 The absence of detailed Cabinet discussion led Short to assert that ‘there is no collective decision-making worth talking about’.48 In practice, whilst Cabinet itself and the ODP Cabinet Committee might not have debated policy, Blair did consult the relevant ministers, such as his chancellor, Gordon Brown, foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, in bilateral meetings.49 He also kept the Cabinet informed of his policy. Iraq was not a covert operation like the Suez intervention in 1956, in which a small cadre of ministers and the prime minister, Anthony Eden, conspired to invade a foreign country (Egypt) without the full knowledge of ministerial colleagues. Cabinet ministers might not have debated Iraq policy in full Cabinet, in depth, in 2002/3; however, the opportunity for dissent existed and the key arguments were in the public domain.50 This fact is evinced by Jack Straw’s acknowledgement in evidence to the Iraq Inquiry: ‘I was also fully aware that my support for military action was critical. If I had refused that, the UK’s participation in the military action would not in practice have been possible. There almost certainly would have been no majority . . . in Cabinet.’51 Burall, Donnelly and Weir note that four Cabinet ministers – foreign, defence, trade (DTI) and international development (DFID) – are responsible for external policies, and as such ‘not even the “Presidential” Prime Minister has absolute power within the executive’.52 To this list, one should add the chancellor of the Exchequer – particularly during the Blair–Brown years, when Gordon Brown exercised considerable influence across government. Thus, what seems to have occurred is less a silencing of Cabinet than the Cabinet’s own disinclination to speak against Blair’s position because they supported it.

19

20

British Foreign Policy

This is perhaps apparent from the influence of certain Cabinet ministers on European issues and a willingness to debate and dissent over the merits of policies such as joining the Euro. Throughout his time in office Blair was an advocate of the UK joining the common European currency (when the time was right), and Cook interpreted his stance as ‘for Tony an unusual case of conviction politics’;53 however, Blair was never able to gain support for a referendum on membership, in part due to dissent from his chancellor, Gordon Brown.54 This serves as a reminder that other government departments, such as the Treasury, can have an impact on foreign policy through their ability to restrict overseas expenditure and shape the government’s global economic policy. Confusion over Cabinet’s role in foreign policymaking persists. In a 2010 investigation into national strategy-making, the security minister, Baroness Neville-Jones, asserted that ‘it is the Cabinet that is the owner of Grand Strategy’.55 Similarly, Sir Peter Ricketts suggested that it is the Cabinet that is responsible for developing thinking in this area and where grand strategic policy is submitted for consideration.56 However, as the Public Administration Committee (PAC) chair noted in his cross-examination, Cabinet ‘is a decisionmaking body, not an iterative body’.57 A group meeting for only an hour or two at a time cannot be expected to strategize and debate foreign policy or ‘national strategy’ when it also has to consider the pressing domestic problems of the day. Cabinet may have a coordinating role across government and, on occasion, has opened up a major foreign policy problem to debate.58 However, much of the real decisionmaking takes places in Cabinet committees, in the enhanced version of a Cabinet committee – the NSC – or in meetings between ministers. The primary responsibility for thinking about foreign policy lies with the FCO and its lead minister: the foreign secretary. The position of Foreign Secretary – officially, the secretary of state for foreign and Commonwealth affairs – is described as one of the three great offices of state (along with those of the chancellor of the Exchequer and the home secretary). It originates with the creation of the Foreign Office in 1782, and the holder is formally the minister in charge of the FCO as well as the prime minister’s senior adviser on foreign affairs. Whether the individual foreign secretary is able to fulfil this role varies, as discussed above, according to the personalities and politics of those in office. Some prime ministers, including Lord Salisbury and Ramsay MacDonald, have chosen to be their own foreign secretary. Others have had notably difficult relations with their foreign secretaries, with some prime minsters allegedly appointing people to this role to keep them away from the domestic political scene (for instance, in the cases of Anthony Crosland, Robin Cook and David Miliband). The foreign secretary is also responsible for overseeing and approving the activities of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6) as well as Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).59

The actors in British foreign policy

I have discussed above the weakening influence of the foreign secretary in recent governments. As noted, William Hague sought to redress this by asserting himself as the prime minister’s key adviser on foreign policy. However, the way he has gone about this may be difficult to sustain in the long term. In discussions on foreign policy strategy, Hague positions himself as the key thinker in this regard, noting: ‘People who have been great strategists had to do it themselves: Napoleon did not have a strategy unit.’60 Since Hague disbanded the Research Analysts’ division within the FCO (formerly the group able to offer more reflective advice and thinking on areas of concern in a strategic fashion), the Policy Unit is now the main driver of strategy. Yet its head has denied that strategic thinking is in its remit.61 Instead, Hague now envisions himself as the prime conduit for policy suggestions, indicating that ‘there is no penalty in the Foreign Office for sending a paper or an e-gram to the Foreign Secretary that says, “I think we have got all this wrong”.’62 Moreover, he sees ambassadors as well as political directors as a part of the strategymaking process, arguing: ‘it is essential the whole organisation feels able to do that’.63 Given the increasing information flows that the FCO has to contend with in the contemporary era, this seems a recipe for ministerial overload. Furthermore, one official voiced private scepticism about the career implications of being so forthright and leaping the organization’s chain of command in this way.64 In addition to providing advice to the prime minister on responding to crises and forming policy on major international issues, the foreign secretary has to oversee the day-to-day running of the FCO’s foreign policymaking (but does not make specific budgetary decisions). To assist them, the foreign secretary has a team of four ministers of state and one parliamentary undersecretary of state. Each of these five ministers has responsibility for policy towards a particular region or international body as well as a number of policy issues (see figure 2). The coalition government expanded the junior ministerial team from four to five to relieve the pressure on these individuals. FCO officials will at times seek the support of junior ministers rather than that of the foreign secretary as this means fewer rival interest groups become involved that may threaten the policy’s aims.65 Therefore, these ministers are clearly viewed as able to decide on everyday policy matters, and their approval is seen as carrying political weight. Collectively, this ministerial team oversees the policies of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), which is formally the lead department responsible for the conduct of Britain’s external affairs. The FCO was created in 1968 via the amalgamation of the Foreign Office with the Commonwealth Office (the latter the result of amalgamations of the Colonial Office, India Office and Dominions Office as the UK withdrew from its imperial role). However, its lineage traces back to the same reform that brought the post of foreign secretary into existence in 1782. The FCO is charged with providing advice to ministers, UK citizens and companies about international issues, conducting

21

22

British Foreign Policy

William Hague MP Secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs with overall responsibility for the work of the FCO

David Lidington MP Minister of state responsible for European issues and NATO

Jeremy Browne MP

Henry Bellingham MP

Minister of state responsible for Southeast Asia/Far East Caribbean, Central/South America, Australasia and Pacific, human rights, consular, migration, drugs and international crime, public diplomacy and the Olympics

Parliamentary under-secretary responsible for Africa, United Nations, economic issues, conflict resolution, and climate change

Lord Howell of Guildford

Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint

Minister of state responsible for all of FCO business in the House of Lords, the Commonwealth, and international energy policy

Minister of state for trade and investment, responsible for cross-government strategy for trade and inward investment

Figure 2 The ministerial team at the FCO, 2012

diplomacy with other states and actors globally, gaining information about developments in foreign countries and regions and promoting British business.66 It also runs the UK’s embassies and high commissions overseas and provides a consular service for the benefit of UK citizens who encounter problems whilst travelling or working abroad – handling 1.6 million enquiries in 2010.67 It funds the work of the British Council, an educational body that offers an understanding of British culture and values to other societies. It will also continue to fund the BBC World Service (annual budget £256 million) until 2014–15, when the burden will be transferred to the BBC’s licence fee.68 The FCO is led by a permanent under-secretary (PUS), a senior civil servant who coordinates the bureaucratic running of the ministry, as well as being expected to take the lead in advising the foreign secretary on policy formation and implementation and keeping them informed about international problems to which the minister needs to respond (see figure 3). The PUS chairs the FCO board which decides on how resources are allocated within the department. The work of the FCO is divided into directorates, each headed by a director. In 2012, these were the Political Directorate, Defence and Intelligence, Economic and Consular, General Operations, and UK Trade and Investment (UKTI).69 The first three are policy-focused while the last two are concerned with the management of the FCO and business promotion respectively. The PUS holds a bi-weekly meeting with the directors, ministers’ private secretaries and the heads of key departments such as the head of news (also press secretary to the foreign secretary) to address management issues, identify international developments that require a response and discuss the department’s progress with current policies.70 As the most senior FCO official, the PUS is also available as a lead negotiator to spearhead talks with hostile regimes. Lord Kerr notes that he was able to do the ‘deniable jobs’ of engaging with such countries on the basis that, if

The actors in British foreign policy

William Hague MP Secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs

David Lidington Minister of state

Jeremy Browne Minister of state

Henry Billingham Parliamentary under-secretary of state

Lord Howell Minister of state

Lord Green Minister of state

Special advisers FCO Board

Non-executive members

Rudy Markham Non-executive

Julia Bond Non-executive

HM ambassador

Alison Currie Director, Finance

Sir Geoffrey Adams Director-general, Political

Nick Baird (joint FCO/BIS) Chief executive, UKTI

Robert Hannigan Director-general, Defence and Intelligence

Matthew Rycroft Chief operating officer

Menna Rawlings Director, Human Resources

Chief scientific adviser Simon Fraser Permanent undersecretary and head of the Diplomatic Service

Barbara Woodward Director-general, Economic and Consular

Legal adviser

Special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan

Special representative for climate change

BIS = Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Figure 3 The structure of the FCO’s senior management, 2012 Source: Adapted from chart given at www.fco.gov.uk.

these efforts failed, the political fallout would be minimal since he was not a member of the government: ‘I went to Havana, I went to Tripoli, I went to Tehran, and I went to North Korea. These are the trips where the visiting Permanent Secretary can be presented as the Deputy Foreign Minister.’71 Yet, since the PUS has to coordinate the administrative running of the FCO, David Allen notes that: ‘Whereas twenty years ago the PUS would always accompany the Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister on his travels overseas now it is usually the Political Director who clocks up the air miles whilst the PUS stays at home to look after the shop.’72 The FCO’s 140 embassies and high commissions are important drivers in British foreign policymaking.73 Their main function is to be the ‘antennae’ of the organization, relaying information on the countries and regions they inhabit back to Whitehall and identifying political developments that may impact on British interests – as well as offering advice to UK businesses on the politics of investing in that territory. They also act as the ‘delivery mechanism’ for policy. Michael Jay, a former PUS, sees their purpose as being ‘to negotiate and pursue that policy, lobbying, and persuading the governments of today overseas to follow that line’.74 In addition, the embassies seek to represent

23

24

British Foreign Policy

and defend the UK’s reputation abroad. An embassy will typically host civil servants from other government departments as well as FCO staff.75 Jay argues that embassies are, as such, ‘representatives not of the Foreign Office but of the Government’. Embassies are run by an ambassador (or high commissioner with ambassadorial rank in Commonwealth countries). The role and status of ambassadors have fluctuated, along with the influence of the FCO, more widely in recent decades. Christopher Meyer notes in his memoirs that he did not have a substantive discussion about foreign policy with fellow members of the FCO in Whitehall – instead addressing his remarks directly to ministers and the Prime Minister’s Office. Yet Jay asserts that this was a positive development: ‘it’s the ambassador’s job to report direct to ministers’. Jay also envisions an active role for ambassadors in transmitting British policy and conveying a positive British identity to other states: ‘An ambassador has got to be on the radio, on the television making speeches, in the press the whole time, talking about what’s going on in Britain.’76 In short, they must engage in ‘public diplomacy’, aimed at affecting the view of Britain among the wider public populace of their host country as well as the host government.77 Increasingly, ambassadors are expected to promote British firms and industries abroad as well as feed back political advice to Whitehall. As William Hague put it: ‘our Ambassadors will now be economic as well as political Ambassadors for Britain’.78 The other thing, which I also greatly enjoyed, was [Capitol] Hill where one had a lot to do for the direct pursuit of British interests, including British commercial interests. I had on my wall a map of each congressional district with a list of British companies who had subsidiaries in that district, and American companies in that district who had subsidiaries in Britain. So that I could ring up every Member of the House or the Senate and say: I am calling you because x many jobs in your district depend on us, the British, so I think I have a right to bother you. Kerr, ‘Interview’ Lord Kerr was ambassador to Washington, 1995–7.

Traditionally, ambassadors would offer a valedictory despatch when their posting came to an end, imparting the political wisdom they had garnered, about either the country to which they were posted, the FCO or foreign policy in general. These could at times be decidedly undiplomatic.79 Sir Anthony Rumbold, in his 1967 despatch from Thailand, asserted that the Thai people ‘have no literature, no painting and only a very odd kind of music . . . their sculpture, their ceramics and their dancing are borrowed from others . . . their architecture is monotonous and their interior decoration hideous’.80 Meanwhile, Sir Ivor Roberts, who authored the last such despatch, from Rome, attacked the ‘excrescences of the management age’ and asked if ‘we have indeed forgotten what diplomacy is all about’.81 This attack on the culture of

The actors in British foreign policy

the FCO was considered too much and the practice was ended in 2006, with some commentators seeing this as a sign of the greater conformity and suppression of dissent within the FCO. However, ambassadors retain the ability to communicate directly with the foreign secretary to bring important areas of concern to their attention. The department has undergone a series of reforms since the early 1990s that have had a significant impact on its status and functions. In the first place, the processes of globalization have affected the workings of diplomats and foreign policymakers. The sheer quantity of information that now flows into the office from around the world as a result of the digital revolution means that the department is continually seeking to sift and digest the relevant and important from the routine or the trivial. The weakening of the state and the rise to prominence of non-state actors makes the more deliberative and reactive state apparatus seem unwieldy and out of touch. In his book Guerrilla Diplomacy, Daryl Copeland identifies a global crisis for diplomats trying to respond to these challenges, noting that many are ‘saddled with outdated skills and rigid sensibilities’.82 As a result, he sees the foreign service as ‘something of an orphan – isolated, unloved, even ostracized’.83 UK ministers and officials have sought to respond to the new digital diplomatic environment. David Miliband introduced a blog when he was foreign secretary, regularly posted on Twitter, and in 2008 the FCO proudly announced they had established an ‘unEmbassy’ in Goma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, consisting of an individual working out of a hotel room, which the FAC describes as an example of ‘laptop diplomacy’.84 The FCO was one of the first departments to have a web presence, and ministers, ambassadors and consuls engage in live web forums and regularly blog on the website. Chris Bryant, the former New Labour minister for Europe, notes that in European negotiations ‘all the Europeanists get to know each other and you end up doing all your business by text . . . there’s a large room of 28 people and you text each other across the room’.85 William Hague describes how he will spend ‘hours a day on the telephone to discuss and coordinate responses to crises . . . communicate by text message or, in the case of the Foreign Minister of Bahrain and I, follow each other avidly on Twitter’.86 At a lower level, new social media and digital technology are described in the Strategic Workforce Plan of 2008 as allowing FCO personnel to ‘work on the move from home and anywhere else with a wireless connection; to deploy people temporarily into places where there is a sudden need; and to work in terms of people who may be separated by thousands of miles and never meet in the flesh’.87 In other words, new technology is transforming how UK policymakers and FCO officials interact with each other and their counterparts overseas. A further major pressure for reform is budgetary. The FCO has periodically faced criticism for the opulence of its embassies abroad, and it struggles to resist the now dated image of lavish cocktail parties and plume-hatted

25

26

British Foreign Policy

diplomats in far-flung climes.88 In response, it has experienced a series of financial efficiency measures aimed at streamlining the service and eliminating any vestiges of aristocratic luxury. Many grand residences abroad have been sold and their replacements leased. The annual budget rose from £1.091 billion in 1998 to £2.285 billion in 2010–11.89 However, this is reasonably frugal compared with the expenditure of other foreign ministries, such as those of France, which has only eighteen more overseas posts but a budget almost twice as large, and Germany, whose budget in 2010 was 3.19 billion – or roughly £2.8 billion.90 The drive for efficiency was given fresh impetus when the FCO disastrously agreed to disband the overseas price mechanism (OPM) in 2007. OPM was a bureaucratic contrivance by which the FCO’s budget was protected against currency fluctuations abroad. Abandoning it meant that when the financial crisis came in 2007–8 and the value of sterling fell significantly against other currencies, the FCO’s purchasing power abroad was adversely affected. Given that over half the FCO’s budget is spent in currencies other than sterling, this resulted in its budget suffering a significant hit in the period 2008–11.91 In 2010, the Treasury finally agreed to increase or decrease the FCO’s budget each year to take account of movements in exchange rates.92 The coalition government’s deficit reduction plan has further strained the department’s activities, with its core budget falling by 10 per cent in the first budget settlement.93 In an effort to remain relevant to governments sceptical of the values (and expense) of public services, the FCO devotes an increasing proportion of its time to advising British businesses and promoting them abroad. When Robin Cook became foreign secretary in 1997, he announced a mission statement for the FCO which he explicitly compared to those of ‘any modern business’ and declared it a ‘top priority for our network of overseas posts to promote British exports and boost British jobs’.94 By 2009, the government had introduced ‘business ambassadors’ to coordinate export promotion between the FCO and the Department for Business, and ‘Supporting the British economy’ was listed as first among the essential services the FCO performs.95 John Dickie cites an ambassador to Saudi Arabia who stated that while officially 38 per cent of diplomatic staff’s time was spent on commercial work, for him it was nearer 90 per cent.96 The 2011 Annual Departmental Report proudly announced that the FCO, in partnership with UKTI, ‘helped 23,400 businesses, bringing over £6 billion to the UK economy’.97 The PUS in 2010–11, Simon Fraser, was appointed having been permanent secretary at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). In collaboration with Hague, Fraser set about creating a ‘new commercialism’ at the FCO, including an FCO/UKTI Commercial Task Force to support British business, training for FCO staff in economic and commercial work and a brief to all ministers, from all departments, to ‘press key commercial issues in every meeting and visit with overseas interlocutors’.98

The actors in British foreign policy

Along with this new commercial focus came a more managerial approach to public service. As in many other domestic departments, the FCO was compelled to justify its activities and expenditure according to public service agreement (PSA) targets. This approach meant that FCO staff had to attempt to quantify their achievements and set out aims and objectives that they were then required to compare with their actions and expenditure over the year. However, the difficulty of reifying elusive concepts like ‘security’, ‘peace’ and ‘diplomacy’ led some to question its utility. Sir Jeremy Greenstock noted in a 2011 report that: ‘the objectives exercise had to be done well . . . to get resources from the Treasury’ but he believed that quantum targets were ‘irrelevant to the role of diplomacy’.99 Similarly, Christopher Meyer, former ambassador to Washington, has argued: ‘the methodology of objectives-setting was almost entirely fraudulent . . . much of diplomacy is not susceptible to this kind of measurement’.100 In an examination of the FCO’s staffing published in 2011, concern was expressed that too much emphasis was being placed on managerial training and aptitude rather than the geographical and political expertise that were seen as the FCO’s most important attribute.101 One additional development that weakened the FCO’s position in government was the separation of the Overseas Development Administration (ODA) from the FCO in 1997. The newly created Department for International Development (DFID) has seen its budget increase considerably to £7.874 billion in 2012,102 to dwarf that of the FCO. Over Iraq and Afghanistan policy between 2001 and 2003, critics suggested that DFID was uncooperative towards the FCO, in part, it is alleged, due to Clare Short’s antipathy towards these military interventions. Elsewhere DFID is seen as forging its own foreign policy positions, notably in Africa, and there is criticism of the duplication of missions abroad with the FCO.103 Coming into office in 2010, the coalition government asserted that these difficulties were now over, with Andrew Mitchell (development secretary, 2010–12) and William Hague working to coordinate their activities. For all the talk of declining influence, the FCO retains a high degree of autonomy in its activities. Burall, Donnelly and Weir note that foreign policy is less constrained than any other area of government.104 Furthermore, judicial deference on matters of international and national security means that ‘ministers’ prerogative decisions on “foreign policy” are in practice largely immune from judicial review’.105 For instance, when the UK derogated from Article 5 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights on the basis that Islamist terrorism represented a ‘public emergency threatening the life of the nation’, judges deciding on a legal challenge to this decision noted that they had to defer to the executive (albeit with misgivings) as this was a political judgement which only the government, in full possession of sensitive intelligence and policy information, would be able to make.106 The UK is

27

28

British Foreign Policy

said to enter into around fifty treaties a year using prerogative powers.107 The vote on the Iraq War in 2003 established an interesting precedent as the first time Parliament itself had approved military action in a formal vote.

Scrutiny bodies A prime source of critique and comment on British foreign policy is Parliament and, in particular, its committee system, where ministers and officials are grilled about their activities.108 The most prominent select committee in this area is the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC), a cross-party group of eleven MPs who conduct regular investigations into the activities of the FCO and other government departments in external affairs. It takes written and oral evidence from ministers, officials, academic experts and media commentators and writes reports to which the government will normally respond within sixty days. The committee chooses which subjects it will investigate. These have ranged from Britain’s bilateral relations with countries such as the United States, Russia and Pakistan, to the management of the FCO, initiatives such as human rights promotion and public diplomacy, and international problems like piracy off the coast of Somalia. The committee has been criticized for the strident tone of its questioning on more than one occasion. In its report into the Sandline affair – in which the British company Sandline delivered arms to Sierra Leone in contravention of a UK arms embargo – committee members stated that the PUS at the time, Sir John Kerr, had ‘failed in his duty to ministers’ by not briefing them properly about the company’s activities.109 In response, Cook argued it was ‘unfair that officials who cannot speak back should be condemned in the colourful language of political knockabout’.110 Similarly, when the committee interviewed Dr David Kelly, a weapons expert suspected of criticizing government use of intelligence on Iraq in a private briefing to a journalist, on 15 July 2003, the supposedly hostile questioning by Andrew Mackinlay was roundly deplored when Dr Kelly committed suicide two days later.111 These controversies aside, the normal practice of the committee is to provide advice and comment that it hopes will improve government policy, and it is usually respectful in tone. The FAC is often aggrieved that it is not able to compel members of the Security Services (SyS) or Secret Intelligence Services (SIS) to provide evidence as these are covered by the Intelligence and Security Committee – a scrutiny body whose members are appointed by and report directly to the prime minister, and whose evidence sessions are held in camera. The latter do issue reports, but sections of these are redacted for security reasons. SyS and SIS officials have offered to provide briefings in the past to the FAC but would not submit to questioning. Two other important committees scrutinizing the UK’s external relations are the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee and the House of Lords

The actors in British foreign policy

European Union Select Committee. The Commons committee consists of sixteen MPs and its work ‘assesses the legal and/or political importance of each EU document . . . monitors the activities of UK Ministers in the Council (through parliamentary questions and sometimes by questioning Ministers in person), and . . . conducts general inquiries into legal, procedural or institutional developments in the EU’.112 Much of the committee’s correspondence in 2010–11 related to employment issues raised by changes in European legislation and directives; but the FCO did feature in discussions on the foreign policy implications of EU accession negotiations and EU sanctions on Burma.113 The Lords committee enjoys a strong reputation for the rigour of its inquiries into EU legislation. The media and public opinion The power of the media to influence the politics of liberal democracies is a subject of much debate. Some commentators convey a sense of the media as having an independent and pervasive influence on how governments and the wider public think and on what policies are selected.114 Others see the media as manipulated by governments and a tool of elites.115 An alternative perspective sees the media as essentially reactive, eternally pandering to the whims of the audience to gain attention and revenue. Media influence is usually described in terms of framing – how an issue is constructed to convey a particular interpretation; agenda setting – the kinds of issues which the media regularly highlights or ignores; and priming – the relative importance accorded to a particular issue on the basis of the attention it is given.116 In the UK context, the media has played all these roles at various times. News stories of famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s put pressure on the government to place more emphasis on African development. Reports of ethnic violence in the Balkans in the 1990s created pressure for intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. In each case, government inaction was framed as neglect. By contrast, the wars in the Caucasus in the same period – which caused FCO officials great concern and were deemed of real importance to British interests – attracted little media comment.117 The New Labour government made extensive use of the media in the run-up to the Iraq War, priming journalists with stories of the threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) – starkly evinced by Jonathan Powell’s jocular statement ‘Alastair – what will be the headline in the Standard on day of publication? What do we want it to be?’ in an email during the drafting of the September 2002 dossier on this issue.118 Since 9/11, a pervasive security discourse of terrorist threats has dominated government and media agenda when it comes to defence. The former MP Lembit Opik’s efforts to warn us of the risks of asteroid attack have not captured the public imagination in the same way.119 The media’s ability to influence foreign policy through its reflection of public opinion is difficult to evaluate – in part due to the amorphous effect of public opinion itself. Up to a million people are estimated to have marched

29

30

British Foreign Policy

against the Iraq War in 2003; yet the government pursued military action in any case and went on to win the general election in 2005 with a working majority. No British government has fallen on a foreign policy issue since the Boer War (though individual leaders, for example Neville Chamberlain and Anthony Eden, did resign). Sectors of public opinion, such as diaspora communities, are seen as influencing foreign policy when it comes to their community’s country of origin. The Iraqi elite diaspora in the UK and the US is sometimes blamed for the faulty intelligence on the basis of which military action was launched, as well as the failure of these countries to appreciate the scale of resistance that would be faced in the occupation of Iraq. The Sikh diaspora in the UK was said to have caused difficulties in UK–India relations in the 1980s due to the support some of them offered to Sikh terrorism.120 In addition, the Albanian diaspora community is believed to have exerted some influence in promoting UK intervention in Kosovo in 1999 and its subsequent recognition of Kosovan independence in 2008.121 In 2009, the UK Tamil community launched protest marches and met with UK foreign ministers to urge stronger UK action over Sri Lanka’s brutal suppression of the Tamil Tigers.122 The Jewish community in the UK is also politically significant, with parliamentary groupings such as Labour Friends of Israel and Conservative Friends of Israel.123 The influence of such ethnic groups has been critiqued by Christopher Hill, who opined ‘foreign policy cannot be hostage to any single interest’.124 When an issue is in the spotlight, the FCO faces increased media pressure to communicate its policy goals and be seen to perform efficiently. Its response to the Libyan crisis in 2011 met with media derision after a series of policy errors and unfortunate incidents created the impression of poor management. On 21 February 2011, William Hague gave an improvised statement to the press after leaving EU talks on Libya in which he indicated that the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, might have fled to Venezuela, arguing he had: ‘information that suggests he is on his way there at the moment’.125 This assertion was demonstrated to be false as Gaddafi continued to make public appearances in Tripoli – eventually being captured and killed in Libya in October 2011. Two days after Hague’s statement, delays occurred in the evacuation from Libya of British nationals – made worse by the fact that the chartered aeroplane arranged to repatriate them broke down on the runway at Gatwick.126 Worse still, on 3 March 2011 a covert mission of MI6 officers and Special Air Service (SAS) personnel deployed by helicopter into Libya apparently to make contact with Libyan rebels was immediately arrested and detained by the opposition, who criticized the manner of their entry into the country. An opposition spokesperson, Essam Gheriani, was quoted as saying: ‘this is no way to make contact . . . Dropping in in the dead of night with espionage equipment’.127 Whilst such failures may fade from public memory if the overall policy is successful, they are a reminder of how media attention can influence the public impression of the success or failure of government actions.128

The actors in British foreign policy

Political parties Political parties have an influence on the foreign policy positions of governments and can affect the tone of relations with other states. The Labour Party has in the past promoted a view of itself as internationalist – linked with socialist ideas of common class struggles across national boundaries – and has tended to highlight the importance of development and human rights as key foreign policy goals.129 The party also has links with socialist parties in Europe via its membership of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament, and has had uneasy relations with the more right-wing governments of the United States.130 The Conservative Party has tended to be viewed as more Atlanticist, favouring a very close relationship with the United States, and highlighting the UK’s continuing links with the Commonwealth more than other parties have. Since the early 1990s, the party has become strongly associated with Euroscepticism.131 The decision in 2009 to form a more anti-federalist group in the European Parliament, entitled the European Conservatives and Reformists group, has hampered the coalition government’s ability to influence debates within the European Union and allowed them to be pigeon-holed as marginal spoilers in policymaking – despite the more pro-European stance of the Conservatives’ coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats.132 These, however, are broadly sketched trends. After all, the New Labour leader Tony Blair was arguably the most Atlanticist prime minister Britain has ever had, whereas the Conservative prime ministers Edward Heath and John Major had uneasy relations with US Presidents Nixon and Clinton. It was Conservative administrations that negotiated Britain’s successful entry into the European Community and that signed the Single European Act and Maastricht agreements that led to greater political integration in Europe. A tradition of bipartisanship prevails over much British foreign policy discussion, limiting the scope for radical new policy directions.133 The decision by the Liberal Democrats to oppose the Iraq War in 2003 was an extremely rare instance of dissent from this practice, with the Conservatives overwhelmingly supporting the invasion. At the outset of New Labour’s tenure there was an effort to outline a ‘Third Way’ for British foreign policy, incorporating philosophies first applied to domestic politics.134 Yet this faded as the phrase receded from domestic debates over policy. More recently, a tradition of liberal conservatism has attracted academic interest to explain Cameron’s approval of the use of military force in the service of humanitarian ends.135 However, rather than seeing these traditions as specific to one political party, it would be more accurate to view them as cross-party attitudes, reflected in the continuities between governments despite changes in party or personnel. Non-governmental organizations NGOs are having an increasing impact on the international agenda in forums such as the G20, the United Nations and the World Economic Forum as well

31

32

British Foreign Policy

as regional bodies like the European Union.136 With the spread of global civil society, states feel compelled to address the reports and statements of NGOs (if only to refute them). Many states, such as the UK, cooperate with NGOs and even on occasion co-opt them as partners in advocating particular policies. For instance, the FCO has worked with NGOs on the global abolition of the death penalty (Reprieve), banning landmines (ICBL – International Campaign to Ban Landmines), arms exports controls (Saferworld),137 advocating an international small arms treaty (CAAT – Campaign Against Arms Trade), ending the conflict diamond trade (Global Witness) and establishing the International Criminal Court (Coalition for the ICC).138 Of course, consultation does not automatically translate into influence. In a 2011 report on strategic arms export controls, a House of Commons Joint Committee argued: ‘it is disappointing that the Government’s discussions with the industry and NGOs have not resulted in extra-territorial controls being extended’.139 Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, notes that he had received human rights training at the FCO, but saw a contradiction between such organizational procedures and the policy practice of turning a blind eye to the origins of intelligence allegedly derived from torture.140 Yet it is on the FCO’s human rights policy that NGOs have arguably had the most tangible impact, at least in a bureaucratic sense.141 Robin Cook announced in 1997 that the new government would ‘put human rights at the heart of our foreign policy’.142 NGOs had a significant consultative role in policymaking as this initiative was developed. Former NGO workers Harriet Ware-Austin (Amnesty International) and Peter Ashman (Justice) were drafted in to advise the Human Rights Policy Department in the FCO.143 From 2002, the NGO Justice provided both a two-week training course on human rights in foreign policymaking and a one-day course on the impact of the Human Rights Act (1998).144 The FCO invited NGOs to apply for funding under the Human Rights Project Fund and its successor the Global Opportunities Fund. Ministers and officials held regular meetings with NGOs, seeking advice and information on policy problems. This level of cooperation has continued under the coalition administration. Jeremy Browne, foreign office minister responsible for human rights policy, met the directors of eight NGOs, such as Amnesty International and Saferworld, in June 2010, stating that their ‘knowledge and experience’ would be ‘invaluable’ in developing human rights policy.145 Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International, sits on the foreign secretary’s Advisory Group on Human Rights, along with the chief executive of Oxfam UK and the UK director of Human Rights Watch, who are consulted on a biannual basis. Another department with a role in foreign policymaking, DFID, makes extensive use of NGOs to pursue its development agenda. A substantial amount of the DFID budget is channelled directly to NGOs. For example, in 2011, DFID had partnership programme agreements with thirty NGOs,

The actors in British foreign policy

including Action Aid (£13.82 million over three years), Oxfam (£27.83 million over three years) and WaterAid (£3.99 million over three years) as well as the Trades Union Congress (£2.4 million over two years).146 DFID does not ask for funds to be accounted for on a pound-by-pound basis and so these agreements represent financial support for the organizations themselves and their broader aims. Although this policy allows the NGOs to be responsive to changing funding needs, it does leave it open to criticism that proper accountability for public money is not being exercised. NGOs have also driven major policy initiatives such as the ‘Drop the Debt’ campaign, as well as highlighting the importance of the Millennium Development Goals – the key framework through which Britain’s overseas aid policies have been formulated since the goals were set out in the UN Millennium Declaration in September 2000. Academic and other outside expertise Whilst the subject of international relations has undergone a renaissance in the post-9/11 era, enjoying record student numbers and considerable research activity, the academic community in the UK has not seen a comparable rise in its influence on foreign policy thinking. In contrast to the United States, where academics such as Henry Kissinger (Harvard University – national security adviser), Paul Wolfowitz (Johns Hopkins University – deputy secretary of defense) and Joseph Nye (Harvard – assistant secretary of defense) have taken up major roles as policymakers in, or advisers to, government, British academics do not by and large cross over into the foreign policymaking realm.147 It is difficult to imagine a British academic having as prominent an influence on the UK’s foreign policy as, say, Bernard Henri-Levi had on French policy towards intervention in Libya in 2011. This is in contrast to British domestic politics, where academics have had major roles in devising policy on the environment, crime, education and social security. Furthermore, in the domestic realm, academic theory from the social sciences, economics and management studies has been cited by policymakers and had a profound effect on their thinking.148 The reason for the lack of impact in foreign policy circles is difficult to pinpoint. British foreign policymakers have long seen themselves as pragmatic and contrasted this with the more abstract, ideological stances favoured by other countries. Thus, academic theory in this realm might be seen as ‘other’ to the UK’s traditional practice. On the other hand, one might suggest that British academics have been content to maintain their distance to avoid being contaminated by the messy business of real politics.149 Even if British academics are not as prominent as their counterparts in other countries, that does not mean they have no input whatsoever. Academic specialists are periodically invited to discuss a current international issue with diplomats – as in seminars in 2010–11 on British foreign policy strategy, Afghanistan and the Arab Spring.150 FCO staff take part in conferences

33

34

British Foreign Policy

arranged by the British International Studies Association (and sit on the executive committee) and the US-based International Studies Association. Nevertheless, the impact of much of this activity on policy outcomes is unclear. In his first term of office, Tony Blair did attempt to establish an advisory group on international affairs which included senior academics. However, it rarely met and faded from existence after the intervention in Iraq in 2003. The FCO, through its Wilton Park conference facility, runs seminars and workshops on foreign policy. But it is think tanks such as the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House) (RIIA) and the increasingly resurgent Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) which are the main forums for academics and policymakers to interact. As reported in 2011, Chatham House was voted the most influential think tank outside the United States and the second most influential globally behind the Brookings Institute – in part, no doubt, due to its regular interaction with policymakers and opinion formers at the events it organizes in its central London headquarters, as well as its publication of the respected journal International Affairs.151 New Labour did establish a think tank on foreign affairs, the Foreign Policy Centre, which enjoyed the patronage of the foreign secretary and the PUS, Lord Kerr. However, it seems to have declined in significance with the change in government in 2010. Alternative think tanks such as the Institute for Government and Policy Exchange appear to enjoy more governmental attention at present.

Business Since many British businesses have a global reach, engaging with other states and peoples abroad, they are important foreign policy actors in their own right. Their input into the policy process can take a number of forms. On the one hand, the liberal view that trade is a beneficent force for social change means that governments of different political parties see firms as ‘agents of constructive engagement that can help inculcate liberal values into illiberal states and societies’.152 The British government has strongly encouraged investment in China in the belief that China’s economic development will inevitably lead to political liberalization in the long term.153 Moreover, as noted in chapter 8, the strength of the British economy is a major factor in supporting foreign policy activities, and so governments are keen to promote British businesses abroad. Soon after gaining office in 2010, William Hague declared that the coalition government would ‘make economic objectives a central aspect of our international bilateral engagement alongside our other traditional objectives’,154 and argued that the FCO would provide ‘direct support to the UK economy, helping British business secure new opportunities in the emerging economies and putting our diplomatic weight behind British enterprise’.155 Thus the coalition government closely aligned British foreign policy with the economic interests of UK businesses.

The actors in British foreign policy

On the other hand, the desire of firms to widen their potential markets may mean they lobby the UK government to develop favourable relations with some states that may not have human rights standards that accord with those of the UK. As such, trade and investment by UK-based businesses – and those from other countries – could undermine attempts to ostracize leaders of ‘rogue’ states.156 In addition, the activities of British firms abroad, when they are seen as negative, can have a damaging impact on international perceptions of Britain.157 As a result, neither businesses nor policymakers wish to conflate foreign policy entirely with trade policy. For political reasons, businesses may wish to distance themselves from British policymaking when diplomatic rows erupt between the UK and other states. Conversely, the UK government may ignore the lobbying of businesses when it sees overriding security interests. Typically, firms will contact UK embassies abroad to gain insights into the political stability of a target market, to understand local customs and sensitivities, and to identify prominent individuals and groups with whom they should engage to facilitate trade. Whilst these firms appreciate some background knowledge of business needs among FCO staff, they require the staff to have geographical and political knowledge above all else. Concern has been expressed in a 2011 report that the FCO’s embrace of managerialism and business skills may threaten its core role of providing political advice and contacts for British firms.158 Donna Lee identifies the main forms of commercial activity the FCO undertakes as gathering and disseminating commercial information and market research, developing business and government contacts abroad and making introductions, and promoting UK goods and services through trade fairs and lobbying.159 Businesses may also have an input into policy thinking via the secondment process. FCO officials have been seconded to work for companies such as Unilever, BAE or BP, and individuals from private companies have in turn been seconded to the FCO. This caused controversy in 2000 when an individual from British Nuclear Fuels Limited attached to the Tokyo embassy was alleged to be submitting overly positive reports on attitudes to BNFL in Japan, under the ambassador’s name.160 There have also been criticisms of the extent to which arms manufacturers have received governmental support, in excess of that expected by non-defence-related firms. Nevertheless, the inclusion of business personnel and ideas in the FCO is now so pervasive as to have become a norm of the organization’s operation. UK firms have achieved a greater prominence in the official structures of foreign policymaking via their representation on UKTI and the increasing emphasis on export promotion in the FCO’s work, mentioned above.

‘External’ foreign policy actors In addition to these central government actors, UK foreign policy is also influenced by, and constructed with, external government and governance

35

36

British Foreign Policy

bodies – the most obvious being the European Union (EU). Under the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) framework,161 Britain regularly attempts to forge common positions on key external policy matters with its European partners. The 2007 Reform treaty resulted in the development of a European External Action Service (EEAS), headed by a British national, Baroness Catherine Ashton, whose role now combines what were the positions of high representative for the CFSP and the external affairs commissioner into the post of high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. Baroness Ashton may influence British foreign policy by seeking to align it with the views of other European states – though the EU’s foreign policy remains strongly intergovernmental. The aim of the EEAS is to provide an EU diplomatic machinery to go with the increased foreign policy coordination among EU member states. The EEAS is made up of staff pooled from the diplomatic services of EU members and controls 136 EU delegations abroad, engaging in the kind of diplomatic activity usually associated with the embassies of nation states.162 It has five regional divisions (Asia; Africa; Russia, Eastern Neighbourhood and the Western Balkans; the Middle East and Southern Neighbourhood; the Americas) as well as directorates for ‘crisis response’ and ‘global and multilateral issues’, the latter concerned with policy areas such as global governance, human rights and democracy promotion, conflict and security policy, and non-proliferation/disarmament.163 Supporting the EEAS and the high representative are the Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit and the Joint Situation Centre.164 These departments come under the purview of the EU Council Secretariat and are tasked with ‘monitoring and analysing developments relevant to the CFSP’, ‘providing assessments of the Union’s foreign and security policy interests’ and situation monitoring.165 The FCO will provide information and support to them at times, and so a channel of cooperation and consultation that might feed back into British policy thinking is available. Their primary influence has been argued as agenda setting.166 In addition, a political and security committee and a military committee were set up after the 1999 Helsinki European Council. These consultative bodies provide opportunities to coordinate common European positions on defence, security and foreign policy matters among officials from member states. The EU also contains a number of cooperative negotiating arrangements to which British officials and ministers may contribute and which shape British foreign policy. For instance, it is part of the Quartet, with the US, Russia and China, attempting to negotiate peace in the Middle East – the special envoy for this group being the former British prime minister Tony Blair. Moreover, the three EU states viewed as most powerful – Germany, France and the UK (sometimes referred to as the EU3) – have led on international efforts to persuade Iran to cease its nuclear programme, again with the US, Russia and China (otherwise known as the E3 + 3). As such, British foreign policy is now formulated, defined and implemented through interaction with a range of

The actors in British foreign policy

EU governance bodies, and these actors may have an impact on policy outcomes equal to or greater than that of departments in Whitehall. The UK’s deepening political integration with the European Union creates conceptual and analytical problems for the foreign policy analyst. Given that the UK has a European identity, it is problematic to describe interaction with other states within the European Union as ‘foreign’ policy in the sense of engagement with something ‘other’ to the UK polity. The EU may operate on a largely intergovernmental basis when it comes to foreign and security policy; however, on ‘domestic’ issues – such as trade, crime, the environment and social welfare – cooperation between states, and the influence of EU institutions, are so pervasive that state boundaries are no longer the most significant markers of difference in policy. In the late 1990s, William Wallace noted that British Cabinet ministers met their European counterparts more often than they did their domestic colleagues.167 Since policies between European states are now made by the relevant department rather than exclusively by the FCO, a whole range of domestic ministers and departments may be instrumental in policy formation. Furthermore, European partners may be having a real impact on the UK’s policymaking in ways so diffuse as to make the analysis of policy formation and implementation very difficult. The locus of decisionmaking readily shifts between domestic and regional contexts such that it may be more accurate to see such interactions as no longer truly ‘foreign’, and instead view them as part of the domestic political sphere.168 The latter process could be argued as being well under way. The New Labour government, towards the end of its tenure, made the decision to cut the number of FCO staff in European posts by a third in order to redirect them to missions in other regions – notably those of the rising powers of China and India. With the growth of the EEAS, foreign policymaking could increasingly become something that is forged on a pan-European basis, directed at policy ‘external’ to the EU instead of the UK. Yet this is very much dependent on the issue at hand, since the UK has been reluctant to surrender final control over the most serious foreign policy matters such as defence and security to external bodies. Moreover, the former PUS Michael Jay argues that in an EU with twenty-seven member states, ‘the real decisions are going to be made . . . in smaller groups; the question is who forms those smaller groups. This means that discussions, bilateral discussions, discussions within smaller groups are going to become even more important. The role of diplomacy in that is going to remain important.’169 In the international realm, Britain has long had to take into account the views and interests of other states, especially key allies, to try and gain support for its policies. In a globalizing world, a whole host of international government and governance actors, including specific departments within foreign states, regional bodies, international organizations and multilateral forums, may exert an influence on many or all aspects of

37

38

British Foreign Policy

policymaking – from the timing of an initiative to its content, and then to how it is carried out. Yet some former practitioners offer a sense of foreign policy as resistant to external influence. Antony Acland suggests that the scope for changing the policy views of other states in the UN context was limited: ‘I think the sad thing about it was that you felt very often that the representatives were just voting according to the political policies of their governments, and not listening.’170 In a similar vein, Sir Michael Butler has argued that: ‘most of the debates in the UN, except certain debates in the Security Council on crisis situations, most of the debates were all just words, not really policy’.171 Their experience of the narrow scope for policy change in international forums may have been influenced by Cold War politics. Jeremy Greenstock, permanent representative from 1998 to 2003, saw a more active role for the UN in the post-Cold War era, with the Security Council evolving into ‘an operational instrument of peacekeeping diplomacy’ prior to 9/11.172 Although he acknowledges that the General Assembly is ‘pretty weak’, the Security Council is viewed as doing ‘a huge amount of other business, which is necessary’.173 Discussion with other members of the Security Council helps to define what policies are possible and so shapes the practical and imaginative parameters of policymaking. The United Kingdom’s position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council affords it greater scope for shaping the international security agenda and promoting particular policies – for instance, on climate change. But its veto power also offers the ultimate opportunity to block unfavourable security policies from receiving UN authorization. The need to achieve some form of consensus to pursue international security objectives will mean that British foreign policy has to compromise to be put into operation. The UK is also particularly sensitive to the views of the United States as its key ally. Nevertheless, in an anarchic international system, even one with high levels of interdependence and global connections, the British government arguably still has the final say on how it manages its external relations. Britain takes part in a number of other international forums that have the potential to influence policy formation. The Commonwealth provides UK ministers with the opportunity to discuss international affairs with a range of countries from across the globe that more regionally focused states do not enjoy. Geoffrey Howe sees the Commonwealth as ‘an enormously powerful vehicle for foreign policy’, on the basis that ‘talking to every kind of country from Vanuatu to India gave one a much wider perspective’.174 However, it is difficult to identify specific British foreign policies that have changed as a result of Commonwealth influence – though UK policies have in the past encountered resistance from the Commonwealth that has perhaps had a political cost.175 The G8 and G20 are additional opportunities for other states and global civil society actors to have an impact on British foreign policy. The 2005

The actors in British foreign policy

Gleneagles summit on African development was heralded as a success for the advancement of British foreign policy, and considerable impetus was given to formulating British foreign policy objectives to be discussed within this forum. The PUS, Michael Jay, worked closely with the prime minister to devise British foreign policy positions on Africa and climate change and promote them to other G8 governments. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) indicated that this effort was partially successful, with aid spending increasing by 35 per cent from 2004 to 2010.176 The G8 summits were, according to Jay, also instrumental in advancing the idea of climate change being ‘an integral and essential part of foreign policy’.177 Some policymakers, however, have been more sceptical about the tangible results that flow from these meetings. Anthony Brenton, former ambassador to Russia, suggests: There is . . . a huge build-up. The summits often produce quite eye-catching conclusions, but this is a process with no machinery. There are no real committees. There is no real bureaucracy, none of that, so again it’s a process where quite often states make commitments, which they don’t deliver on. Gleneagles somewhat later was a classic example of that. They got huge commitments to increase foreign aid to the Third World but I’m pretty sure that a lot of those commitments have not been delivered on.178

Indeed, five years later, Gordon Brown had to call for other states to honour their Gleneagles commitments as the OECD identified a US$21 billion shortfall in aid spending compared to what was promised.179

Conclusion Whilst there has been an increase in multilateralism since the early 1990s, the extent to which this has undermined the sense of a purely ‘national’ government making foreign policy can be overstated. In a 2009 monograph on governance, Bell and Hindmoor have critiqued the suggestion that nonstate actors and supranational organizations have effectively replaced the state as the primary actor in governance, arguing: ‘In some arenas – defence, security, monetary policy – policies continue to be made and implemented hierarchically by the state and consultation is non-existent or extremely limited.’180 Furthermore, they assert that ‘when governments have chosen to govern in alternative ways . . . the state usually retains a pre-eminent position’.181 This interpretation certainly seems to fit with the beliefs of FCO personnel interviewed for this book. The coalition government has arguably reinforced this process by restoring the FCO to a prominent position within foreign policy decisionmaking at the macro level and enhancing the consultation process via the creation of a National Security Council (NSC). The agenda of foreign policy and the political cost of making particular choices are affected by a host of institutional and non-institutional actors domestically and externally. However, the government retains the capacity

39

40

British Foreign Policy

to make decisions and forge policy positions. The performance of foreign policy is still largely carried out by official government departments and ministers, even though the goals they set themselves, how they go about achieving them and whether they are successful are affected by this wider range of policy influences. Having outlined some of the most prominent actors in the governmental formulation of foreign policy, I will now seek to describe how the British foreign policymaking process operates. To do so requires an understanding of the literature on governance and public policy, as well as an awareness of the external foreign policy environment, since official policy is forged through domestic governmental processes, as well as the wider social milieu of international relations.

Further reading Clarke, M. (1992) British External Policy-making in the 1990s (Basingstoke: Macmillan). Especially chapters 4, 5 and 6. Daddow, O. and Gaskarth, J. (2011) (eds.) British Foreign Policy: The New Labour Years (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Thematic retrospective on New Labour’s foreign policy with an attempt to construct a new theoretical framework for understanding British foreign policy. Dickie, J. (2004) The New Mandarins: How British Foreign Policy Works (London: I. B. Tauris). Detailed account of bureaucracy of foreign policymaking. Hall, I. (2013) ‘ “Building the Global Network?” The Reform of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office under New Labour’ BJPIR, Early View Online. Hill, C. (2003) The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Chapters 3 and 4. Roberts, I. (2011) Satow’s Diplomatic Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 6th edn. Extensive review of social and legal practices in British diplomacy. Williams, P. (2004) ‘Who’s making UK foreign policy?’ International Affairs, 80,5, 909–29. Analysis of trends in foreign policymaking during New Labour’s tenure in government. Williams, P. (2006) British Foreign Policy Under New Labour, 1997–2005 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Impressive review of New Labour’s policies on the global economy, military intervention and development. Ziegner, G. (ed.) (2007) British Diplomacy: Foreign Secretaries Reflect (London: Politico’s). First-hand account of British foreign policy from former practitioners.

c h a p t e r t hr ee

How is British foreign policy made?

The question in this chapter’s title is one which often provokes the reply ‘it depends’ from officials and policymakers alike. There is general agreement that the actors outlined in chapter 2 have some level of influence over its formation and implementation. However, the precise degree to which any one actor, or group of actors, is able to shape policy is seen as varying according to the issue at hand. Thus, theorizing about general patterns of policy governance is made difficult. The disciplinary field of foreign policy analysis (FPA) has provided some models of policymaking that could be applied to British foreign policy behaviour, the most longstanding being the rational actor model, organizational process model and bureaucratic politics model as outlined by Graham Allison.1 Yet these interpretations have their origins in the analysis of US foreign policy during the Cold War and are not readily transferable to a contemporary British context.2 For instance, the rational actor model assumes that the state is a unitary actor. But how can this idea be squared with the UK’s membership of the European Union, with the latter’s multilevel governance structures and pooling of sovereignty across a wide range of policy fields? Similarly, the bureaucratic politics model is designed to explain how competition between bureaucratic actors in US domestic politics can lead to policy errors – a problem that is attributed to the US constitution and its ideological opposition to centralized state power.3 Whilst there are some rivalries between different civil service departments in Britain, there is nothing to match the inter-service rivalry within the US Department of Defense, for instance, let alone that between Defense and the State Department.4 When it comes to the organizational process model, one could make use of its associated concepts, such as that of ‘standard operating procedures’, and employ these to explain the policy outputs of the FCO. Yet, as I have hinted above, the FCO has to formulate policy in cooperation with the Cabinet Office, the Prime Minister’s Office and other departments such as the MOD and the DFID – as well as non-state and supranational actors. As such, an analytical approach that looks within only one organization is unlikely to capture the true complexity of policymaking. Furthermore, in analysing British foreign policy it is important to appreciate the idiosyncrasies and particularities of the UK policymaking context. Many FPA scholars offer 41

42

British Foreign Policy

accounts of policymaking which operate at a high level of abstraction so that they can be used to construct generalizable models.5 By contrast, the aim of this section is to provide a firmer sense of the actual practice of foreign policymaking in the UK. An extensive literature on British government has emerged since the early 1980s aimed at capturing the dominant trends in policymaking within the UK national context. This body of work has cohered around three separate narratives of how the policy process functions, namely the Westminster model, the differentiated polity model and the asymmetric power model. Each gives a different account of which actors are most influential, how they interact, and what the most important ideas and trends shaping governmental action are. By applying the insights of each model in turn to the formulation of foreign policy, we can gain a deeper sense of how British foreign policymaking is influenced by domestic and international patterns of government/governance. It is this ‘governmentality’ of British foreign policy which is arguably often overlooked by analysts. Commentators tend to ignore theories of government in discussing foreign policy. Instead they focus either on providing an atheoretical description of its practice,6 or on applying theories from international relations – particularly discursive theory7 – which give a good sense of the linguistic structures enabling policy but not an account of how those ideas are expressed in governance processes.8

The Westminster model The traditional view of government in Britain sees policymaking as carried out within an hierarchical, institutionalized process centred on Westminster and Whitehall. The features of this system have been identified as ‘a unitary state; Parliamentary sovereignty; strong Cabinet government; accountability through free and fair elections; majority party control of the executive’, and these operate against a backdrop of ‘elaborate parliamentary conventions’ and ‘institutionalized opposition’.9 Policy direction will, for the most part, be set by the core executive at the centre and then cascaded down through the civil service departments to be implemented. Even if policy is at times derived from lower ranks in a ‘bottom-up’ fashion, it still has to gain approval from the senior figures within the hierarchical structure. As such, the dominant actors are government ministers and senior civil servants. Moreover, whereas in a domestic context parliamentary opposition is supposed to scrutinize and critique the policies of the core executive, in the foreign policy sphere a tradition of bipartisanship predominates.10 This means that, wherever possible, parties unite behind the foreign policy of the government so that foreign powers cannot exploit internal divisions to weaken Britain’s capacity to act abroad; thus, the power of the centre to decide policy is increased. In theory, then, foreign policy should be the perfect arena for observing the Westminster model in action.

How is British foreign policy made?

Certainly, it does seem to be apparent in ministers’ and civil servants’ own accounts of how British foreign policy is made. For instance, consider this description of the process by a FCO diplomat: who sets strategic foreign policy? Clearly, that is increasingly Number 10 – Number 10 plus the Cabinet; unless you have a very strong foreign secretary. Who actually provides the bulk of policy advice on foreign policy? I would argue that it is primarily the Foreign Office, even now.11

Or this account by a former special adviser to the foreign secretary: there was . . . this continuing tussle for foreign policy supremacy between Number 10 and the Foreign Office. Ultimately Number 10 always wins if it wants to.12

Later in the interview, this individual repeated this assertion, arguing: ‘ultimately, Number 10, the prime minister, always wins; that is the nature of our system’.13 The sense of these descriptions is of a strong core executive, with the prime minister able to decide on foreign policy and willing to delegate power to the FCO only when it suits the prime minister. The special adviser’s narrative does indicate a greater degree of fragmentation when it comes to the hierarchy of decisionmaking. They note that in dealing with Tony Blair’s adviser on national security, ‘We always had to be fighting against his attempts to talk to the Foreign Office and civil servants directly and not actually going through the foreign secretary.’14 Nevertheless, they conveyed that ministers and civil servants are the most important actors in policymaking. A number of respondents interviewed for this book saw the way foreign policy restricted itself largely to discussion between ministers and officials as a unique characteristic of this area of government. Other public policy environments were considered much more open to outside ideas and influence. This is attributed in part to the timing of decisions, with foreign policy having to react to events abroad in a short-term fashion – preventing outside parties from becoming involved. It is also associated with the secretive nature of much foreign policy work, as in one commentator’s suggestion that ‘There really is an obstacle in terms of access to confidential information which stops people who are academics being involved in those discussions.’15 Similarly, an FCO official notes: most policy dialogues take place confidentially. NSC committees won’t regularly meet in public. Even with issues like climate change there are sensitivities on how you lobby the Chinese, work with the Indians, or influence the US – hence the need for private policy discussions and planning.16

Furthermore, because much foreign policy and diplomacy is conducted between states, non-governmental actors are seen as only able to exercise a marginal influence, since they are not integrated into the formal and official

43

44

British Foreign Policy

bureaucratic workings of state-to-state interactions.17 International diplomacy has strong protocols on who should speak to whom. These reinforce internal hierarchies and privilege official government spokespeople as the legitimate actors authorized to speak on foreign policy matters.18 As I have noted above, tensions have arisen over the formal mechanisms of foreign policy decisionmaking in the UK – particularly during the Blair era. Concern was expressed that greater centralization of power on Number 10 undermined Whitehall conventions on record keeping as well as the bureaucratic hierarchy that privileges the foreign secretary and the FCO as the primary coordinators of foreign policy in Britain. Yet this does not necessarily mean that the Westminster model is not applicable. As Christine Bellamy noted in 2011, recent research casts doubt on how far the Westminster model, if we conceive of it in terms of rigid, gradated bureaucratic structures, ‘could be realized in any state or at any time in which there is a significant degree of pluralism of values and goals, or any but a monopolistic distribution of resources’.19 In other words, no governmental system has ever been entirely consistent in its processes and no core executive has been able to exercise complete control over policy outcomes. Nevertheless, as Mark Bevir notes, ‘British civil servants are socialized into the broad notions of the Westminster model, such as Ministerial responsibility, as well as the specific ways of doing things around here; they are “socialised into the idea of a profession” and learn the “framework of the acceptable”.’20 In this sense, the literature implies two Westminster models: a theoretical one of rigid hierarchy and central control, and a looser practical one with scope for policy formation at various levels, with some interdepartmental rivalry, but with acceptance of the ultimate authority of the core executive (should it be invoked). We can see each of these in practice if we examine how ministers describe their experience of policymaking. Firstly, Chris Bryant, a minister of state at the FCO 2009–10, gives the following interpretation of a change in policy on arms control: On cluster munitions, for example, Gordon had rightly made the decision to overturn what had previously been the Labour government view which was that we were not going to abolish cluster munitions. We were bringing forward a cluster munitions bill. I wanted to go further than what was on the bill originally and consequently we did. We decided to put in clauses about what is called ‘indirect funding of cluster munitions’ because I said so. I had to make sure David Miliband agreed with me, but that was my decision and pretty much mine alone.21

Here, we have a policy change initiated at the centre – by the prime minister at the time, Gordon Brown – being put into operation by FCO ministers and officials. Chris Bryant seeks to amend the policy to broaden its scope but to do so he needs to seek approval from the foreign secretary, David Miliband. Having done so, he is able to implement this policy. The authority of each stage of the hierarchy is respected, it is the core executive making decisions,

How is British foreign policy made?

and the policy is carried out within a Westminster/Whitehall context. This process is represented pictorially in figure 4. In a similar vein, Bill Rammell, a minister of state at the FCO, gives this account of changing British policy towards engagement with North Korea: I pioneered engagement. It took a lot of doing and I am still the only British government minister ever to have visited North Korea and to have spent four days there engaging with them. I started that process. I spent a year, probably, developing the argument with officials going backwards and forwards, then starting to take special advisers and Jack forward, saying: ‘look, this is what we should be doing’. I persuaded Jack. We then had to persuade Number 10; and we did. So yes, I can think of a number of incidents like that.22

In this case, the policy change is represented as deriving from the minister rather than the prime minister; but it still passes through the bureaucratic chain of command, with the minister of state seeking the approval of the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, first and then achieving the ultimate sanction of the Prime Minister’s Office prior to implementation. Policy formation and action are carried out by actors within Westminster and Whitehall. Rammell does return to this example later in the interview and adds to the parties with whom he had to confer, noting that ‘all the brokering I had to do was really internally with Number 10, then also getting the Americans on side so that they wouldn’t see it as cutting across their terrain’.23 Although this seems to indicate that the US had the potential to obstruct the policy if they chose to do so, they did not, and the overall sense is of policy driven by governmental actors internal to British domestic politics. Policymaking does not always go as smoothly as in these examples. The alternative Westminster model might be seen as one where governmental actors experience power struggles and policy is forged in a more conflictual fashion. When Rammell sought to pursue engagement with Cuba, he found a greater degree of resistance from Whitehall: I took the view that we ought to be talking to Cuba because Castro was going to go and it was crazy that, at the stage when he finally went and the regime was up for grabs, we would have no influence. But the view from Nigel, which was a very traditional Foreign Office view driven by the Americans, was: ‘no, no, no’. I went in February 2005. The Friday before I was due to go, he rang my private secretary and gave her an absolute bollocking. Typical, civil servant, ‘what are you doing letting your minister go to Cuba?’ I was in my constituency surgery. She rang me and I said to her to: ‘Just tell him to fuck off. We are going.’24

As with the description above from the special adviser, this narrative sees a tension between the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Office. Here the minister is forced to override the civil servant (the prime minister’s foreign policy adviser, Nigel Sheinwald) in strong terms. Again, the US government is invoked as a potential spoiler to the policy initiative – implying it has permeated the Westminster/Whitehall system and is an important actor

45

Prime minister seeks change to policy on cluster munitions

Bill drafted by ministers and civil servants

Minister of state suggests amendment to broaden its scope; gets agreement of foreign secretary

Amendment made, bill passed and policy implemented by civil servants

Policy outcome: Banning of cluster munitions

Minister of state seeks policy change towards engagement with North Korea

Discusses with civil servants, special advisers and then foreign secretary

Gains approval from foreign secretary and then Prime Minister’s Office; liaises with US counterparts

Visits North Korea and engages in four days of discussion

Policy outcome: Bilateral engagement between UK and North Korea

Minister has a personal interest in a region/issue

Seeks approval for action from foreign secretary and/or support of FCO

Encounters opposition from Cabinet Office

Overrides objection

Policy outcome: Ministerial visit to Cuba

Figure 4 Westminster model policy trajectories

How is British foreign policy made?

shaping policy attitudes. Yet it is notable that the minister feels sufficiently confident in his own political position to elect to continue with the policy despite official opposition. As an elected politician, the minister of state occupies a more senior position than the civil servant (Sheinwald) – even though the latter works in the Prime Minister’s Office. Thus, the Westminster model’s assumption of majority party control of the executive is reaffirmed. In discussion with policymakers, however, I have also been offered an alternative narrative, one which suggests a more fragmented policy process and a wider range of actors than simply government departments and politicians. In chapter 2 I noted a number of non-state actors outside the Westminster and Whitehall system, including firms, NGOs, academics, think tanks and media organizations, that have an input into some foreign policy decisions. The effect of these actors on policymaking is not only to shape governmental action but also, at times, to subvert traditional bureaucratic hierarchies and create innovative and changing formations of policy actors. This process is not confined to foreign policy but has been identified as a feature of the British political system in recent decades and has given rise to a new description of the UK government as a ‘differentiated polity’.

The differentiated polity model In contrast to the unitary state outlined in the Westminster model above, the differentiated polity model stresses the more fragmented and conflictual nature of policymaking. As David Marsh notes: ‘there are differences within the core executive, between ministers, departments and coordinating mechanisms, which mean that . . . the polity is characterized by contestation and exchange relations’.25 Instead of officials from the various departments of state interacting to pursue common goals, the differentiated polity model sees them as pursuing particular individual or organizational interests. Policy is constructed not by hierarchies of governmental actors but instead through networks that bring together interested parties from the public, the private and the voluntary sectors.26 The core executive has apparently been ‘hollowed out’ through a series of challenges to its authority. From above, international interdependence has forced governments to pool their decisionmaking in arenas such as the European Union and United Nations. From below, networks and markets provide alternative policymaking forums that can bypass or undermine central control. In addition, privatization and the hiving-off of former government duties to agencies has weakened the state from a sideways direction.27 Whilst the core executive has sought to strengthen its power through greater centralization on the Cabinet Office and Number 10 (as well as tighter Treasury oversight of expenditure and more regulation), the centre is seen as having a declining ability to steer policy.28 In a memorable phrase, Bevir and Rhodes characterize the core executive as ‘fumbling to pull rubber levers of

47

48

British Foreign Policy

control’ whilst below them lies a ‘massive proliferation of networks’.29 In this context, the government’s approach to policymaking has had to change. Mark Bevir argues that ‘the state can no longer command others, but must rely instead on limited steering mechanisms and diplomacy’.30 In place of the hierarchical idea of government, analysts now see the management of the policy process as a matter of governance – implying looser forms of political control. Instead of static traditions and bureaucratic structures, governing is described as ‘a continuous process of interpretation, conflict and activity that generates an ever-changing pattern of government’.31 As a result, state authority is ‘constantly being remade, negotiated, and contested in widely different ways within widely varying everyday practices’.32 We have already seen, in the introduction to this book, arguments about the declining capacity of states to exercise sovereignty and carry out independent political action. Since Britain coordinates its foreign policy with other actors, regionally and internationally – especially other EU member states – and pursues its goals in global multilateral forums, the actual process of policymaking can be far more complex than the more internally driven narrative which the Westminster model seems to suggest. For example, Lord Malloch-Brown, a minister of state during the Brown premiership, describes his experience of policy formation thus: the one thing I expected and found was a Britain that, to get its way, had to put its policy into the sausage-grinder of committees in Brussels or New York; or in a policy process in Washington. Therefore, Britain was likely, in most of these foreign policy situations, to come out with maybe 10 per cent of its own foreign policy recognizably intact . . . we had to be parts of consensus to have a say on things, and once you accept that that, not gunships, has become the means of British foreign policy, it is very, very hard to be a purist.33

This offers a very different narrative of British foreign policymaking, and the power of the UK core executive, to the Westminster model. According to Malloch-Brown, for Britain to achieve a successful political action, the approval of other states is required, expressed in the form of consensus in the policy arenas of the European Union or the United Nations or in bilateral agreement with the United States government. In the process, the policy itself will be subject to such a transformation that only a small percentage of the final product could be seen as derived from the national context. As such, foreign policy is devised and implemented to a large extent away from the Westminster/Whitehall system. Furthermore, Britain’s membership of the European Union means that its involvement in multilateral forums can be more complex than a simple matter of intergovernmental bargaining. Charles Grant has criticized the confusing structures of external representation in the EU, leading to overlapping policy actors. At the London Summit of the G20 in 2009, he states that ‘in addition to the countries that are formally members (Britain, France,

How is British foreign policy made?

Germany and Italy), the EU was represented by the Commission, the Czech Republic (as EU president), Spain and the Netherlands, not to mention the heads of the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and the Financial Stability Forum, who are also European’.34 Thus, in place of a simple system of governments devising policy internally and expressing it globally, we have a more fragmented process of multiple actors, national and supranational, with overlapping duties of representation. To exercise political control and engage in political action, governmental actors now join forces with actors from the public, private and voluntary sectors to form networks of governance.35 These can often take the form of coalitions of parties with an interest in pursuing a particular policy line, who will then feed off each other’s knowledge, skills and power to direct policy thinking and action. For instance, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there was a concerted governmental attempt to raise public awareness of the potential threat that Iraq represented to British interests if it acquired WMD.36 Intelligence agencies and defence analysts in the MOD and US Department of Defense coordinated policy together and interacted with think tanks such as the IISS in London – whose influential report on Iraq’s weapons programmes seemed to confirm government rhetoric on the threat.37 In addition, defence correspondents fed off their links with government to report the latest intelligence apparently indicating Iraq was breaching its commitments on disarmament. This sort of policy community – with regular interaction between members in quasi-formal settings and longstanding norms such as the ‘Chatham House rules’ of non-attribution and private briefings – is an example of what Marsh and Rhodes describe as a ‘tight network’, in which network membership and behaviour have a high degree of consistency over time.38 I have sought to represent this process in figure 5. As hinted at in the minister of state’s account above, US and UK policy communities have long been integrated in a tight network of mutual interaction across many layers of government. Indeed, this relationship is now so strong that it has been suggested it may bypass the policy directions of the respective core executives. The former British ambassador to Russia Sir Anthony Brenton asserts: ‘there are undoubtedly bits of the American system which for historical reasons are very close to corresponding bits of our system and therefore are willing to help us even when US policy overall is in a more neutral mode’.39 Longstanding cooperation between the two countries, particularly in intelligence and defence matters, is said to have given rise to ‘an instinctive habit’ among US officials whereby, ‘if they needed someone to compare notes with, it was to the Brits they turned’.40 This governmental network of cooperation has now been augmented by actors from other sectors, particularly the think tank and academic community.41 Jeremy Richardson, however, notes a shift in many political arenas from ‘a world of policy-making characterized by tightly knit policy communities’ to a more ‘loosely “organized” and therefore less predictable collection of

49

Arms manufacturers

Media/ public opinion

NGOs

MOD/

Defence

US Department of Defense

DFID

Policy think tanks

Aid

Media

UN relief agencies

British foreign policy Markets/

Cultural organizations

firms

Treasury/ BIS/ FCO

Economics

World Bank/ IMF/

EEAS

Diplomacy

WTO

EU

Figure 5 The networks of British foreign policy

Firms

FCO

How is British foreign policy made?

stakeholders in “issue networks” ’.42 As the state has become ‘hollowed out’ and the core executive has lost its power, formal hierarchical structures have become less relevant to the political process. With a proliferation of actors now able to exert influence, policymaking has become a more dynamic process. As a result, government has to remake itself continually to confront new challenges, depending on the issue at hand. This is arguably evident in the varying relationships between NGOs and the FCO. The FCO does have continuing links with major NGOs such as Amnesty International. However, it also cultivates networks of large and small NGOs to pursue particular policy priorities. These links can be very close as the issue is digested and policy formed; however, they are usually of limited duration and do not cross over into wider policymaking. For many NGOs, such an arrangement allows them to influence government without their independence being compromised. Meanwhile, the FCO gains useful outside expertise and policy thinking without being committed to any one group’s agenda. This shifting pattern of governance is seen as particularly characteristic of international relations in the post-Cold War era, with international NGOs and supranational organizations combining with national bureaucracies and non-state actors to devise and promote policies. As Coleman and Perl argue: ‘Transnational policy communities will be less integrated than national ones, because of larger numbers of actors, more instability in members, lower institutionalization of interactions, and less agreement of basic ideas and values . . . issue networks may be more common than at the national level.’43 Therefore, if British policymakers are to interact with and influence these changing patterns of governance at the international level, their internal bureaucratic machinery needs to be prepared to adapt and form new coalitions with external actors.44 Today, influence increasingly lies with networks of states with fluid and dynamic patterns of allegiance, alliance and connections, including the informal, which act as vital channels of influence and decision-making and require new forms of engagement from Britain. Hague, ‘British foreign policy’

In part, the need for openness to actors outside formal governmental bureaucracies is seen as a product of declining faith in traditional modes of government. For example, a Foreign Policy Centre pamphlet in 2005 asserted that in the field of public diplomacy, ‘Governments are poor spokesmen. “Official public diplomacy work” must be paralleled by a continuous, concerted attempt to develop a parallel “people-to-people” conversation that works through NGOs, diasporas, political parties and other non-governmental avenues.’45 However, officials seem to view it more as a means of enhancing than of replacing the official practice of foreign policy. As Sir John Coles relates it:

51

52

British Foreign Policy

there is a kind of marketplace for ideas and you had better be part of it if you want to be efficient. It applies to almost any organisation . . . nowadays if you don’t draw on the experience of the good international non-governmental organisations you are missing a very big trick . . . the Oxfams, the UNICEFs and all NGOs tend to have built up really quite formidable expertise in specific bits of the world – very few of them have got a general compass . . . if you take a country like the Sudan – which is where I first served abroad – nowadays, if you want to know what is going on in the southern Sudan, well, ask the British embassy by all means. They do collect information and they should know a good deal; but there are a lot of agencies actually working in the South and they are the ones that I would want to get amongst and talk to, and that happens all the time.46

The conceptualization of the policy process as a ‘marketplace for ideas’ is highly redolent of the differentiated polity model, with its emphasis on relations of exchange between network members.47 It is also characteristic of an issue network as there is little indication of shared values between NGOs and government in this paragraph. Interaction is designed to make the organization more ‘efficient’, and it is conducted on a short-term basis. Whilst the process outlined above is not interpreted as challenging the traditional role of government in coordinating policy, others have suggested that a less hierarchical approach may have undermined the practice of foreign policy in the UK: Hierarchical? I would not use that word at all. They were completely misguided in the direction they were heading. They had forgotten what the main objective of the Foreign Office was, which was foreign policy. They had become obsessed with the Cabinet Office’s agenda of management change. I found that irritating and distracting . . . .Policy has to be decided in the centre. You cannot have 170 embassies deciding on the policy. My point was there was nobody deciding the policy. They were too busy trying to organise the next management scheme. It got to the point where nobody was managing the policy and focus was being put on ‘skills audits’ or ‘capability reviews’, ‘instruction for business plans’, etc. That is where the Foreign Office had gone wrong.48

In the above passage, Sir Ivor Roberts, a former ambassador to Rome, takes issue with an apparently declining sense of policy direction from the centre during New Labour’s terms in office. This is attributed to the introduction of policy language and beliefs from other departments – notably the Cabinet Office and, elsewhere in the interview, the Treasury. In other words, network relationships with other departments were seen as interrupting and undermining the foreign policy process. It is a trend that was identified by Sir John Coles in an earlier treatment of British foreign policy, in which he decried the ‘increasing emphasis on management’, which meant that staff were ‘judged by their ability to manage their budgets and . . . to make savings’ rather than on the quality of their policy advice.49 This move has its roots in a Whitehall-wide phenomenon through which government activity has become subject to intrusive regulation, particularly via the medium of targets, strategies and objectives – language that selfconsciously apes private sector management discourse.50 In the importing of

How is British foreign policy made?

this from other governmental sectors, foreign policymakers seem to perceive a diluting of the rationale and beliefs that have traditionally motivated British foreign policy practice.51 To summarize, the differentiated polity model sees governance as increasingly being conducted through networks, which can either be ‘tight networks’, making up longstanding policy communities, or take the form of more ad hoc ‘issue networks’ – coalitions of private, public and voluntary sector actors who form coalitions of convenience. Policymakers have identified the networked cooperation between actors in the UK and the US in defence and intelligence as an example of the former; whilst cooperation between NGOs and the UK government on foreign policy matters tends to take the shape of the latter. Moreover, the international policy environment is seen as particularly conducive to the development of issue networks as it involves a greater number of actors who do not necessarily share values or working practices – making long-term cooperation difficult. Although the differentiated polity model is widely viewed as a more accurate representation of governance in the UK than the Westminster model, there is some debate as to how it should be understood and applied. In particular, Bevir notes differences in opinion regarding how far institutions determine the actions of individuals. Among institutionalists, it is assumed that organizational culture and bureaucratic practice can have a deterministic effect on policy outcomes. Members of an organization are seen as conditioned by ‘logics of appropriateness’ from early in their career, with an organization’s norms defining what behaviour is proper in a given context and affecting the decisions of individual members to such an extent that we can largely tell what a person will do on the basis of which department they are from.52 In the FPA literature, Graham Allison characterized this relationship as ‘Where You Stand Depends on Where You Sit’.53 The bureaucratic practices of an organization – its ‘standard operating procedures’ – will affect what it will and won’t do, and whom it will and won’t cooperate with, to achieve its aims. Thus, networks are seen as fashioned and directed by these structural constraints on policy. By contrast, Bevir outlines what he terms a ‘decentred theory of governance’ that rejects structural determinants and instead sees policy as deriving from how individuals interpret their social worlds. Someone from the FCO may decide to pursue a policy that accords with previous ideas about how to behave. However, they may also embrace new ideas – or reinterpret old ones – according to their individual beliefs. For instance, whilst Jeremy Greenstock and Christopher Meyer were seen to reject managerialism and emphasize foreign policy’s unique character as a political activity,54 Michael Jay, a PUS who increased managerialism in the FCO, emphasized how far he cooperated with other government departments, suggesting that ‘you’re working very closely with other Government departments in London . . . I went into a negotiation in Algiers trying to get an agreement on behalf of the Home Secretary

53

54

British Foreign Policy

and the Foreign Secretary.’55 Bevir might account for these different approaches by stressing the importance of individual agency: ‘the rules and commands of a bureaucracy do not have a fixed form but rather are constantly interpreted and made afresh through the creative activity of individuals as they come across always slightly novel circumstances’.56 In other words, it is how individuals create meaning through their beliefs and actions that matters, not supposedly objective structural determinants. Of course, policymakers do not interpret their situation in a vacuum. Preexisting beliefs exist about how social worlds function; individuals have to reinterpret these to make sense of their actions. Bevir describes these already existing beliefs as traditions, and outlines a number that have been influential in British political governance, including Tory, Liberal, Whig and socialist.57 Individual policymakers interpret their political situation in relation to traditions such as these, and adapt or supplant them according to policy dilemmas. Thus, the postwar consensus in British politics, combining a Whig tradition promoting evolutionary change and social harmony with a socialist view of a beneficent state, was challenged in the 1970s as a result of economic decline and social unrest. The incoming Conservative government in 1979, merging elements of Tory and Liberal traditions, sought to contest the authority of the state and break up an apparently monolithic bureaucracy into markets and networks. However, the policy inefficiencies this created led the New Labour government elected in 1997 to seek to reform the state rather than discard it. New Labour emphasized joined-up government and managing the state in a more efficient manner but still saw the state as a positive force in public life, in accordance with a reinterpreted socialist tradition.58 When it comes to the encroachment of a managerial discourse into foreign policy, we can see elements of a number of these traditions at play, including the Tory and Liberal preference for private sector techniques and involvement, as well as the socialist emphasis on consistent practices across government and greater regulation and control from the centre. We might also want to highlight the international traditions that have influenced British governance in recent years. Marsh and Sharman have noted that assuming political developments are specific to one country or political context may lead analysts to fall foul of ‘Galton’s problem’.59 This is described as the ‘erroneous presumption that national policy choices are independent’ when in fact they may derive from ‘cross-cultural borrowing’.60 An important backdrop to the encroachment of managerial discourse into British governance processes was the increasing power of a neoliberal tradition in governance globally. Neoliberalism’s belief in the inherent inefficiency of government hierarchies and bureaucracies61 has led to the private sector’s being promoted as the answer to the world’s development and governance problems. Meanwhile, economically failing governments were brought into line through structural adjustment programmes that opened up markets to competition and afforded the private sector much greater power within these communities.62 UK

How is British foreign policy made?

policymakers have both responded to this international discourse and actively promoted it, as one of the leading global economic actors. In this way, Bevir’s ‘decentred’ theory of governance allows us to appreciate the global flow of ideas across imagined institutional boundaries. This approach has, however, been critiqued by some governance analysts as failing to take sufficient account of the structural constraints in decisionmaking. According to Bevir and Rhodes, governance is changeable, actors have a high degree of interpretative agency, and their individual beliefs are paramount. This view has been challenged by an approach that sees governance as shaped by asymmetries of power in the wider society. Regardless of policymakers’ intentions, this model sees their decisions and actions as being shaped by material structures – either bureaucratic, economic or geopolitical. Certain actors have more say in the policy process due to the greater weight their voice carries in society – something which may be underpinned by economic wealth or political power. The physical organization of policymaking may reflect these asymmetries. Thus, the thought processes and behaviour of policymakers may be shaped in turn by structural factors that could be viewed as limiting their capacity for agency – moving the analytical focus away from the individual agent towards the constraining situation in which they find themselves.

The asymmetric power model In a way, the asymmetric power model (APM) combines the insights of the two models already outlined. On the one hand, it recognizes that networks are now an important feature of the policy process and that the British polity has moved from government to governance – as the differentiated polity model suggests. On the other hand, it sees the Westminster model as still embodying a ‘powerful meta-tradition in Whitehall’.63 Whilst a wider range of actors now contribute to policymaking, and these may form networks to pursue particular policies, governance often remains hierarchical. For Marsh, a proponent of this model, ‘government remains strong, although increasingly challenged’; ‘structured inequalities in society’ are mirrored in policymaking ideas and practices; and decisions are ‘path-dependent’, meaning they are shaped by the power relations among the policy community.64 Yet this model does not go so far as to argue that these structures determine policy outcomes entirely. Instead, the process is envisaged as a dialectical one whereby ‘structure and agency, the material and the ideational and institutions and ideas’, combine to influence policymaking.65 An example of the difficulty of marginalized communities influencing foreign policy is perhaps apparent in the case of Muslim dissatisfaction with British foreign policy since the early 2000s. In particular, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 attracted considerable protest from the Muslim community – as it did from non-Muslim communities and individuals – but this did not affect

55

56

British Foreign Policy

the government’s decision in a tangible way.66 Following the London bombings on 7 July 2005, the government set up a task force, entitled ‘Preventing Extremism Together’. This was designed to reach out and communicate with the Muslim community and hoped to curb Muslim ‘disengagement and radicalization’ in Britain. The task force, made up of prominent figures from the Muslim community, offered a series of proposals in a report published in November 2005.67 However, in July 2006, Martin Bright revealed in the New Statesman that only one of the task force’s sixty-four recommendations had apparently been implemented – that of organizing a roadshow of moderate Muslim scholars to counter extremist interpretations of Islam across the country.68 This project was supposedly already well advanced prior to the setting up of the task force, with the Foreign Office even having shortlisted three organizations it hoped would run the event.69 Bright describes this as ‘an old civil service trick during “public” consultations’: giving the ‘appearance of openness, while the real policy is being developed behind the scenes’.70 In a similar vein, the FCO arranged a number of events in 2008–9 aimed at engaging the Muslim community in a policy dialogue. But there was no evidence that this process resulted in any change of attitude among FCO officials or ministers.71 As noted in chapter 4, British Muslims, as a community, have lower economic activity than other social groups in the UK, and this economic marginalization could be read as presenting a barrier to their ability to influence public policy. A stark contrast is apparent between this community’s failed efforts to engage with British foreign policymakers and the pervasive input of individuals and organizations from British business in the day-to-day activities of the FCO. Successive governments in recent decades have endeavoured to increase the commercial activity of the FCO, following a series of reports in the 1960s and 1970s advocating a more business-oriented approach from the Foreign Office.72 This has been taken even further since the early 1990s with the growing bureaucratic cooperation between the FCO and the BIS. These departments jointly run UKTI, an organization that ‘works with UK-based businesses to ensure their success in international markets, and encourage the best overseas companies to look to the UK as their global partner of choice’.73 As noted above, the FCO is currently run by a former permanent secretary at the BIS – albeit one with previous experience as a diplomat. Businesspeople have acted as non-executive members of the FCO board, giving them a link to the heart of executive decisions about how the FCO is run.74 Furthermore, the rhetoric of policymakers implies that the interests of British firms are now a major influence on the bureaucratic activity of foreign policy. In 2010, William Hague apparently took it upon himself to write ‘an open letter to all 15,000 employees of our Foreign Office, including our staff here in Tokyo and Osaka, explaining that we must use our global diplomatic network to support UK business even more intensively and to build stronger bilateral

How is British foreign policy made?

relationships for Britain’.75 This message was also communicated by the prime minister, David Cameron, in his first Mansion House speech in 2010, when he called for ‘a more commercial foreign policy’, one that would be about ‘selling Britain to the world’.76 According to the APM, the different impact of attempts to influence British foreign policy from the Muslim and business communities is merely a reflection of the wider asymmetries of their respective power in British society. The ideas and practices of large business corporations have infiltrated governance in the UK and shaped the beliefs of foreign policymakers about the overriding importance of business activities to achieving national goals. If we were to wonder why David Cameron effectively vetoed EU attempts to agree common fiscal rules in December 2011, we could trace it to that same Mansion House speech – itself delivered to an audience largely of prominent businesspeople – in which he asserted: When it comes to the European Union, we’ve shown in recent months how we are constructive and firm partners, using our membership of the EU to defend and advance UK interests. I can promise you this: we will stand up, at each and every turn, for our financial services industry and the City of London. London is Europe’s pre-eminent financial centre. With this government, I am determined it will remain so.77

Advocates of the APM would view declarations such as these as evidence of the structural power of particular economic interest groups – notably the City of London. Businesses cannot automatically get their way on foreign policy matters; but underpinning existing foreign policy thinking is the assumption that export promotion is of pre-eminent importance to Britain’s national interests. As a result, the bureaucratic processes of decisionmaking are structured in a way that provides for businesses to have an input into policymaking. Moreover, the language and values of foreign policy now mirror those of corporate business to such an extent that they could be viewed as facilitating policy that accords with business interests, whilst acting as a barrier to alternative policy conceptualizations.

Conclusion In sum, who makes foreign policy, and how it is made, will depend on the policy dilemma at hand. If it is related to Britain’s official relations with another state – as the examples of North Korea and Cuba were here – then ministers may choose to get involved and the Westminster model might be the best description of how policy comes about. If the policy is focused on an area that is already associated with a ‘tight’ networked policy community (for instance, defence), then existing patterns of cooperation and knowledgesharing at a horizontal level, between state officials and non-state actors such as think tanks, may be more important than the hierarchical ones of the Westminster model. Where the policy dilemma is new, or is a narrow topic

57

58

British Foreign Policy

with a global impact, then issue networks, such as those associated with disaster relief or human rights emergencies, may be forged. In each of these cases, a differentiated polity would be more apparent. Whilst the patterns of governance may shift, asymmetries of power in domestic and international politics can contribute to some actors having higher levels of access to the policymaking process, over time, than others. In this scenario, it is the most economically, socially and politically powerful that will have an influence on foreign policymaking, and the marginalized groups who are weak in these areas that will be excluded.

Further reading Allison, G. and Zelikow, P. (1999) Essence of Decision (Harlow: Longman). Classic analysis of foreign policy decisionmaking. The revised edition expands the examples away from just a US context. Bevir, M. and Rhodes, R. (2006) ‘The life, death and resurrection of British governance’ Australian Journal of Public Administration, 65,2, 59–69. Excellent summation of a governance approach to studying political processes. British Diplomatic Oral History Programme, www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/ collections/BDOHP. Astonishingly rich array of interviews with former British diplomats, offering candid accounts of their experiences in making and carrying out British foreign policy. Coles, J. (2000) Making Foreign Policy (London: John Murray). Former practitioner’s account of how British foreign policy is made. Dorey, P. (2005) Policy Making in Britain: An Introduction (London: Sage). Good introduction to the policy process of British government. Dyson, S. B. (2009) The Blair Identity: Leadership and Foreign Policy (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Pioneering a psychological approach to British foreign policy analysis. Marsh, D. (2008) ‘Understanding British government: analysing competing models’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 10,2, 251–68. Clear outline of the dominant modes of understanding British governance. Meyer, C. (2005) DC Confidential (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Controversial memoirs of Britain’s former ambassador to Washington, useful for appreciating the kinds of pressures that the FCO underwent after 9/11. Powell, J. (2010) The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World (London: Vintage). Insider’s account of foreign policymaking from Tony Blair’s former chief of staff.

c h a pt e r four

Self-identity and British foreign policy

Having outlined the governmental actors and processes of British foreign policymaking, I now turn to how Britain constructs itself as an actor in international politics. Identity is of central importance to foreign policymaking. If a government is to represent a political community abroad, and protect that community’s interests, it has to have some sense of who that community is and how its members would like the government to act internationally on their behalf. Conversely, the government also needs to understand how it is viewed by other actors, especially other states, in order to appreciate its identity within international society and gauge what would constitute appropriate behaviour on its part. In other words, a state such as the United Kingdom must devise a foreign policy that both reflects an identity back to its people and projects an identity on the world stage. This has become more problematic in recent decades due to an apparent fragmentation of British society and hence identity. Although commentators often seek to convey the myth of a settled community identity (usually through reference to periods of supposed wartime unity), political identities are always subject to change and contestation. It is impossible to pinpoint a period in British history when the political community’s identity was not subject to the pulls of different ethnicities, communities, social values and power struggles. Nevertheless, a number of pressures have contributed to a renewed debate on British identity and how this should be reflected in its actions abroad. In Northern Ireland, Irish nationalists and loyalists disagree about whether the territory should be part of Britain and its people considered British, British-Irish or Irish.1 Moves towards a referendum on independence in Scotland have led to fears that this might bring the end of a British identity.2 Devolution in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland has given rise to resentment at England’s lack of representation at the national level.3 Meanwhile, mass immigration, changes to social attitudes, and the greater global linkages brought about by globalization have brought fears about the extent to which the state can mobilize a common British identity to function as a unified actor in world politics. Stuart Croft has noted that ‘Britishness is not and has never been purely coterminous with the citizens of the state.’4 Yet questions of identity can be seen to have an impact on the governmental formulation of foreign policy. 59

60

British Foreign Policy

Therefore, understanding how the government manages these identities is important to analysing how the British state is constituted as a global actor and the foreign policy outputs it produces. Before exploring this process, we need to examine some of the theory on what is meant by identity and how identities might shape political action.

Identity and political action At its most basic level, identity is a sense of self.5 It is the ability to perceive one’s own existence, mark out one’s particular characteristics and endow them with meaning. That meaning has to come through social interaction. If individuals spent their entire lives in a sensory-deprivation pod they would not be able to develop an identity since they would not have any means of recognizing their particular character and expressing themselves, or have anyone to recognize and respond to that expression. As Ted Hopf puts it: ‘an individual needs her own identity in order to make sense of herself and others and needs the identities of others to make sense of them and herself’.6 As such, there is a dialogic character to identity formation, and identity is often conveyed as relational. Indeed, one could perhaps more accurately describe identity formation as ‘multilogic’. Individuals have many identities and these will interact and help to constitute a multitude of different social groups depending on the context. Amartya Sen has noted that despite the tendency to see identities as fixed and singular, people actually hold a number of different identities simultaneously: The same person can be, without any contradiction, an American citizen, of Caribbean origin, with African ancestry, a Christian, a liberal, a woman, a feminist, a heterosexual, a believer in gay and lesbian rights, a theatre lover, an environmental activist, a tennis fan, a jazz musician, and someone who is deeply committed to the view that there are intelligent beings in outer space.7

In the same way, someone with a British identity could associate their own Britishness with a host of characteristics, from formal state structures such as institutions and laws to more customary facets like diet, manners, sporting interests, language, appearance or a host of other cultural or behavioural markers. They may be categorized by the British state according to their race, ethnicity or sub-state nationality, as in Asian-British, Black British, BritishIrish or British-Welsh.8 Alternatively, the same person may view themselves – and be viewed by others internationally – as European, a part of the Anglosphere, a citizen of a post-imperial power, or as from ‘the West’, to name but a few possible identities.9 Which characteristics are deemed most important will alter depending on the context in which they are evoked. This seems to give the idea that identity, that sense of self, is highly changeable. Yet Stuart Croft has argued that perceiving one’s identity as having a degree of stability over time is important to ‘ontological security’.10 This

Self-identity and British foreign policy

concept is defined as ‘a consistent sense of self and having that sense affirmed by others . . . a security of being, a sense of confidence and trust that the world is what it appears to be’.11 Croft notes that identities such as ‘Britishness’ construct ‘a sense of biographical coherence’.12 In other words, they allow an individual to locate themselves within a larger national story or ‘narrative’ and this is used to foster the sense of belonging without which political communities could not function. Such narratives are then performed through national traditions and official ceremonies as well as ‘everyday tasks and discourses’.13 In other words, Britishness can be acted out in a myriad of possible public and private activities, from arranging a royal wedding or hosting the Olympics to having a cup of tea and chatting about the weather.14 Moreover, as these kinds of identity-reinforcing activities suggest, identity reproduction often takes place within communities. As such, British identity is derived not simply from its external relations but also through a process of internal dialogue between political parties, local, national and religious groups, governmental organizations and institutions and other interested actors. Iver B. Neumann describes this process as ‘the self’s work on the self’, through which an actor reflects on the nature of their identity and interprets how this should be translated into political action.15 In other words, in trying to understand which identities motivate British foreign policy, we need to look at debates over Britishness which are ‘endogenous’ to this political community (those which derive from internal politics), as well as those that spring from external interactions.16

Identity and foreign policy Having a strong self-identity and sense of Britishness is seen as important to British foreign policymakers, both in mobilizing support for governmental actions abroad, and to give those actions meaning. Political communities need to perceive their own existence as a group, and to be able to express that identification, in order to act collectively. Underlying many of the debates over British identity, as we will see in this chapter, are insecurities over whether the essential characteristics of Britishness have changed so much that British citizens can no longer feel secure about their national identity. This could have ramifications for foreign policymakers since the extent to which the British public can ‘identify’ with Britain’s foreign policy is important in enabling and legitimizing action. As Sir John Coles, the former head of the FCO, notes: ‘The professional diplomat’s task of representing Britain abroad . . . is immeasurably easier when there is a good degree of domestic support.’17 This is because a foreign policymaker with public opinion behind them is better able to represent their state as a unitary actor, and their actions as the expression of the will of their whole community. In addition, we also need to examine how changes in identity may lead to different policy positions. Since identities do not carry fixed interpretations, the connection between a particular identity and policy outputs is not

61

62

British Foreign Policy

automatic. Nevertheless, the way in which Britishness is articulated, and the ideas that are promoted in relation to this identity, can be seen to shape policy decisionmaking. For example, the attitude that Britishness is about ‘fairness’ may enable altruistic acts, from aid spending to emergency humanitarian relief.18 The importance of ‘justice’ to ideas of Britishness may contribute to UK support for international law and make perceived transgressions politically costly (for instance, the vilification of Tony Blair after the UK’s involvement in the Iraq War of 2003). Whether British identity is complementary or antagonistic to a European identity may affect support for funding bailouts of Eurozone economies. In short, identities play an important role in setting the context to debate and facilitating or obstructing governmental responses to foreign policy problems. In the foreign policy sphere, Lene Hansen offers a useful typology for understanding the work that identity can do in constituting this social world, seeing identity as based on spatial, temporal and ethical constructions.19 In spatial terms, identity is useful in defining boundaries – both physical and cognitive. Constructions such as the ‘Iron Curtain’, ‘Fortress Europe’ or ‘splendid isolation’ define geographical boundaries that offer a sense of physical separation. Of course, they also imply cognitive divisions. David Campbell writes that ‘the inscription of boundaries’ serves to ‘demarcate an “inside” from an “outside”, a “self” from an “other”, a “domestic” from a “foreign” ’.20 For Campbell, such binary constructions are important because ‘the social space of inside/outside is both made possible by and helps constitute a moral space of superior/inferior’.21 On the one hand, a number of discourse analysts have argued that this process of ‘othering’ – defining oneself through the denigration of others – is pervasive in world politics and helps to legitimize existing power structures and perpetuate injustices. This has led to a fruitful research field exposing how language can be used to promote certain dominant narratives that are underpinned by unequal power relations.22 On the other hand, Hopf has noted that not all identities necessarily imply a subordinated ‘other’.23 Therefore, a full analysis of identity’s role in foreign policymaking must also take into account other ways in which identity is constructed and helps to constitute the social context. The second construction of identity Hansen identifies is temporal. Interlocutors will often seek to establish the characteristics of the historical moment in which they live – and define themselves and others – according to historical identities. This is done using temporal ideas such as progress, decline, development, change or, in the British foreign policy field in particular, continuity.24 These can be used to construct narratives about the kind of people we were/are and serve a political purpose in defending current mores or promoting supposedly lost values. Thus, a British policymaker could distinguish Britain’s liberal, multicultural society from a racist or homophobic history; or they might highlight Britain’s campaign against the international

Self-identity and British foreign policy

slave trade in the nineteenth century as evidence of its longstanding opposition to racial injustice. In short, how the past is represented, whether positively or negatively, can have important implications for identity. As Stuart Hall has argued, historical identities are: subject to the continuous ‘play’ of history, culture and power. Far from being grounded in a mere ‘recovery’ of the past, which is waiting to be found, and which, when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past.25

The reference here to being ‘positioned by’ narratives of the past reminds us that actors are constrained by existing frameworks of identity, and meaning, in making decisions. Just as articulations of identity may shape social structures, so identities themselves are ‘constrained, shaped and empowered by the very social products they have a hand in creating’.26 To render their actions intelligible to themselves and others, policymakers will frequently make comparison between a current identity position or policy and one from the past. In doing so, they are revealing how their thought processes are constrained by pre-existing identities and narratives.27 Scope for human agency, however, does exist. Given the vastness of human historical experience, individuals have a rich array of possible historical identities which they can evoke. This can be useful in allowing creative and novel ways of representing oneself and legitimizing one’s actions as ‘traditional’ through past precedence. But this also means that other possible narratives are available to challenge and supplant such constructions. The result is that historical identities are inherently insecure. Unlike spatial constructions of identity that may have the support of geography or material structures, temporal identities are reliant on a continual process of retelling and reaffirmation in order to survive. David Campbell sees the state as ‘tenuously constituted in time . . . through a stylized repetition of acts . . . and achieved . . . not through a founding act, but rather a regulated process of repetition’.28 Therefore, history is not, as Homer Simpson would have it, ‘just a bunch of stuff that happened’, but a highly political series of narratives that are used to establish who we are and what we should do at any given moment. This leads us to the third form of identity construction outlined by Hansen: the ethical. In constituting a group identity for a political community such as Britain, articulators promote a sense that the bond between the British state and its citizens is the primary ethical relationship for British individuals. This idea is played out most obviously in security policymaking. Hansen notes that ‘national security discourse locates responsibility within the national community, leaving no space for an international ethics’.29 In other words, national identities are often bound up with the legitimization of the state as the primary actor in world politics. The representative function of the state as an expression of the national will of its citizens endows it with

63

64

British Foreign Policy

a normative status in global politics. At the same time, it reduces the sense of wider obligations based on concepts such as humanity. Following this logic, Michael Walzer has described international political action as underpinned by a ‘thick’ morality centred on the state and its citizens and a ‘thin’ morality towards foreigners.30 The former entails a tightly organized and regularly reinforced network of ethical obligations, whilst the latter consists of looser forms of responsibility that are less binding on states to fulfil. Identity in this reading plays an important role in defining relationships of responsibility in international society. Whether the British identify themselves primarily as European, part of a ‘special relationship’ with the US, a member of the Commonwealth, a permanent member of the Security Council or a part of humanity can be seen to shape how far they feel responsible for political outcomes in different parts of the world. Identity also impacts on what form of political action is deemed appropriate. Britain’s involvement in military intervention in Kosovo in 1999, contrary to international law, was enabled by the sense that the human rights abuses occurring there were happening on Europe’s doorstep and, as a major European power, the UK had an obligation to respond. Taking part in the operation under the coordination of NATO allowed Britain to identify itself as acting according to the wishes of the international community – despite not having UN Security Council approval. But beyond this, Britain’s identity as a permanent member of the Security Council and significant military power also enables and urges it to act militarily.31 States with an identity predicated on neutrality, non-violence or non-interference in the internal affairs of other states would not feel the same need to respond in this way. To summarize the discussion so far, identity performs a series of important functions in foreign policy action, namely: • • • •

providing ontological security to the community and its members, defining what identity is to be represented abroad, shaping the logic of what is appropriate behaviour, facilitating policymakers’ decisionmaking and legitimizing their actions, and • locating Britain’s position in international society. As seen above, Lene Hansen describes identity as made up of spatial, temporal and ethical constructions. I intend to use this framework now to explore British self-identity and see how these ideas shape the parameters of British foreign policymaking. I will then go on to examine the identity that British foreign policymakers seek to project in the world. In any discussion of this kind, observations are tentative and recognized as highly contingent. It is not possible to capture fully the self-identities of a political community with over sixty million inhabitants, with all its complex forms of identity expression. This analysis is merely designed to reflect some of the most prominent patterns of meaning expressed in public debates.

Self-identity and British foreign policy

The spatial construction of Britishness In the early period of its development, Colley sees Britishness as founded on geography, with Britain’s island status providing a ‘marked sense of difference’ between the inhabitants of the British Isles and those of the continent.32 The use of Britain’s ‘island’ identity as both a metaphor for cultural distance and a geographical description of separation continued to be a motif of foreign policy thinking in the post-1945 period, with policymakers describing Britain as an ‘island power’,33 the British as ‘the people of these islands’34 and the British identity as part of an ‘island story’.35 Yet Britain’s island geography has been interpreted as a source of vulnerability and this has complicated the use of the island metaphor to denote distance and, implicitly, disconnection. Even at the height of Britain’s global Empire, one parliamentarian asserted: ‘Great Britain is in a unique and isolated position. We are only a little island in the North Sea, entirely dependent upon our overseas Dominions, Colonies and Protectorates.’36 During the decolonization period, Edward Heath described Britain as ‘a small country, with a comparatively small population and limited resources’.37 More recently, Tony Blair argued that since Britain was ‘limited in geographical size’ it would only be able to ‘wield power in this world through alliances’.38 These rhetorical positions conveyed Britain’s island geography as necessitating a more international policy. Whilst an island identity seems to imply geographical distance, the limited resources of Britain are used to justify external links and promote a more active internationalist stance for British policymakers. In other words, rather than turn inwards and emphasize the separation of Britain from the outside world, these speakers highlight the UK’s interdependence with other actors. This formulation was particularly evident in attempts by New Labour policymakers to represent an internationalist British identity.39 In 2007, Tony Blair argued that ‘The frontiers of our security no longer stop at the Channel . . . The new frontiers for our security are global.’40 Meanwhile, Gordon Brown, as chancellor of the Exchequer, emphasized ‘British qualities that made us see, in David Cannadine’s words, the Channel not as a moat but as a highway. An island position that has made us internationalist and outward looking’.41 Closely linked to this internationalist identity is Britain’s status as a ‘trading nation’. In the same speech, Brown states: ‘We are an island that has always looked outwards, been engaged in worldwide trade and been open to new influences.’42 Colley describes how a ‘cult of commerce’ became, from the eighteenth century onwards, ‘an increasingly important part of being British’.43 In his address to a conference on Britain in the world in 1995, John Major linked these two identities in his description of Britain as ‘an island with a trading . . . tradition’.44 For many commentators in the twentieth century, this trading identity was seen as a matter of national security. Thus,

65

66

British Foreign Policy

Austen Chamberlain, then British foreign secretary, noted in 1927: ‘We in this island not merely desire trade as others desire it, not merely desire protection as others desire it, but we in this country whose supplies are only sufficient for seven weeks’ subsistence of our people have to think how we can live . . . if our sea communications were interrupted.’45 A similar sentiment is apparent in a contribution to a debate on foreign affairs in 1972: ‘We are essentially a trading country. We depend on the success of our companies, our industry, in order to survive.’46 Indeed, examples abound throughout British foreign policy discourse.47 Britain’s identity as a trading nation is often conveyed as positioning the UK as an actor with a particular interest in the maintenance of peace. In parliamentary debates, speakers argue that ‘All peoples in the world are concerned with peace and trade, but no country more than ours.’48 and that ‘of all Governments in the world is there any Government so fitted to take the first step as our own Free Trade Government? . . . the very essence of our belief . . . [is] that there are . . . not divergences of interests, but an absolute community of interests’.49 Other countries are described as sharing this view of Britain as an international actor: ‘we are regarded as desirous to keep the peace’,50 and references are made to ‘peaceful traders like ourselves’.51 These commentators seem to share the liberal view that the interests of peace and economics do not conflict; indeed, that they are mutually reinforcing. It may be the case, as Hansen notes, that ‘One cannot assume that a particular representation of identity will always lead to a particular policy; nor that a particular policy will always underpin a specific construction of identity.’52 Nevertheless, the representation of Britain as somehow distant from both the European continent and global affairs via its island status, yet also integrated into global economic and political affairs through its need to trade, can be seen to underpin a host of attempts to characterize Britain’s identity as a global actor.

Three circles, pivotal power and a networked world Perhaps the most influential idea about Britain’s geopolitical position in world politics is Winston Churchill’s image of the UK as located between ‘three great circles among the free nations and democracies’, these being: the British Commonwealth and Empire, the English-speaking world and ‘United Europe’.53 Churchill envisaged the UK as able to provide leadership in each circle and thereby manipulate these relationships to maintain its status as a major international actor. It was a notion that would persist despite the decline in Britain’s global economic standing, dismantling of its Empire, and increasing integration with Europe through its membership of the European Community.54 Commentators have noted how few attempts were made to conceptualize British foreign policy in the postwar period.55 Those speeches which did seek to re-establish a contextual understanding often fell back on

Self-identity and British foreign policy

parroting this idea of Britain as occupying a central point among these same circles.56 When New Labour achieved office in 1997, the prime minister, Tony Blair, sought to revitalize policy thinking across the board. In the foreign policy sphere, he fixed upon the metaphor of Britain as a ‘pivotal power’. Even if no longer a ‘super-power in a military sense’, the UK would, he argued, be able to retain its influence in world affairs through its ‘historic alliances’.57 Whilst some of his contemporaries were urging Britain to align itself more closely with Europe, Blair rejected any notion that this would necessitate choosing between these different communities, suggesting: ‘Britain does not have to choose between being strong with the US, or strong with Europe’; instead, he believed that ‘we are stronger with the US because of our strength in Europe . . . we are stronger in Europe because of our strength with the US’.58 As Churchill had before him, Blair sought to locate Britain ‘at the centre of the alliances and power structures of the international community’.59 This idea of the UK harmoniously interacting with, or ‘bridging’ between, the major circles of the US and Europe would become problematic as transatlantic and European ideas about the rules of international society diverged.60 In particular, the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 would see acrimonious exchanges between the UK and key European partners such as France and Germany about the rightness of intervention. Later in New Labour’s period in office, David Miliband, then foreign secretary, sought to promote a conception of Britain as a ‘global hub’, asserting that ‘just as the City has become a global hub for finance, Britain should see itself as a global hub for diplomacy and ideas’.61 Miliband employed this identity to outline a reorientation of diplomatic efforts away from Europe and towards the ‘emerging powers’ and ‘critical countries that relate to our . . . policy goals’, namely, the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere.62 As such, his representation of identity was overtly designed to reshape and justify policy actions. What is striking about these three identities of Britain – as having a unique position at the centre of three circles, as a pivotal power and as a hub – is how they conjure up a similar image of Britain as occupying an objective position somehow outside and yet still a part of the normative and power relations within each sphere. Here, the pervasive influence of the idea of Britain as an ‘island’ and so separable from the political struggles of the continent and the wider world can be seen as a key enabler of these positionings.63 The geographical separation of the UK from the continent, and its identity as a ‘trading nation’, convey the sense that Britain is able to distance itself from any one part of the world and engage with particular circles of influence on a ‘transactional’ basis – as if diplomacy were akin to the practice of trade in a free market. The apogee of this attitude is William Hague’s reconceptualization of British foreign policy as inhabiting a ‘networked world’. For Hague, the world is becoming both more multilateral and bilateral, with British influence

67

68

British Foreign Policy

increasingly being exercised in ‘networks of states with fluid and dynamic patterns of allegiance, alliance and connections’.64 Despite the more agile policy this seems to imply, it is notable that Hague highlights as key networks of influence the transatlantic relationship between the UK and US, ‘our unbreakable alliance . . . which is our most important relationship and will remain so’, the Commonwealth, ‘one of the world’s longstanding global networks . . . which spans continents and world religions . . . and is underpinned by an agreed framework of common values’, the English-speaking world, and the European Union, in which Hague desires to be ‘highly active and activist in our approach’.65 It is true that Hague did call for a reinvigorated diplomacy with Latin America and Southeast Asia and mentions the emerging powers of Brazil, India and China. In a later speech he advocates the ‘building of new partnerships around the world, in North Africa, in Asia, in Latin America and in the Gulf’.66 Yet it is the positioning of the UK at the edge of each sphere, whilst at the same time portraying the UK as an active and leading member, that resonates, recalling Churchill’s three circles outlined above. In practice, as William Wallace has noted, the UK has not interacted with these circles in a dispassionate and rational fashion. Most obviously, Britain’s special relationship with the United States is often described in reverential, even quasi-mystical terms and the interactions between these countries are imbued with a great deal of symbolism.67 US presidents have been invited to speak to the Cabinet and to address both Houses of Parliament in St George’s hall – invitations not extended to other heads of state, even European allies. This ‘special relationship’ with the United States is sometimes expressed in spatial terms, with the UK described as located in the middle of the Atlantic rather than 21 miles from France and 3,000 miles from the United States. When Britain withdrew from discussions on the Eurozone bailout in December 2011, the British deputy prime minister explicitly sought to critique this idea, arguing: ‘There’s nothing bulldog about Britain hovering somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, not standing tall in Europe, not being taken seriously in Washington.’68 Yet even as he attempted to subvert this geographical identity, Nick Clegg was also implicitly recognizing how important this metaphor is in representing the political and cultural distance many British people feel from the continent. So far, we have dealt with how elite policymakers perceive Britain’s geographical identity. It may be interesting to ask how ordinary British people position themselves globally. In a 2010 Chathan House and YouGov survey on British attitudes to international priorities, the lack of identification with other European countries is striking (figure 6). The countries which score highest for evoking positive feelings are New Zealand, Canada and Australia: Anglophone countries and Britain’s former dominions. Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries then achieve notably positive net scores before there is a substantial drop-off to a list of countries with marginally positive results.69 Germany scores very slightly higher than the United States overall thanks to

Self-identity and British foreign policy

Net positivity ranking of countries Positive/negative summary New Zealand Canada Australia Switzerland Sweden Netherlands Norway Denmark Austria Japan Brazil Germany Italy South Africa United States Ireland Portugal Malaysia Spain Egypt India Indonesia Poland France Saudi Arabia China Russia Turkey Libya Greece Israel Pakistan North Korea Iran

Positive 45 43 44 23 21 21 19 18 12 12 9 16 12 7 20 12 8 3 11 3 5 1 3 11 2 5 2 3 0 4 4 0 0 1

Negative 0 0 2 1 0 1 1 1 2 2 1 12 8 4 17 10 6 1 10 5 9 5 11 24 15 21 24 26 24 30 32 36 42 49

Net score 45 43 42 22 21 20 18 17 10 10 8 4 4 3 3 2 2 2 1 –2 –4 –4 –8 –13 –13 –16 –22 –23 –24 –26 –28 –36 –42 –48

Figure 6 Chatham House and YouGov survey, 2010

a lower negative score, leaving it with a net score in the positive. But France has a net score in the negative, equal to that of Saudi Arabia, and Greece is viewed even more negatively. On the evidence of this polling, spatial proximity does not translate into feelings of cultural or political closeness. However, whilst the British public may not identify strongly with many European countries on a bilateral basis, it is curious that in every international priority outlined, the public shows a stronger willingness to cooperate closely with the rest of the EU than with the US.70 Given the rhetorical support afforded to the ‘special relationship’ with the US by policymakers – and the negative coverage of the European Union, and European institutions such as the European Court of Human Rights, in the British media – such belief in the advantages of closer European cooperation implies that the public shares Hague’s view of a networked world but goes further in

69

70

British Foreign Policy

advocating cooperation even with regional organizations with which they do not identify. In short, the representation of geographical distance between Britain and Europe does not appear to translate into the public’s rejecting Britain’s cooperation with Europe in foreign policy terms. Policymakers may employ Britain’s island identity as a metaphor for independent action – a kind of ‘desituated agency’ – but such identities are undermined and contested by the global character of Britain’s foreign policy priorities, which require a response coordinated with other actors. Moreover, representations of British foreign policy as transactional and rational are continually challenged by the emotional pull of alliances and friendships, such as the ‘special relationship’ with the US and cultural ties with former dominions.

The temporal construction of Britishness Locating Britishness within a particular historical moment, and historical processes, is fundamental to the construction of this identity. Webber and Smith note that national identity is built upon a ‘sense of similarity born from a national history’ and ‘common experience’.71 In an influential treatise on British history, Linda Colley dates the idea of Britain as a nationality, rather than simply a geographical area, to the 1707 Act of Union between Scotland and the already conjoined nations of England and Wales.72 Since Britain did not come into being organically but through a formal constitutional process, Colley suggests that ‘we can plausibly regard Great Britain as an invented nation superimposed, if only for a while, onto much older alignments and loyalties’.73 As Benedict Anderson has attested, all nations – indeed all forms of political community beyond the primordial village – are ‘invented’, or as he phrases it ‘imagined’, since ‘members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members’.74 Therefore the idea of common beliefs, traditions and practices has to be brought continually into existence through performances of British identity. It is a challenge to any polity to cope with old memories, identities and loyalties within its domain. While it is easy to make martyrs, it is almost impossible to eradicate an old identity. In this respect the world appears a ‘living museum’ of identities and loyalties in which some exhibits are currently on show, some are being refurbished, and still others are in cold storage. Polities survive only if they can co-opt those old memories, identities and loyalties – those that once supported other policies – or fit them into their own ideologies. Unless old authorities and ideologies are co-opted, they may haunt a new polity and later become the basis of rival political associations and faiths. Ferguson and Mansbach, ‘The past as prelude’, 36

The existence of historical identities of English, Scots and Welsh would mean that Britishness had to compete with prior and more firmly entrenched alternative identities at the time of its inception. It did so by co-opting the history

Self-identity and British foreign policy

of each nationality into a wider discourse of Britishness. Thus, British identity is often associated with a tradition of liberty, built on a series of key historical moments and foundational texts – many of them derived from English history. In the imperial era, Benedict Anderson notes that certain moments were represented as symbolizing this tradition, such as the signing of Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution of 1688.75 More recently, Gordon Brown sought to convey the importance of liberty to British identity as ‘a golden thread which runs through British history’ encompassing Magna Carta in 1215, the 1689 bill of rights, the campaign against slavery in the 1800s and on to the war against Fascism in the 1940s.76 These are interpreted as part of a historical process which moved from ‘the individual standing firm against tyranny’ to ‘an even more generous, expansive view of liberty: the idea of government accountable to the people, evolving into the exciting idea of empowering citizens to control their own lives’.77 Such narratives have the potential to produce powerful political effects. English history becomes a story of the quest for individual liberty, one to which all Britain’s sub-state nationalities can relate, rather than a narrative of England’s conquest and suppression of the other national identities in the British Isles. Similarly, Britain is conveyed not as the state that suppressed demands for liberty during the imperial era (sometimes with brutal force) but as a liberal example to the world. This interpretation of history can be seen as enabled in part by Britain’s self-identity as a defender of liberty, even when it dominated global politics. For example, the MP Arthur Ponsonby declared in 1909 that ‘Throughout the last half-century it has been to our credit that the greatest success we have had has been our strong feeling of humanitarianism and our desire to uphold the views of people who are downtrodden.’78 Once the Empire was disbanded and the decolonization process was all but complete, the management of this process was itself then used as evidence to reinforce the sense of Britain as a champion of liberty. As one parliamentarian in 1972 argued, the British Empire ‘was peacefully changed into a Commonwealth of nations and peoples . . . without parallel in the history of the world. To those nations we still stand for justice and integrity.’79 It is a view that has been reinforced in the early 2000s through works such as those of the historian Niall Ferguson, in particular.80 Although Ferguson does at least acknowledge the brutality of Britain’s past, many of these other readings of history ignore the Irish and Bengal famines, the suppression of revolts across the Empire from New Zealand to India to the Transvaal, and the various injustices of the post-1945 era, from the widespread use of torture in the suppression of the Mau Mau in Kenya to the forced relocation of the occupants of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.81 Instead, these readings construct a sense of Britain as having contributed the rule of law and some of the trappings of modernity to the world before nobly deferring to demands for self-determination. Underlying this narrative is an attempt to salvage a positive identity for Britain in the face of its declining

71

72

British Foreign Policy

importance in world affairs, having been a dominant global actor for at least a century. The end of Empire could also have meant the end of Britain’s identity. For instance, the spectre of ‘declinism’ in the postwar period is often described as undermining the sense of purpose required for effective political action in world politics. As evidence, Peter Mangold cites the governor of Aden in 1961, asserting that policymakers had ‘lost confidence in our ability to deal with situations . . . it is something which has happened inside ourselves and bears no relation to the facts as observed in the field’.82 Gordon Brown took up this narrative in his campaign to reinvigorate the British identity in 2006, arguing: ‘in the years after 1945, faced with relative economic decline as well as the end of empire, Britain lost confidence in itself and its role in the world’.83 For Brown, the result was a view of British identity as associated closely with ‘institutions that never changed’.84 Waning confidence in Britain’s capacity, and right, to act internationally was compounded by the shrinking of its manufacturing sector. Where once Britain had been the ‘workshop of the world’, it now faced industrial decline, with political and civil strife threatening the social cohesion of British identity.85 In seeking to ‘re-launch’ British identity in 1997, Mark Leonard suggested that ‘The stories that defined Britishness in terms of institutional continuity and industrial prowess, English language and literature, Protestantism, and the invention and domination of sport – today appeal, if at all, only to an ageing minority.’86 Indeed, for Leonard, historical identities were having a negative effect on British business, as the view of Britain abroad was not of a ‘highly creative and diverse society’ but of ‘a backward-looking island immersed in its heritage’.87 Instead, he advocated learning from the way British identity was constructed in the past to reinvigorate British identity: ‘Two hundred years ago our ancestors invented a new identity . . . free from any sentimental attachment to the traditions they had inherited. Today we need to do the same again.’88 The justification of this effort would be the economic advantages expected to flow from this rebranding.89 Thus the narratives of Britishness of the early 2000s construct a sense of a historical identity for Britain, based on institutions, which is no longer seen as relevant to contemporary social attitudes. Turning away from the institutional expression of identity, and a historical narrative of decline, Brown and Leonard sought to renew British identity according to values such as liberty and diversity. This leads us to the ethical constructions underpinning British identity.

The ethical construction of Britishness The representation of Britain as a champion of liberty and diversity has roots dating back to historical narratives contrasting an authoritarian continent

Self-identity and British foreign policy

with a law-abiding and tolerant England in the sixteenth and seventeenth (and Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth) centuries. Persecution of Protestant dissenters in mainland Europe in the early seventeenth century was contrasted with the acceptance of refugees and toleration (albeit qualified in significant respects) of religious difference in the British Isles.90 Moreover, the forging of a distinctly British identity was facilitated from birth by continual wars in the eighteenth century with France, whose Catholic religion offered a point of distinction. In denigrating the Catholic, authoritarian ‘other’, the Protestant basis of Britishness became, in Colley’s words, ‘a unifying and distinguishing bond as never before’.91 Projecting an image of Britishness as anti-Catholic, however, would face challenges after the union of Britain and Ireland in 1800. The religious basis to British identity declined further in significance following Catholic emancipation in 182992 with the notable exception of debates over Irish independence and Northern Ireland. As the British Empire expanded, defining Britishness in relation to one particular branch of Christianity would become problematic, especially given the range of different religions the Empire encompassed. This is not to deny that efforts were made to adopt a more exclusive and overtly Christian British identity abroad. However, they are most readily associated with the great failures of imperial power, from the Indian Mutiny in 1857 to General Gordon’s suicidal missionary presence in Khartoum in 1885.93 Instead, Britons preferred to focus on what they saw as a longstanding tradition of tolerance, leaving open the possibility of a more laissez-faire attitude to religious differences. This also seemed to fit well with British policymakers’ pragmatic approach to governing the Empire. Defending British policy towards Palestine in 1921, Winston Churchill, then colonial secretary, would describe the British Empire as ‘the greatest of all the Moslem States in the world’.94 Even when Britain was at its most vulnerable, in 1940, with its army defeated and an invasion force massing across the Channel, it is interesting that Churchill, by that time prime minister, did not evoke a Protestant identity to galvanize British resistance. Although he did refer to the Battle of Britain as involving ‘the survival of Christian civilisation’ and ‘our own British life’, many of his speeches simply refer to ‘God’, and so it is usually not a specifically Protestant, or Christian, identity that is summoned up.95 In sum, the ethical construction of Britishness may have been forged in a Protestant identity; but the influence of this representation declined in the nineteenth century due to the existence of sizeable Catholic populations in Ireland, Scotland and major English cities such as Liverpool and Manchester. It now arguably holds little relevance to public discourse on Britishness. During the imperial era, British identity would contain a strong racial undercurrent, as colonial administrators and imperial adventurers sought to ‘civilize’ other races into adopting British characteristics.96 Such a process

73

74

British Foreign Policy

often entailed the tacit assumption that other races would never be capable of fully adopting British values and so required indefinite rule by the colonial motherland. Yet, in contrast to the more explicitly racial identities of English, Welsh, Scots and Irish, Britishness was an identity which seemed capable of encompassing other racial groups. The Anglo-Indian Sir Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownagree, a Conservative MP for Bethnal Green, was said to have campaigned in the 1900 election using the slogan: ‘Into one Imperial whole! One with Briton heart and soul! One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne!’97 Racial tensions within British identity increased with the widespread immigration of Afro-Caribbean and Asian groups from the former colonies in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet here too it was arguably less Britishness than Englishness that felt most threatened by this development. In one of the most notorious postwar expressions of ontological insecurity, Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, immigration was conveyed as a threat to national identity: ‘We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependants . . . It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.’98 However, although it is Britain that Powell refers to as the country undergoing this change, British identity itself is not explicitly mentioned. Indeed, it is notable that it is a fellow ‘Englishman’ who provides the famous quotation about ‘the black man’ having the ‘whip hand over the white man’. Furthermore, the rate of immigration is described as a ‘transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history’. Although Lunn notes that ‘immigration and/or ethnic origin’ have ‘been defined as a challenge to British national identity’,99 and the formation of the British National Party in 1983 does indicate a racist basis to one form of British identity, immigration seems to have been more problematic for English identity than for British. The ontological insecurity of Britishness, and the possible racial interpretation of this identity, were acknowledged as recently as 2006 by Gordon Brown in a speech in which he argued: ‘there is always a risk that, when people are insecure, they retreat into more exclusive identities rooted in 19th century conceptions of blood, race and territory’.100 His advocating that ‘shared values, not colour . . . define what it means to be British in the modern world’ both refutes a racial basis to this identity and at the same time recognizes that this other view exists and may command some level of support. Nevertheless, the British identity does seem to be one which those born outside the UK can feel more attachment to than the sub-state national identities – if only marginally.101 In a 2007 poll sponsored by British Future, those born outside Britain identified more with Britishness than with their English, Scottish or Welsh identity or those of their home town or local neighbourhood, with those identifying ‘strongly’ with Britain polling at 70 per cent.102 By contrast, British-born individuals identified more with their English, Scottish or Welsh identity, with 74 per cent identifying ‘strongly’ with this,

Self-identity and British foreign policy

compared to 66 per cent identifying with Britain.103 In this light, it is interesting that it was an English Defence League (EDL) that was formed in response to what it describes as ‘the shocking actions of a small group of Muslim extremists who, at a homecoming parade in Luton, openly mocked the sacrifices of our service personnel’.104 The EDL website emphasizes the British identity of the Muslim community frequently, arguing that ‘British Muslims should be able to safely demand reform of their religion’, but also that ‘The onus should be on British Muslims to overcome the problems that blight their religion.’105 The implication seems to be that Muslims are ‘British’ whilst English culture is, presumably, either Christian or secular.106 In relation to Britain’s foreign policy, the relative degree of religious freedom and racial harmony in the UK is portrayed as giving Britain a cohesiveness as an international actor. Thus, Tony Blair asserted after the 2005 London bombings: ‘we take pride in our diversity. We know tolerance, respect for others, and a basic way of life founded on democratic freedoms are held in common by the vast majority of our people, whatever their race or creed. When the terrorists struck . . . [w]e did not turn on Muslims; we united against terrorists.’107 This diversity is also conveyed as reinforcing Britain’s internationalist foreign policy, as in David Lammy’s suggestion that ‘Britain’s multiethnic society represents a rich web of links, binding us to people and places across the globe.’ For Lammy, British engagement with the world is no longer based on ‘the “white man’s burden” or post-imperial guilt’ but on the fact that Britons are now tied by ‘multinational networks of friends and family’ as a result of mass migration.108 In other words, the multiethnic character of British society is seen as leading to a more complex network of ethical responsibilities across the globe.109 In the light of this, it is not surprising that the threat of ‘home-grown’ Islamist terrorism was interpreted as a potential crisis for Britishness post9/11 and particularly after the London bombings of 7 July 2005. The fact that the bombers were British-born Muslims gave rise to a host of commentary on whether Islam was compatible with British values and whether the Muslim community represented a ‘threat’ to the British state. Discussion within official circles on the ‘disaffection’ of British Muslims predated these attacks – as revealed in a leaked memo from the Cabinet Office on ‘Relations with the Muslim community’ and a report by the Home Office and FCO entitled ‘Young Muslims and extremism’.110 The former document questioned whether British Muslims might be disaffected as a result of British foreign policy and asked: ‘should our stance (eg on MEPP or Kashmir) be influenced more by these concerns? How do we communicate our foreign policy to the Muslim community? Where are they getting their information and opinions from?’111 In the latter document, the source of this disaffection is explicitly related to identity problems. Whilst the author acknowledges that ‘Many young British Muslims integrate and contribute positively to society’ and that ‘Britain

75

76

British Foreign Policy

scores higher than other European countries for acceptance of Muslims’, the document goes on to suggest that ‘Some feel they cannot be both British and Muslim; and polls suggest a small but significant minority are sympathetic to extremism and terrorist activity.’112 In his Mansion House speech of 2002, Blair related with concern his experience in a ‘Q&A session with young people’ a few weeks before: ‘In the audience were some young British Moslems [sic]. They were obviously bright, born in Britain, with a good future here, intelligent and articulate. And convinced: one, that the US was the real threat to world peace; and two, that the reason Iraq was in our sights, was that it was a Moslem [sic] country.’113 In following this with the statement that ‘We must accept that there is a significant part of the world that is, at present, deeply inimical to all we stand for’, Blair externalized this disaffection with foreign policy as something ‘other’ than British identity and values. This representation is also apparent in his later framing of the London bombings: I recall the video footage of Mohammed Sadiq [sic] Khan . . . here is someone, brought up in this country, free to practise his religion, free to speak out, free to vote, with a good standard of living . . . talking about ‘us’, the British, when his whole experience of ‘us’ has been the very opposite of the message he is preaching . . . He may have been born here. But his ideology wasn’t. And that is why it has to be taken on, everywhere.114

Yet seeing the US as a threat to world peace need not exclude an individual from being British. Nor is Islamic fundamentalism necessarily incompatible with having a sense of Britishness. The video statement of the ringleader of the London terrorists, Mohammed Sidique Khan, does not contain any explicit reference to Britishness, or Britain itself, instead railing against ‘democratically elected governments’.115 The family of his fellow conspirator, Shehzad Tanweer, expressed surprise at their relative’s involvement and remarked: ‘He was proud to be British’.116 Indeed, sympathizers with detainees suspected of terrorism offences often describe them as ‘British political prisoners’.117 The Islamic Human Rights Commission sees efforts to impose control orders on terrorist suspects as ‘symbolic of the rapid demise of the British system of justice’118 and asserts that ‘regular harassment and abuse adversely affects the faith the Muslim community has in the British justice system’.119 This challenge to Britishness is being undertaken in language that represents itself as coming from within British identity, as well as from outside. Although considerable political efforts have been made to confront this perceived threat, the extent to which the ideology that underpins it has genuine widespread support is questionable. A 2011 study of ‘homegrown Islamic terrorists’ – those involved in terrorist acts in the UK – could identify only seventy-seven individuals in the period 2001–9 either convicted of offences or killed in their commission.120 Without diminishing the potential seriousness of the threat these individuals might present, their ideology does

Self-identity and British foreign policy

not appear to be able to mobilize sufficient numbers to be considered a mass movement. If Britishness is not about religion or race, and its institutional expression has been criticized as outdated, then what ethical basis does Britain have to build a sense of common identity among British citizens? For some recent formulations of Britishness, the cohering factor in British identity is the sense of ‘transcendental values’ that underpin British culture and institutions.121 In a 2002 symposium for the Foreign Policy Centre, Britishness is described by many of the writers as about common values, including its ‘inventive, culturally diverse, forward and outward-looking’ people,122 ‘mutual tolerance’123 and ‘creativity built on tolerance, openness and adaptability’.124 The repeated references to ‘openness’ and to Britons as ‘outward-looking’ seem to lend themselves to the interpretation of Britain as a significant international actor. Britain’s values are linked to ‘what we contribute to the world’ by senior policymakers and as such are an important constituting factor in Britain’s external identity.125 A similar theme is identifiable in Gordon Brown’s articulations on Britishness from 1997 onwards. For Brown, a tradition of tolerance may have been born out of ‘the necessity of finding a way to live together in a multinational state’.126 However, it is also viewed as becoming a major factor driving the direction of foreign policy. Awareness of Britain’s values is said to mean that ‘we can become a Britain that is an increasingly successful leader of the global economy; a global Britain’.127 Commitment to the ideals of ‘liberty, responsibility, fairness’ is explicitly linked to ‘Britain leading the way in new measures to make the world safer, more secure and fairer’.128 In other words, having these values as an important part of British identity connects to the sense that Britain should be a leading power in world politics. It also conveys the idea of Britain as an ethical actor. A commitment to fairness is associated with ‘debt relief’ and ‘the doubling of aid’; meanwhile, ‘our openness as a nation’ is translated into the policy need for a global trade deal.129 Thus, the self-identity of British policymakers can be seen as having important consequences for their expectations about how Britain should act abroad. A significant motif of the quotations above, and in the earlier discussion on the spatial construction of British identity, is the idea of Britain as a leading actor in global politics. As David McCourt has noted: ‘Leading is a crucial part of Britain’s role, and is one of the central expectations attached to Britain on the international stage – leading, in short, is what Britain does.’130 The sense of many articulations of Britishness is that possessing great wealth and a commitment to values such as fairness and liberty creates a responsibility for Britain to adopt a leading role in global politics.131 Indeed, with the diminution of Britain’s military spending and economic power, the ethical basis of British identity seems to be promoted increasingly. For instance, the coalition government’s commitment to overseas aid spending

77

78

British Foreign Policy

is interpreted by some commentators as giving Britain the identity of an ‘aid superpower’.132 However, whether the British public is prepared to make the sacrifices and bear the burdens of a leading role in world politics has been questioned in the light of the financial crisis that started in 2007–8.133 Increases in overseas aid spending have attracted criticism at a time when deep cuts are being made to public services at home. Furthermore, there is some evidence to suggest that opinion is divided between elites and the general public about how Britain should take the lead abroad. Robin Niblett notes that the 2010 Chatham House/YouGov survey revealed contrasting visions of British policy, with the public favouring a Britain that remained ‘a great power with a large army’ but one that would ‘cut the overseas aid budget and use foreign policy solely to defend Britain’s national interest’.134 Meanwhile, elite respondents to the survey wanted ‘Britain to give up the attempt to remain a great power and instead to seek influence in today’s world by setting a good example – with an ethical foreign policy and large overseas aid budget’.135 Public attitudes to Britain’s leading role can also be ambiguous when it comes to bearing the human cost – particularly in relation to military action. In a March 1999 poll for the Mail on Sunday during the NATO bombing of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Serbia, 87 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that ‘Britain has a moral duty to help prevent further killings and human rights abuses in Kosovo’.136 A few days later, in another Mail on Sunday poll, 76 per cent of respondents felt that Britain was right to have joined in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.137 Yet when asked to calculate how many British lives, if any, it would be worth losing to protect the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, 52 per cent in the first poll and 56 per cent in the second said none. In a similar poll in 1998 on the air strikes against Iraq under Operation Desert Fox, 56 per cent of respondents thought that Britain was right to have bombed or joined in the bombing of Iraq, yet 70 per cent felt that it would not be worth losing any British lives to force Saddam Hussein to cooperate with the UN arms inspectors.138 The problems of responsibility and ethics in British foreign policy are discussed in more detail in chapter 6. For this discussion on identity, it is perhaps sufficient to note that whilst the public is marginally in favour of Britain’s holding an identity as a leading global actor that uses military force, a majority do not think this is worth any sacrifice in British lives. This perhaps raises questions about the durability of the public’s commitment to Britain’s identity as a global leader – at least in the military field.

Conclusion To summarize the discussion so far, Britain’s self-identity is predicated on the idea that Britain is a leading global actor. This notion is constructed

Self-identity and British foreign policy

geographically through the metaphor of Britain as an island at the intersection of global alliances and power structures. The continuing influence of Churchill’s ‘three circles’ model can be seen in subsequent reformulations of foreign policy, from Blair’s concept of a ‘pivotal power’ to Hague’s location of the UK within the major networks of international politics. Britain’s dependence on external trade and international links compels it to be an active member of international society, and so its weakness, paradoxically, leads it to assert itself on the world stage. Underpinning this activism is a sense that Britain has embodied a historical tradition of tolerance and liberal values and so has earned its place among the most powerful actors in international politics. The illiberal record of Empire is largely expunged in favour of the recitation of historical dates, from Magna Carta in 1215 to the Bill of Rights in 1689, that are offered as evidence of Britain’s contribution to human rights globally. A similar partial reading is apparent in accounts of the ethical construction of British society. Ideological differences about Britishness are dismissed as an alien ‘other’, intruding on domestic British traditions of tolerance, multiculturalism and multiethnicity. Thus the unitary character of the British state, when it comes to external policy, is continuously reaffirmed. Overall, the self-identity of Britain outlined in this chapter can be seen as empowering British foreign policymakers to construct policy, and to seek to exert their influence, on a global scale. How these self-conceptualizations translate into Britain’s identity as an actor within international society is the subject of the following chapter.

Further reading Colley, L. (1994) Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (London: Pimlico). Classic exploration of the origins of British national identity. Daddow, O. (2004) Britain and Europe Since 1945: Historiographical Perspectives on Integration (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Expert overview of Britain’s often fraught relations with Europe. Epstein, C. (2011) ‘Who speaks? Discourse, the subject and the study of identity in international politics’ European Journal of International Relations, 17,2, 327–50. Outlines the strengths of discourse analysis and sees it as overcoming the common fallacy of seeing states as persons. Gaskarth, J. (2011) ‘Identity and New Labour’s strategic foreign policy thinking’ in Daddow, O. and Gaskarth, J. (eds.) British Foreign Policy: The New Labour Years (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), 84–99. Analysis of how New Labour’s foreign policy pronouncements linked to questions of identity. Hadfield, A. (2010) British Foreign Policy, National Identity, and Neoclassical Realism (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield). Hansen, L. (2007) Security as Practice (London: Routledge). Discursive analysis of how identity shapes foreign policy decisions.

79

80

British Foreign Policy

Hopf, T. (2002) Social Construction of International Politics (London: Cornell University Press). Especially pp. 1–38 for an exploration of how to analyse foreign policy in terms of identity. Mulligan, W. and Simms, B. (eds.) (2010) The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660–2000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave). Series of studies on how foreign policy concerns have affected British domestic politics. Ward, P. (2004) Britishness Since 1870 (London: Routledge). Survey of British national identity from the high point of the British Empire’s power to modern times.

c h a pt e r fiv e

Britain in the world

Having explored Britain’s internal processes of identity production, we now need to analyse how it constructs a sense of itself through interactions with others. How does Britain compare with other states? What identities or roles does it inhabit? What international groups, regimes or institutions does the UK belong to? How do others perceive Britain as an actor? How is this changing in the light of globalization? To look at these questions further, we will begin by examining theories on how states position themselves within the international states system. There are a number of different ways in which scholars of international relations seek to categorize state identities in world politics. These can be broadly grouped into three types, according to their analytical focus. In the first place, we have typologies that emphasize the material resources and physical capacity of the state.1 Although these approaches can tell us something about potential positionings in world order, they are rather reductionist and fail to take into account why some states persist in having a greater impact than their physical make-up would seem to merit whilst other emerging and developed states are unable to wield an influence commensurate with their material power. Next, we have analyses which examine how social factors operate to construct an actor’s international status.2 Historical identities, institutional membership and national role conceptions can be seen to combine to locate a country such as Britain within international society. In these readings, ‘social facts’ (institutions agreed in a society to be ‘real’) can be as important as material ones. Lastly, and following these assumptions, there are analyses that combine material and social aspects to highlight the motives of states. According to this reading, material interests can converge with social habits and values to lead an actor such as the UK to adopt a particular identity in the world. If we investigate each of these in more depth, it may be possible to get a firmer sense of how the expressions of British self-identity noted earlier feed into, and interact with, Britain’s external identity in global politics.

Material drivers of Britain’s global identity Certain material factors have long been seen to steer a state’s foreign policy. As an FCO report on British diplomacy once argued, ‘The geographical and 81

82

British Foreign Policy

economic facts of life make it inevitable that . . . British interests should extend round the world.’3 The size of its territory and population, economic wealth, military might and regional location all provide a context to policy thinking, operating as structural constraints on the ambition of policymakers as well as shaping their perception of policy opportunities and vulnerabilities. Britain’s comparatively small size (ranking seventy-ninth in the world in area and only twenty-second in population, down from sixth in 1945)4 and island status have been seen to lead policymakers towards a more active international stance to compensate for the UK’s perceived weakness in material terms. However, whilst the UK does have a high dependence on global trade,5 these material structures cannot fully determine the course of British foreign policy. Britain could have adopted a more limited, regionally focused foreign policy in recent decades, particularly when it came to the use of force. Germany and Japan, albeit for historical reasons, have opted to take a less militarily interventionist stance abroad despite their large export markets. Japan has maintained its defence spending at 1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) despite the increased military power of China.6 The UK faces no such continental challenge to its interests. The economic situation of Britain is sometimes taken to mean it will favour limited reform or continuity in global economic structures rather than radical transformation. Britain is a very rich country. As recently as 2007 it had the fifth-largest economy in the world, with a GDP of US$2.8 trillion.7 Although the financial crisis had a severe impact on its wealth in 2008–9, Britain still lay seventh in the global rankings in 2011, being narrowly overtaken by Brazil. Its per capita income places it at twenty-second in the world, and sixth among the G7 countries, in front of Italy.8 Whilst these latter figures may not sound overwhelmingly impressive, they still put Britain within the ranks of the wealthiest nations. Analysts of global political economy have divided the world into a centre and a periphery,9 North and South,10 or first, second and third worlds.11 Whichever categorization we choose, the UK is in the highest class for economic development. Britain’s economic policy is dealt with in more detail in chapter 8. These observations are offered simply to highlight the fact that the UK has clearly benefited from the existing economic and political arrangements of world politics and has an interest in maintaining them. Of course, this narrative is very statist in its approach. Daryl Copeland has critiqued a nationalistic interpretation of economic prosperity, identifying four different ‘worlds’, which transcend state boundaries and entail classes of people who are experiencing globalization in different ways and at different rates. At the top, Copeland has the A-world, which is seeing its political and economic advantage increasing; next is the C-world, which faces a more uncertain future but has an implied level of prosperity; then comes the T-world, which is dependent and subservient; lastly, the E-world is excluded from globalization altogether.12 Given the drop in Britain’s GDP and its

Britain in the world

current slow rate of growth, the fear for Britain might be that much of its population is no longer part of the A-world but is actually now in the C-world category – or below. This is reinforced by the growing wealth divide between the different classes in British society, which was said in 2010 to be wider than at any time since the Second World War.13 Its capital city has been described as ‘the most unequal city in the western world’, with one academic claiming that ‘We are getting wealth inequalities in London now that have not been seen since the days of a slave-owning elite.’14 These kinds of wealth disparities might be interpreted as fracturing the idea of a ‘national interest’, with foreign policy more a reflection of the sectional interests of certain economic sectors and powerful elites.15 Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, has suggested that the financial crisis that began in 2007–8 has resulted in ‘fundamentally two separate types of economies’, one of large banks and corporations ‘in excellent shape’ and another of small businesses and a significant amount of the labour force who are unemployed.16 As the wealth gap widens, Freeland has asserted that ‘today’s super-rich are increasingly a nation unto themselves’.17 This is important when considering Britain’s identity in the world, since it is host to 26 of the 500 largest corporations globally, ranking it sixth among other countries.18 Britain, along with the United States, is grouped among the ‘leading capitalist powers’ that have advocated freer markets, deregulation and privatization in recent decades, policies that immediately favour the wealthiest in society.19 This has not led to widespread dissent over Britain’s international policies, particularly as regards economics, for a number of reasons. Firstly, discussions in world economic forums are secretive, are highly technical and usually take place in geographically remote locations. As such, British citizens probably do not feel the connection between their governments’ advocacy of particular global policies and their effects. Secondly, as Andre Gunder Frank notes in his centre–periphery model,20 the ‘peripheral’ or marginalized groups within ‘centre’ states such as the UK do not see a harmony of interests and do not identify with the global ‘periphery’ of states in the developing world. This is no doubt in part a product of different economic circumstances. The median average wage in the UK in 2011 was £26,244.21 In China in 2010, average per capita annual income in urban households was £2,103.22 Lastly, nationalism, as has been the case in the past, is proving to be a more potent political force than class consciousness. This is perhaps borne out in our earlier discussion on Britain’s self-identity (see chapter 4), in which the British public was seen to perceive itself as belonging to one of the most advanced nations in the world and so expected the UK to be a leading global actor with substantial military and economic power. As Britain has suffered a fall in its global rankings in relation to material aspects of foreign policy, one might have expected a similar decline in the importance of this self-identity. Yet conceptions of Britain’s status in

83

84

British Foreign Policy

world politics are not simply structurally determined. In a ‘Future policy study’ commissioned by the British prime minister Harold Macmillan in 1959, policymakers looked to identify how the UK’s position in world affairs would change between 1960 and 1970. They concluded: ‘despite the contraction of our former strength and resources the United Kingdom still has many of the responsibilities of a world Power, and our influence need not shrink in proportion to our material strength’.23 For the report’s authors, Britain’s resources were not only material but also lay in institutional and bilateral ties, from its ‘leadership of the Commonwealth’ and special relationship with the United States to its ‘national quality of rising to an emergency’ and ‘reliability in defence of freedom’, which were taken to ‘justify for the United Kingdom a leading position among the Powers and a higher place in their counsels than our material assets alone would strictly warrant’.24 In other words, if we wish to understand Britain’s identity in world politics we need to look beyond material factors and explore issues of status, institutional membership and role.

International society and Britain’s global identity Britain’s status in world politics is a combination of its economic and military strength and of historical and current identities that may have a less material basis. As an imperial power for over three centuries, the UK established a record of international leadership which still resonates today. In parliamentary debates on foreign affairs in the early twentieth century, members regularly called for Britain to ‘lead the world on the right road’ and ‘give a lead towards securing the peace of the world’, and argued that ‘it would be false to its traditions if it failed to lead’.25 As an important negotiator in the postwar settlements of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Versailles conference in 1919 and the remaking of international institutions during and after the Second World War, the UK has a historical identity as a leading actor in world affairs, and this affords some degree of social standing even today. In each of these situations, Britain was recognized as a great power – even if this position was beginning to appear frail by the Second World War’s end. The qualities of a great power are a matter of dispute.26 The sheer preponderance of power held by the superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States – and latterly the United States on its own – in the post-1945 era led to this phrase losing its resonance. The great powers of the early twentieth century, such as France, Britain, Russia and Germany, had comparable strengths in economic and military terms. By contrast, the United States has so far outstripped its rivals that if other states such as China and, less convincingly, India attain a similar status, then they will not be great powers but superpowers also. All this creates difficulties in capturing the particular position of a country such as the UK in global affairs. The Duncan Report of 1969 caused a political furore when it described Britain as a ‘major power of the

Britain in the world

second order’.27 Steve Smith has noted that ‘Britain is not a superpower, nor a middle power’ but ‘has aspects of a great power’.28 Analysing these two descriptions, Sir John Coles rejected the idea of Britain as a ‘middle power’ since this fitted countries such as Australia better. Britain, he asserted, is ‘clearly to be differentiated from these by its economic weight, spread of interests and prominent position in key international institutions’.29 Figure 7 summarizes the positions Britain holds. It is the latter aspect of Britain’s external relations which marks it out from many other comparable or even greater powers such as Germany, Japan, India and Brazil. In particular, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the UK has a power of veto over UN action held by only four other member states (Russia, China, the United States and France). This affords it an exalted

Organization

Powers

UN (permanent member of the UN Security Council)

Veto power on UN action, permanent presence in Security Council.

IMF

Membership of International Monetary and Finance Committee and Development Committee, advising Board of Governors on policy in these areas.

World Bank

Executive director due to World Bank shares; voting power equal to 4.39 per cent of vote (placing it sixth along with France).

Commonwealth

Monarch is head of Commonwealth (ceremonial position), participates in Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGM). Representation in Eminent Persons Group.

G8

UK government serves as president on a rotational basis; regular meetings between finance, foreign affairs, justice and environment ministers.

G10

Participates in General Arrangements to Borrow (GAB), designed to supplement IMF funds where needed.

G20

G20 describes itself as ‘the premier forum for . . . international economic cooperation’.a International economic and financial policy coordinated among members; UK a member and president on a rotational basis.

WTO

UK claims and responses handled through common EU positions; Britain negotiates tariff reform and trade policy with other WTO members.

NATO

UK presence on North Atlantic Council, cooperation on defence and security policy as well as mutual defence pact.

EU

UK agrees common foreign policy positions in numerous areas with other member states under the CFSP.

a

IMF, A Guide to Committees, Groups and Clubs.

Figure 7 Britain’s powers in key international organizations

85

86

British Foreign Policy

status in international affairs. As David Hannay, the former UK permanent representative to the UN, describes it, the UN is ‘a kind of caste system . . . In New York, the five permanent members of the Security Council are like Brahmins.’30 However, this status also carries with it duties and responsibilities. Lord Malloch-Brown has suggested that France and Britain, the two smallest permanent members, ‘are in some ways the most serious; it is a privilege we work for’.31 In a controversial report on the FCO conducted by Sir Kenneth Berrill of the Central Policy Review Staff in 1977, permanent membership was represented as a burden which ‘has obliged the UK to involve itself more in United Nations’ activities generally than is justified’.32 This engagement continues, with the FCO website noting that the UK is the fourth-largest financial contributor to the UN budget in 2011, funding 6.604 per cent, and the thirdlargest financial contributor to peacekeeping, giving 8.15 per cent of the total.33 Such contributions, surpassing the economic rankings of the UK, are given as evidence that ‘The UK takes its responsibilities towards the UN very seriously.’34 In short, whilst it may have declined in status from its heyday, Britain still seeks to make a substantial contribution to the organization of international order. The position of the UK on the Security Council, with its power of veto, has long been recognized as an anachronism given the greater economic strength of Japan and Germany and the larger populations of India, Pakistan, Brazil, Nigeria and Indonesia, among other states. British foreign policymakers have supported reform to widen UN Security Council membership, advocating raising the number of permanent members from five to nine, plus an African state.35 Yet when it comes to military security, Britain clearly retains a capacity to act that warrants its inclusion at Security Council level. Permanent members have an obligation to help restore international peace and security, and few states have the capability of conducting major warfare or intervention operations in the way the UK did in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, albeit in a coalition. Linked to this is another significant marker of Britain’s importance: its status as a nuclear weapons state. Membership of the nuclear ‘club’ carries with it obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty regime (1968, renewed 1995), and also enhances the deterrence capacity of the UK.36 John Mearsheimer considered a great power to be one that could ‘put up a fight in an all-out conventional war against the most powerful state in the world’.37 The destructive capacity of a nuclear arsenal the size of the UK’s renders the word ‘conventional’ here redundant, since anything genuinely constituting all-out war threatening the existence of the UK mainland would be likely to involve nuclear threats. Having that capability means that Britain is able to respond in kind and has the means to carry out its threats if necessary.38 In short, being a nuclear power confers on the UK one of the trappings of great power status.

Britain in the world

As noted in chapter 8 below, by virtue of its economic strength the UK belongs to the G8 and G20 groupings of powerful states in world politics. In addition, it has substantial voting rights in the World Bank and IMF. It is also a member of the Commonwealth, and a leading member given the fact that this grouping was a legacy of Britain’s historical position as the head of the British Empire. The British monarch is the head of state of sixteen of the fifty-four Commonwealth countries, conferring constitutional power on Britain to decide their government (if in practice only theoretical). Whether in foreign policy terms this position translates into influence is highly questionable. The Commonwealth has in the past been reluctant to support UK criticism of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, and some have seen the Commonwealth as a forum for the airing of grievances from the colonial era. Lord Malloch-Brown has described it as ‘the only place where Britain can still in a sense have some kind of natural leadership claim’, but qualifies this by noting that ‘it’s absolutely no substitute for the major places where we have to make our mark, which are the EU, UN and Washington, and directly in the big new emerging market capitals’.39 Britain’s membership of the European Union affords it a more tangible weight in global politics. The opportunity this brings to mobilize the twentyseven member states to agree common positions on issues from trade to moratoriums on landmines and the death penalty can mean real diplomatic impetus is given to British foreign policy goals. Britain’s identification with Europe has a long and fractious history and ‘Euroscepticism’ continues to be a powerful force in British domestic politics.40 Nevertheless, most British governments have emphasized the benefits of being a part of the European Union and have used it to forge common EU foreign policy positions on matters from trade disputes to transnational crime, terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Britain has been a leading advocate in favour of the widening of EU membership, as well as a significant actor, with France, in developing European defence cooperation (in addition to its status as a member of NATO, itself a key part of Britain’s global identity). Overall, Britain’s activities in these multilateral forums are seen as a sign of its commitment to international society. The expertise which the FCO and the international section of the Treasury bring to planning and legislating for global security, economic and normative challenges makes up a positive contribution to the institutional arrangement of world politics and enhances international societal norms. Whether involvement in these forums should entail automatic adherence to their rules has been questioned within British foreign policy discourse. In a widely cited article from 1998, Nicholas Wheeler and Tim Dunne asserted that ‘there is a clear preference for acting multilaterally in accordance with UN Security Council authority; but in the absence of this, we think that in exceptional cases good international citizens have a duty to use force even if this weakens the rule of law in the society of states’.41

87

88

British Foreign Policy

This idea was acted out by policymakers in the Kosovo intervention in 1999 and, arguably, Iraq in 2003 when Britain used force under conditions of questionable legality. Yet British foreign policymakers prefer to consider themselves as supportive of international law and multilateral diplomacy. Tony Blair’s policy of alignment with the United States over confronting Iraq in 2002–3 drew strong criticism from the foreign policy establishment, with the FCO deputy legal adviser, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, resigning and fifty-two former ambassadors writing a letter to the prime minister to criticize his policies on the Arab–Israeli dispute and Iraq.42 The latter accused him of an ‘abandonment of principle’.43

Britain’s role in the world Thus far in this chapter, we have mostly been concerned with Britain’s status in international society – as evinced by its membership of a range of prestigious institutions. Kal Holsti asserts that ‘it seems reasonable to assume that those responsible for making decisions and taking actions for the state are aware of international status distinctions and that their policies reflect this awareness’.44 However, we can see that there is disagreement about what actions are seen to be required by Britain’s international status. Does it necessitate support for international law at all times? Or should it involve remaking international law and norms to advance human rights, for instance? It is here that role theory provides an important way of understanding the behaviour of states such as Britain. As Ralph Linton puts it, when an actor ‘puts the rights and duties which constitute the status into effect, he is performing a role’.45 Roles are, for David McCourt, the ‘set of expectations about the behaviour of an actor in a given social position’.46 Kal Holsti outlines a series of possible roles which states can enact in world politics, including revolutionary leader, mediator, buffer and non-aligned.47 Each of these positions carries with it underlying expectations about how these states should behave. One that the UK has historically adopted, particularly in the context of the European continent, is that of balancer.48 When a given European power or bloc achieved an advantage over its rivals in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, the UK was expected to intervene to balance this development and maintain political stability. Holsti notes a distinction between role prescriptions, which are associated with the abstract ideal of behaviour from an actor in a particular position (e.g. a mediator should be impartial), and the actor’s own role conception (e.g. a mediator might be looking to achieve a just solution). The potential conflict between role conceptions could account for some of the controversy over British foreign policy behaviour since the end of the Cold War. Jason Ralph has seen arguments over the intervention in Iraq in 2003 as concerned with ‘what it means to be a good state’.49 Some commentators

Britain in the world

saw this as being about preserving international law and, particularly, the primacy of the Security Council as the final arbiter of when a state can use force.50 Others emphasized the need to enforce compliance with previous UN resolutions and to have the UN ‘mean what it says’.51 Furthermore, Ralph also indicates that the role of good ally to the United States was very important in British foreign policy calculations, even leading ministers to be unnecessarily protective of the ‘control principle’ (a norm of interstate cooperation in which intelligence provided by another state should not be disclosed), at the expense of achieving justice for possible victims of torture.52 One of the most pervasive roles associated with the UK by policymakers is that of moral leader. For instance, parliamentarians have argued that ‘it is Great Britain’s role in world affairs to take the lead . . . unless we force the pace . . . many another country . . . will lose its freedom’;53 ‘Britain has a special international role . . . unless that role is exercised . . . other countries cannot be expected to respond to the urgency of the situation’;54 and ‘The British role in world affairs . . . is fundamentally a moral one.’55 What these speakers are attempting to convey is that Britain’s status and roles in international society are not merely based on material factors but are also predicated on the UK’s being a constructive and active member of international society. It is an idea that has had a contemporary fillip through the promotion of the idea of Britain as a global ‘thought leader’.56 Although the UK no longer dominates any one calculus of national power, it is viewed as providing valuable knowledge, expertise and thought to global challenges. Examples offered of this ‘thought leadership’ have included global campaigns on debt relief, aid, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the responsibility to protect.57 The UK’s own conception of its role as a moral leader and, at times, broker has not always been accepted by the wider international community, however. Henry Kissinger, a former US secretary of state, may have praised Britain’s ‘extraordinary moral stamina’ for ‘insisting on a sustaining role in shaping the global equilibrium’.58 Yet its ability and right to enact this role have been questioned regularly in the post-1945 period. In 1962, the former US secretary of state Dean Acheson famously asserted that: ‘Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role.’ He went on to argue that its attempt to ‘play a separate power role’, apart from Europe, allied with the United States in a special relationship and linked to its position as head of the Commonwealth, was ‘about to be played out’, as was its desire to ‘be a broker between the United States and Russia’.59 When Robin Cook offered to mediate between India and Pakistan over Kashmir in 1997, India’s prime minister, Inder Kumar Gujral, was reported to have rebuffed this offer with the angry assertion that Britain was ‘a third-rate power nursing illusions of grandeur of its colonial past’.60 More recently, the UK’s role as a postcolonial state has achieved renewed prominence as a result of the lingering dispute over the status of the Falkland

89

90

British Foreign Policy

Islands.61 David McCourt sees Britain’s successful diplomatic effort to isolate Argentina in 1982 and gain approval for the use of force to retake the islands as based on its enactment of the role of ‘status quo-oriented power’ with ‘a large stake in the norms of international order’.62 This role conception was designed to neutralize Argentinian accusations that Britain was seeking to revisit its former role as a colonial power.63 A ‘status quo-oriented power’ would be one which merely sought to restore the existing international order and reaffirm sovereignty in response to an armed attack, and so could gain the support of all states which valued the norms of sovereignty and non-interference. By contrast, a state occupying a colonialist role would be seeking to transform the existing situation and so could be portrayed as a threat to international order. The 2012 exchange of rhetoric between Argentina and the UK, with each accusing the other of acting in a colonialist fashion, serves as a reminder of how embedded the anti-imperialist norm is in world politics – and of the 64 political significance of accusing another state of acting out this identity. In 1982, Britain was in part able to counter attempts to bracket its role in this way by asserting the importance of motives. For example, Britain’s ambassador to the UN argued: ‘We are not the aggressors, as my Argentine colleague has again and again suggested we are . . . What possible or conceivable reason could we have for aggressive intent?’65 Underpinning this argument seems to be the assumption that enacting a role is not simply a matter of observable behaviour but also one of underlying psychological motivations. As such, we are led to consider what Britain’s motives are in maintaining its status and performing the roles expected of it in international society. Before doing so, it is perhaps worth recapping our discussion so far. Disparities in economic wealth within British society do not seem to be reflected in the projection of British identity abroad. Rather, a common national identity in favour of Britain exercising power in world affairs, based on its national wealth, seems to dominate public attitudes to Britain in the world. A historical identity of Britain as leader in the construction of international order has been continued in the present day via its membership of the major political forums of international society. In particular, its permanent membership of the Security Council affords the UK a special status in world order. Since the UK holds a position in international politics that is widely seen as out of step with its declining power, policymakers have promoted a national role conception of Britain as a ‘status quo-oriented power’ – one that contributes to the organization of international order and has an interest in maintaining the existing structures of international society – to defend its relative advantage.

Britain’s motives and its global identity Following a schema laid down by the Greek historian Thucydides in the fourth century bc, classical realists identify three key motives for the

Britain in the world

behaviour of states: fear, honour and interest.66 In relation to the first (fear), states may respond to threats by altering their behaviour in fear of the consequences – through the deterrence or coercive efforts of rivals. Or they might engage in pre-emptive action in fear of potential threats to their security. An MOD report on future conflicts noted in 2010 that ‘the UK may actually be more likely to use the military instrument for reasons of fear . . . and this may limit our discretion. For example, the UK may have to take action where it fears an aggressive state or non-state actor armed with WMD’.67 Alternatively, states may act from a sense of honour, confronting a perceived threat, even at a cost, for self-identity reasons. Although personal honour may have declined in importance in domestic society, it remains a significant calculus of foreign policymakers.68 Consider Tony Blair’s justification for pursuing the use of force in Iraq in 2003: ‘Tell our allies that at the very moment of action, at the very moment when they need our determination that Britain faltered? I will not be party to such a course.’69 Here the perception of Britain as a country that is a determined and reliable ally – an honourable state – seems to motivate Blair to argue the case for war. Similarly, governments often seek ‘peace with honour’, a process that can prolong conflict as states seek an opportune moment to end their combat operations without losing face.70 Speaking on Afghanistan, William Hague has suggested that ‘the Taliban insurgency would need to be brought into a political settlement’, and defined the choice they face as whether they ‘carry on fighting or accept President Karzai’s offer of an honourable route back into normal life’.71 In this way, Hague is demonstrating his awareness of the importance of honour to Afghanistan’s traditional society. However, honour plays a part in Britain’s continuing involvement in the country as well. British policymakers wish to be seen as reliable allies to the United States and supportive of the NATO effort more widely – particularly after the rather embarrassing haste with which they withdrew from Basra province in Iraq (see chapter 7 below).72 Richard Ned Lebow provides an interesting distinction between external honour – an actor’s reputation abroad – and internal honour, meaning an actor’s sense of self-worth.73 These are often interconnected, but from our earlier discussion on British self-identity (see chapter 4) we can see that Britain’s sense of internal honour arguably compels it to pursue a leadership role, even where this may not be welcome (as in Robin Cook’s intervention in the India–Pakistan case). Meanwhile, its attachment to external honour perhaps pressures the UK to commit substantial troop numbers to military operations with the United States even where internal support may be lacking and these may not even be necessary. Blair’s perception that the UK must commit troops to Iraq or it would be seen to ‘falter’ was actually belied by voices within the Bush administration hinting that the US could ‘go it alone’ in military terms and would understand if the UK could not be a party to the invasion.74 With regard to interest, we have already noted above the material aspects that may motivate Britain’s continuing involvement in multilateral forums.

91

92

British Foreign Policy

In a later treatment on motives, Ned Lebow adds that of habit.75 States act in accordance with their ‘routine practices’, and this kind of behaviour may operate at an unconscious level. Britain’s historical status and roles could be seen as socializing it into certain patterns of action over time that can persist even when the original motivation for acting in this way no longer exists or has changed. There are certainly some aspects of foreign policymaking, including traditions of bipartisanship, continuity, pragmatism and distrust of long-term plans (as well as scepticism of overtly ideological arguments), which are seen as characteristic of British attitudes to this policy practice.76 Britain has also had a longstanding reputation for supporting international order and favouring the status quo – hence their success in occupying this role with regard to the 1982 Falklands conflict. The nineteenth-century German chancellor Otto von Bismarck once described Britain as ‘les satisfaits’,77 meaning that they were satisfied with the status quo on the basis that they held the leading position within the existing order and so had no interest in seeking to challenge it. It is here that the material and social elements of Britain’s status combine to shape its foreign policy. As one of the richer states in the world, with a longstanding position of influence in the major decisionmaking forums of international society, Britain has had little interest in seeking any radical transformation of the structure of the international system. Barry Buzan defines a status quo power as one that is ‘happy with both its status/rank and with the institutions of international society, which it accepts on an ideational level’.78 This attitude is apparent in self-conceptualizations of Britain’s role in the world. For example, in a famous memorandum on British foreign policy written in 1907, Sir Eyre Crowe, a Foreign Office official, asserted that ‘England, more than any other non-insular Power, has a direct and positive interest in the maintenance of the independence of nations, and therefore must be the natural enemy of any country threatening the independence of others, and the natural protector of the weaker communities.’79 This view implies Britain is (or was) a country that respects the sovereignty of other states, that acts only to ‘maintain’ this order, and whose foreign policy is reactive (to threats to world order) rather than instigating action. Yet this characterization of Britain’s identity in world politics could be challenged on a historical level. Critics of British foreign policy have highlighted Britain’s disrespect for the sovereignty and independence of states in the past – notably their involvement in the coup against the Iranian government of Mohamed Musaddiq in 1953 that brought the shah to power, as well as the intervention in Suez in 1956.80 Judging from recent British foreign policy attitudes, it is perhaps even less applicable to contemporary policymaking. In particular, Tony Blair’s strident rhetoric on intervention during his period in office seems to run directly counter to the notion that Britain wishes

Britain in the world

to uphold the ‘independence of nations’. In an address to the UN General Assembly in 2005, Blair asserted that ‘For the first time at this Summit we are agreed that states do not have the right to do what they will within their own borders, but that we, in the name of humanity, have a common duty to protect people where their own governments will not.’81 This statement built on his earlier argument outlining a ‘doctrine of international community’ in his Chicago speech of 1999, in which he urged that acceptance of a state’s right to sovereignty and non-interference had to be conditional on that state’s government having respect for the human rights of its citizens.82 However, the earlier speech seemed to hint that this doctrine might strengthen sovereignty by putting mutual recognition on a firmer basis. By 2005, Blair was suggesting that ‘humanity today is confident of its common values’ and that the United Nations could be ‘the instrument of achieving the global will of the people’.83 This call for ‘humanity’ to express its common values evokes a wider community than states and could constitute a threat to the ‘independence of others’ of which Crowe speaks. In a sense, Blair was denying the existence of ‘others’ by emphasizing a common global community with global values.84 As a result, New Labour’s foreign policy arguably rejected the more circumspect ‘status quo power’ identity implied by Crowe. Rather, Blair advocated remaking world order to strengthen human rights and institutionalize them within the practices of international order. In the process, Blair moved Britain away from being a status quo power and more towards being what Buzan has termed a ‘revisionist power’.85 Buzan divides revisionists into revolutionary, orthodox and reformist.86 Those in the first category wish to overturn the primary institutions of international society on ideological grounds, those in the second want to keep them but enhance their own status within this framework, whilst the reformists seek to maintain some but challenge others according to how they conceive their interests. The last identity, of reformistrevisionist, appears to fit with the conduct of British foreign policy – at least during Tony Blair’s premiership. Blair did not wish to enhance Britain’s status as such, since the UK already ‘punched above its weight’ in Douglas Hurd’s often-cited phrase. Instead, Blair argued that his experience of the Asian financial crisis and Kosovo had taught him that ‘the rule book of international politics has been torn up’.87 States’ interdependence and the effect of globalization were viewed as undermining the idea of a ‘national interest’. In its place, he advocated organizational reform and critiqued the existing order of ‘the structures of 1946 trying to meet the challenges of 2006’.88 Although the coalition government has been more circumspect in its calls for reforming international institutions, it has continued to emphasize the importance of the emerging norm that sovereignty and non-interference should be conditional on respect for human rights. In a speech to the UN General Assembly in September 2011, David Cameron asserted that ‘Here at

93

94

British Foreign Policy

the UN, we have a responsibility to stand up against regimes that persecute their people.’89 William Hague, the foreign secretary, has also advocated reform of the UN Security Council to reflect the structure of military and economic power in the twenty-first century better.90

Conclusion Britain’s identity in the world is in part shaped by its material interests. It is one of the richest states in world politics and wishes to remain so. This defines the parameters of what the UK can do in a practical sense and helps to maintain Britain’s status in world politics – giving it a strong stake in the existing international order, from which the British state clearly derives considerable benefit. However, less tangible influences combine to shape Britain’s global identity. A historical notion of Britain as moral leader continues to mould Britain’s national role conception, manifested in the Chatham House formulation of Britain as ‘thought leader’. Policymakers have sought to emphasize the UK’s positive contribution to the organization of world politics as well as its identity as a ‘status quo power’, dedicated to maintaining the stability of the system of states, to justify its continuing leadership role. Yet such an identity seems to be undermined by the reformist-revisionist identity constructed by Tony Blair, which aimed to change international organizations and institutions to build a more integrated international society based on shared global values. Following this discussion, we are faced with the difficult task of trying to provide a suitable definition that encapsulates Britain as an actor in the world. Sir John Coles settled on the idea of the UK as ‘a major European power with global interests and responsibilities’.91 This does capture the duality of Britain’s identity as a regional and global power. But given how often Britain views itself as a leader in international relations, its leadership role should perhaps be acknowledged in our definition. In addition, characterizing Britain as a ‘European power’ arguably fails to convey the importance of Britain’s relationship with the most powerful actor in world politics: the United States. Indeed, the description could equally be applied without loss of meaning to France, and so perhaps doesn’t capture the particular nature of Britain’s status and engagement with international affairs. If we are searching for a generic descriptor, the term ‘great power’ should perhaps be resurrected for countries such as France, the UK, Japan and Germany, given the extent to which other states look to them for leadership in political, military or economic circles. China is nearer to superpower status on the basis of the size of its population and preponderance of economic power. India and Brazil are regional powers that do not yet have permanent representation in the higher echelons of global security policymaking. If we want to provide a more specific description of the UK as an international actor, then it may be more appropriate to see it as a leading networker and norm entrepreneur

Britain in the world

via the Anglo-European axis of power. For all the global character of the Commonwealth and the UK’s post-imperial ties, it is Europe and the United States that are the primary conduits for British influence attempts. When Britain seeks to exercise a global role in isolation, it has tended to be rebuffed – as we have seen above.

Further reading Aggestam, L. (2012) European Foreign Policy and the Quest for a Global Role: Britain, France and Germany (London: Routledge). Brown, C. (2004) ‘Do great powers have great responsibilities? Great powers and moral agency’ Global Society, 18,1, 21–42. Interesting consideration of the relationship between power and responsibility. Holsti, K. (1970) ‘National role conceptions in the study of foreign policy’ International Studies Quarterly, 14,3, 233–309. Classic analysis of how states inhabit certain roles that locate them within international society. Kagan, R. (2003) Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (London: Atlantic Books). Provocative treatise outlining differences between the US and Europe over what world order means and how it is best supported. McCourt, D. (2011) ‘Role-playing and identity affirmation in international politics: Britain’s reinvasion of the Falklands, 1982’ Review of International Studies, 37,4, 1599–621. Case study analysis of how role-playing can be used to serve foreign policy goals. Morris, J. (2011) ‘How great is Britain? Power, responsibility and Britain’s future global role’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13,3, 326–47. Pragmatic evaluation of Britain’s current status in world politics. Sanders, D. (1990) Losing an Empire, Finding a Role: British Foreign Policy Since 1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave). Historical account of Britain’s search for a meaningful identity after Empire. Thies, C. G. (2009) ‘Role theory and foreign policy’ ISA Compendium Project, review essay, May, http://myweb.uiowa.edu/bhlai/workshop/role.pdf. Excellent review of role theory with extensive bibliography. Enter web address into search engine first then follow link. Wight, M. (1996) International Theory: The Three Traditions, eds. Wight, G. and Porter, B. (London: Leicester University Press). Especially pp. 7–24 and 111–36. Categorizes international theorists as realists, rationalists and revolutionaries, and outlines how each conceives of international society and the national interest in differing ways.

95

cha p t er six

The ethics of British foreign policy

What does being ethical mean in the context of foreign policy? The prominence this question has achieved in the UK is often dated to a speech by the then foreign secretary, Robin Cook, in 1997. Newly elected to office, Cook announced that henceforth British foreign policy would have an ‘ethical dimension’ and the policy initiatives he was proposing would supply an ‘ethical content’ to policymaking.1 The media reported this development as the beginning of an ‘ethical foreign policy’ for Britain, one which was understood to put the interests of individuals in other states before those of UK citizens.2 Both descriptions display a peculiar understanding of ethics. Cook’s idea of an ‘ethical dimension’ seems to suggest that ethics can be compartmentalized; that certain issues, such as human rights or international justice, are ‘ethical’, and others, like trade or defence, are amoral. The more totalizing ‘ethical foreign policy’, meanwhile, appeared to indicate that being ethical was about self-denial – that self-interest should not drive decisionmaking.3 The latter view also often implied that interaction with states that do not share Britain’s values would be unethical.4 For the purpose of this chapter, we will consider ethics, as the Athenian philosopher Socrates saw it, as the search for answers to the question of ‘how ought we to live?’5 The ‘ought’ in this sentence identifies the importance of obligations to ethical thinking. When we try and identify what the ‘right thing to do’ is, we need to consider what obligations we have to ourselves and others and make a judgement about which we should privilege to lead a good life. Therefore, although they might not always be overt, ethics are a fundamental part of politics, since many political decisions will be about balancing obligations to different communities and trying to decide how we ought to live. In this reading, ethics are as important to decisions about defence spending, trade arrangements and energy supply as they are to ones on supporting international institutions, promoting global justice and giving aid. As such, we can reject the idea that ethics are merely a dimension or an aspect of policymakers’ calculations. Furthermore, we can also discard the notion that ethics must be about selfdenial, since we have ethical obligations to ourselves as well as others. If as individuals we always disregarded our own health and chances of pleasure to serve others, we would not be leading a truly rounded life. In doing so, we 96

The ethics of British foreign policy

would be behaving neglectfully towards our own bodies and mental wellbeing.6 At the state level, policymakers have a moral duty to promote the interests and happiness of their own citizens as well as doing what they can to help others. Ascetics aside, it is not unethical, then, to spend money on a royal wedding or an art gallery when people are starving in the world. Nor is it wrong for policymakers to promote British businesses, or values, abroad. A policy of self-denial, if pursued as an end in itself, indefinitely, would not seem ethical, as it prevents the individual, or society, from advancing their own legitimate needs. That said, self-denial and helping others can be ethically valuable if pursued prudently. If as individuals we indulged our every whim and pursued naked self-interest at every turn, we would be likely to end up very large and lazy and, like Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray, morally corrupt. Similarly, if states relentlessly pursued selfish interests, their foreign policy would also arguably be unfulfilling and morally questionable – as well as contributing to a more hostile international environment. Following this discussion, we can see that to have an ethical sensibility is to appreciate the responsibilities we have and make a moral judgement between them.7 In policy terms, ethical dilemmas for statespeople can be broken down into two key questions: where do our responsibilities lie? How can we best fulfil them? The first question relates to the political community or communities that foreign policy is designed to represent. The primary ethical relationship of responsibility in world politics is that between states and their citizens. This communitarian ethic sees statespeople as deriving their legitimacy and authority from the extent to which they represent a distinct political community. Each state has its own particular laws, customs and values, and these are supported by strong social and political institutions that repeat and reinforce the community’s ethics through agreed rewards and punishments. As a result, ethical thought is able to find a greater degree of consensus, or at least mutual understanding, within these communities than across political boundaries. Conversely, since the state is, theoretically, the expression of the will of its people, foreign policymakers are obliged to look after the interests of the citizens of their own community prior to any wider obligations to others – particularly when it comes to their security. The UK, however, is also enmeshed in a broader network of ethical obligations towards bilateral partners (such as the US); regional bodies like the European Union, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and Council of Europe; regimes like the European Convention on Human Rights and the ICC; as well as global organizations, including the Commonwealth and United Nations. This larger framework of ethical understanding is associated with a cosmopolitan ethics, which emphasizes agreement on ethical standards across different cultures and traditions – a pattern that derives from our common humanity.8 From the cosmopolitan view, we have a responsibility for the wellbeing of people in geographically distant

97

98

British Foreign Policy

locations because of their common status as human beings. In other words, ethical action needs to take into account not only our own interests within the political community of the state but also those of this wider community, ‘humanity’.9 In practical terms then, who ‘we’ are may change depending on the policy in question. Political scientists trying to construct meta-theories of international relations have in the past represented states as having the static identity of power-maximizer in a dangerous, anarchic world.10 However, in reality, states have multiple identities and roles that they play according to the context. As noted in chapters 4 and 5 above, the UK is a European state, a member of the European Union, part of a ‘transatlantic alliance’ with the United States, a former colonial power and now member of the Commonwealth, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and member of NATO – among other global identity positions. Thus, ethical deliberation is needed to decide which of these communities should be privileged in each policy context. When it comes to the question of how we can best fulfil these responsibilities, moral philosophy tends to divide between two camps: consequentialists, who judge actions by their outcomes, and Kantian deontologists, who value how far they accord with ethical principles or rules. The former camp is often associated with the tradition of realism. One of its most influential intellectual forebears, Niccolò Machiavelli, wrote in his Discourses that: ‘Men judged of actions by the result.’11 For Machiavelli, statesmen had sometimes to do evil to prevent a worse outcome, or advance a better one. As he put it: ‘it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good . . . according to necessity’.12 This acceptance of the imperfect nature of decisionmaking by Machiavelli made his writings radical at the time, since European princes in the sixteenth century were supposed to try and live up to Christian ideals.13 However, these writings have since become a mainstay of much political discussion on international relations. Arnold Wolfers, writing in the mid-twentieth century, described this acceptance of the need to do evil in political decisionmaking as a ‘nonperfectionist ethics’, one in which policymakers had to focus on the consequences more than on the acts themselves. According to this ethic, politicians ‘are morally required to choose among the roads open to them the one which under the circumstances promises to produce the least destruction of value or, positively speaking, points towards the maximisation of value’.14 The problem of a consequentialist ethic lies in where we draw the line. Do we judge the statesperson by the consequences of their acting in a certain way – for instance, if they were to order the violation of the anti-torture norm, do we assess the consequences of the loss of this norm?. Or do we judge them by the material consequences of their actions – in approving the use of torture, did they find out intelligence that prevented an atrocity? Furthermore, since consequences are not always knowable, or may take years to become

The ethics of British foreign policy

apparent, it can be politically difficult to hold individuals accountable for their actions on that basis: do we judge statespeople by the short- or long-term effects of their actions? Tony Blair remarked of the Iraq War that ‘you leave it to the judgement that history will make’.15 But should history hold him accountable for failing to impress upon his allies the need to provide adequate troop numbers for the security of post-conflict Iraq? Or, if Iraq becomes a stable democracy, do we focus on that long-term outcome? Other difficulties lie with the potentially negative effects on policy that could flow from the adoption of a consequentialist ethic. Decisionmakers might either be led to focus on short-term and reactive policymaking, as they concentrate on achieving immediate goals with identifiable outcomes – thus failing to plan adequately for future eventualities – or be seduced into pursuing grand, longterm visions promising positive outcomes in the distant future, and so ignore the immediate necessities of the time in which they live. An alternative to this non-perfectionist, consequentialist approach is one that focuses more on whether our actions are right or wrong in themselves, quite apart from their outcomes. This is often labelled a ‘deontological’ approach since it wishes to appraise behaviour in terms of generalizable rules rather than specific contexts. The most prominent proponent of this view was Immanuel Kant, who advanced the idea of the ‘categorical imperative’, one which ‘represented an action as objectively necessary in itself apart from its relation to a further end’.16 The idea of the categorical imperative is that if an action is morally right in itself, then we should always seek to fulfil our duty to behave in that way. We should not worry about the consequences of our specific actions, as these are contingent on the ethics of others, who must be treated as ethical ends in themselves. Instead, we consider actions in categories and need to decide whether we would be happy for ourselves and others to act in the same way again if the same category of circumstances pertained. Kant asserts that one should ‘Act only on the maxim through which you can at the same time will that it be a universal law.’17 An example of this idea is manifested in most religions and has come to be labelled the ‘golden rule’: that we should ‘do unto others as we would have them do unto us’. In practice, this ethic can be either a useful corrective to hubris and egotistic policymaking, or an absurd moral purism. For instance, British foreign policymakers have carried out military campaigns in Kosovo, Iraq and Libya since the late 1990s that violated the norm of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. As a result, international law has been subverted and sovereignty has come to be viewed as conditional on whether state behaviour accords with the norms of other powerful states. These interventions have also led, either directly or soon afterwards, to regime change in the targeted state. A Kantian might ask, firstly: would we want the idea that powerful states can impose their values on others, and even change the governments of other states through force when the powerful ones deem it right, to

99

100

British Foreign Policy

become a universal law? If so, then Western states could hardly have cried foul when Russia intervened in Georgia in 2008 and then recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as separate states. Secondly, a Kantian might point out that if the violation of human rights requires a response (i.e. is a categorical imperative) then we should always intervene in cases of humanitarian need. Thus the failure to intervene militarily in Sudan, Tibet, Zimbabwe and Syria since the early 2000s, when human rights abuses arose, is a moral failure to apply this rule. On the other hand, if we apply these categories too rigidly then decisionmaking becomes a matter of following rules in an unthinking fashion – something that could have serious consequences. A prominent example is the imagined scenario whereby a family are sheltering a group of Jews from the Nazis during the Second World War. If a Nazi officer knocks at the door and asks whether they know of any Jews hiding in the area, then the owners of the house are presented with an ethical dilemma. Following Kant, they know that lying is wrong and so have a duty to tell the truth about their lodgers. Moreover, Kant asks us to ‘act in ways that respect, so leave intact, others’ capacities to act’.18 In lying to the Nazi officer, we deprive him of the opportunity to be an ethical individual. However, it seems reckless to chance the lives of the innocent people the family are sheltering to uphold a deontological rule. We could qualify the rule by saying we would always want them to lie to protect the innocent. Yet in doing so, we would be opening ourselves up to the non-perfectionist ethics that it is acceptable to do a wrong (to lie) to achieve a good consequence. A third way of examining ethical decisionmaking in world politics is that of virtue ethics. In this reading, when and how statespeople should adhere to, or break, agreed rules of behaviour in international affairs comes down to a matter of developing character traits in leaders so that they are able to exercise their judgement appropriately to make this ethical choice. Classical writing on ethics, particularly from Aristotle, sees ethical behaviour in terms of an ideal located between two extremes. If warriors throw themselves into battle whenever they can, regardless of the chances of victory, then they are reckless. If they hide or retreat from battle at every turn, then they are cowardly. However, if they are prudent, only risking their lives when it is necessary, but prepared to use extreme force and daring when called upon, Aristotle sees this middle road as embodying the virtue of courage. A prudential ethics has long been promoted among statespeople in world politics, with those leaders seen as cautious and contemplative, only exercising force when necessary and then in a good cause, viewed as morally praiseworthy. Obversely, according to Robert Jackson, ‘lack of foresight, miscalculation, and recklessness are among the greatest political vices because they needlessly put at risk others who rely or depend upon us’.19 This approach also has its weaknesses. Focusing on the character of individual leaders can cause us to neglect underlying structural injustices or

The ethics of British foreign policy

pressures. In doing so, we may end up attributing agency to actors whose freedom of choice may have been limited. Criticizing the character of statespeople can be viewed as an ad hominem approach – highlighting human frailties when the most important topic of analysis should perhaps be the political outcomes that flowed from their decisions. This also betrays an underlying problem in evaluating the ethics of foreign policy: do the motives of the protagonists matter in judging the morality of political action? Deontologists and virtue ethicists are inclined to say it does, and that well-intentioned policies that have negative consequences are less blameworthy than those inspired by evil motives. Yet for consequentialists, it seems strange to judge a policy as ethically wrong even if it has good outcomes, whilst seeing a policy that has evil outcomes as ethically good provided the originator of the policy meant well. The tensions between these different approaches are not going to be resolved here – after all, they have been at the core of ethical debates for over two millennia. However, they provide an important backdrop to any discussion of the ethics of British foreign policy and our judgements about whether this or that policy can be seen as ethical in recent decades. Following this outline of ethics, I will now turn to four practical examples of dilemmas that are often cited when it comes to appraising the ethical nature of UK foreign policymaking: arms sales, humanitarian intervention, the war on terrorism, and development aid. Each can be seen to balance difficult pulls of responsibility between communitarian and cosmopolitan communities. In each case, a tension is also evident between the weighing of consequences, the desire to promote certain norms of behaviour, and the problem of exercising individual agency. Whilst I have noted above that ethics are an important feature of all policy decisionmaking – even if this is not overtly expressed – these cases have been selected as ones in which ethical conflicts have been most apparent.

Arms sales The ethical implications of arms sales were brought home by the ‘Arms to Iraq’ scandal in the early 1990s. Following the 1991 Gulf War, controversy arose about the amount of military equipment and components British companies had supplied to the Iraqi regime, despite a UN arms embargo which the UK government was legally obliged to enforce. A trial of executives from one such corporation, the Matrix Churchill group, revealed evidence that export controls had been circumvented. However, the trial collapsed when it came to light that these executives had been tacitly supported by government ministers, who had apparently ‘secretly relaxed the rules and should have known all along that the equipment was not intended for peaceful purposes’.20 The Scott Inquiry that followed gave a damning verdict on the government’s export policy, and Robin Cook achieved notoriety for the way he

101

102

British Foreign Policy

exposed the policy’s inconsistencies in Parliament. This case gave rise to ethical arguments over whether the UK was fulfilling its international and domestic responsibilities. On an international level, Iraq was subject to UN sanctions preventing arms sales. Supplying it with military equipment laid the UK open to charges of complicity in Iraq’s military campaigns against its own people and the neighbouring countries of Iran and Kuwait – as well as of acting contrary to international law. Domestically, breaching national rules to equip a country that the UK would later have to face in combat also might have undermined the rule of law in the UK and potentially endangered British military personnel. In this period, the Conservative government of John Major was also the subject of a number of ‘sleaze’ scandals, some of which had links with arms exports. The Al Yamamah deal, whereby the UK agreed to supply Saudi Arabia with Tornado jets and other military equipment estimated to be worth £40 billion in revenue, was soon afterwards mired in allegations of bribery and corruption.21 Furthermore, between March and June of 1997, a former minister of defence procurement, Jonathan Aitken, fought a libel case in the High Court over allegations that he had procured prostitutes for Arab arms clients as well as being a director of a company, BMARC, that was alleged to have sold guns to Iran in breach of a UN arms embargo.22 These examples were interpreted as evidence of the corrupting influence that pursuing arms sales to undemocratic regimes could have on the reputation and honesty of British political life. Thus, when Robin Cook came into office in 1997 promising an ‘ethical dimension’ to his foreign policy, he was in part seeking to draw a distinction between New Labour’s approach to foreign policy and that of its predecessors. As Tony Lloyd, one of Cook’s foreign ministers, recalls, he was trying to say: ‘We weren’t this rather tacky Tory government that had got involved with selling arms to Saddam Hussein . . . all policy . . . for them was negotiable.’23 Cook announced tougher export licence criteria in July 1997, banned the export of torture equipment, initiated a revamped annual report said to make the UK ‘more transparent on arms exports than any other European nation’,24 and asserted that ‘Britain will refuse to supply the equipment and weapons with which regimes deny the demands of their peoples for human rights.’25 At his party conference in 1999, Cook declared that ‘Your government has not sold weapons that would suppress democracy or freedom . . . We rejected every licence to Indonesia when the weapons might have been used for suppression. We refused them sniper rifles, we refused them silenced firearms and we refused them armoured Land Rovers.’26 In this way, Cook implied that the New Labour government was able to exert control over how arms were used by their buyers and would block sales where they might be employed to suppress human rights. In reality, though, the New Labour government continued to sell arms to countries that had poor human rights records. As David Walker notes: ‘No

The ethics of British foreign policy

sooner was the new human rights note struck than ministers were having to explain why contracts to supply military equipment to Indonesia had to be honoured.’27 This argument had an ethical basis. Officials would assert that the UK had a reputation as a reliable trading partner and the previous Conservative government had signed contracts that its successor was obliged to honour. Breaking one’s promises was seen as a wrong in itself. Furthermore, undermining the UK’s reputation in this regard was viewed as having serious implications for the defence industry, which employed an estimated 400,000 British workers and contributed £5 billion a year to the UK economy.28 This argument would be invoked in relation to the sale of Hawk jets to Zimbabwe, to be used in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo,29 as well as in the sale of components for F-16 jets as part of a US defence deal with Israel.30 According to this view, the UK had a responsibility to honour its contracts with both key allies and client states. Failing to do so would also incur costs to the Exchequer as the government might have to compensate firms for loss of income.31 This does not, however, quite capture the extent to which the UK might have exercised its agency to break agreements with states not acting in accordance with UK values. The former foreign secretary David Owen notes: ‘I actually cancelled a contract – which the Ministry of Defence thought was a terrible thing to do – over El Salvador. We found we were sending armoured cars to El Salvador and I just simply wouldn’t accept it.’32 Owen argues that sending equipment that would inevitably be used in internal repression was unethical and implies that the obligation not to support such behaviour was superior to any concerns over broken contracts. By contrast, Cook agreed the sale of armoured cars and water cannon in 1997 to Indonesia – a country that was implicated in serious human rights abuses in the regions of East Timor and Aceh.33 Wheeler and Dunne later asserted that ‘it is almost inconceivable that British-made hardware had not been used for the systematic “internal repression” of the East Timorese’.34 Despite the tougher criteria, the director of Amnesty International noted in 2000 that ‘in Labour’s first year in office, 64 separate arms export licences were approved to Indonesia, 84 to Pakistan, 336 to India, 38 to Saudi Arabia, 42 to Sri Lanka and 105 to Turkey’.35 These countries were all subject to criticism on the basis of their human rights records. This policy would continue throughout New Labour’s time in office. In 2009, CAAT noted that the FCO identified twenty-one ‘major countries of concern’ in their 2008 Human Rights Report and the UK had approved arms export licences to ten of these, ‘including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Russia and Israel’.36 CAAT went on to suggest that of ‘the 15 countries identified by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute as locations of major armed conflict in 2008, the UK sold arms to 11 of them’.37 CAAT here argued that the UK is profiting from conflicts and, perhaps, prolonging them by increasing the capacity of the protagonists to wage war. Furthermore, government attempts to assert control over the use of arms granted export

103

104

British Foreign Policy

licences have proven ineffective. For example, the Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC) note that the New Labour government obtained a written assurance from the Israeli government in November 2000 that ‘No UK originated equipment nor any UK originated systems/sub-systems/components are used as part of the Israel Defence Force’s activities in the Territories.’38 However, the same committee noted in 2010 that ‘it is regrettable that arms exports to Israel were almost certainly used in Operation Cast Lead’39 during the Gaza conflict of 2008–9. As with the previous Conservative administration, the New Labour government was accused of allowing the defence industry to corrupt domestic politics. In 2004, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) had launched an investigation into the financing of the Al Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia, amid allegations that some of the UK public subsidy might have been diverted to private bank accounts and that embassy officials and members of the ruling family in Saudi Arabia might have benefited from inflating the cost of equipment and pocketing the difference.40 However, in the face of political pressure from the UK government and apparent threats from the Saudi Arabian government to withhold cooperation on anti-terrorism, the director of the SFO decided to end the investigation.41 Tony Blair defended this decision by stating: ‘Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is vitally important for our country . . . that strategic interest comes first.’42 Despite the UK’s being a signatory to the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions,43 the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, asserted: ‘It has been necessary to balance the rule of law with the wider public interest’ and suggested that: ‘continuation of the investigation would cause serious damage to UK/Saudi security, intelligence and diplomatic cooperation’.44 Following this decision, key allies criticized the UK’s lack of commitment to anti-corruption norms. In short, the record of New Labour on the arms industry differed only marginally from that of its predecessor. A greater transparency was apparent in export decisions – in keeping with regional and global trends. However, the New Labour government did not question the ethics of selling arms. Indeed, in 2007 the UK was the largest arms exporter in the world.45 In 2000, Peter Hain asserted: ‘It is not easy to balance the interests of the arms industry, our commitment to human rights and the sovereign right of states to self-defence. But, I think we have struck the right balance.’46 This statement reflects the variety of ethical responsibilities with which policymakers are faced. Decisions about arms sales need to be made in a context of domestic obligations to support British industry, domestic desires to promote liberal values, international calls for respect for human rights, and the demands of international order (and justice) that states have the right to self-defence. Although New Labour policymakers argued they would put ‘human rights at the heart of our foreign policy’,47 the reality in the case of arms sales was

The ethics of British foreign policy

that the domestic defence sector always seemed to win the argument. This suggests, rhetoric aside, that New Labour pursued an ethic of narrow selfinterest in this area. The coalition government has offered even more support to the arms industry, and this has led to criticism that they are doing so at the expense of other important ethical goals. In particular, David Cameron’s tour of the Gulf in February 2011 to support British arms manufacturers attracted criticism at a time when popular protests for democratic reform across the Arab world were being put down with brute force. Cameron used two familiar ethical arguments to defend his policy. Firstly, he argued that ‘The idea that we should expect small and democratic countries like Kuwait to be able to manufacture all their means of defence seems to me completely at odds with reality.’48 In other words, states had a right to self-defence and the UK arms industry provided the means to support this. Secondly, Cameron implied that if the UK didn’t then others would: ‘do you think the Germans and the French and the Americans are all sitting at home waiting for business to fall into their lap? Of course not – they’re out there selling their goods, and so should we in this country as well.’49 As past critics have pointed out, the argument that behaviour is justified because others would act the same way in any case seems morally unsatisfactory. Rebutting the argument that ‘if we do not our competitors will’, Ken Booth notes that: ‘We do not say to other manufacturers: “Yes, export child pornography, or hard drugs, and the government will subsidise you, organise trade fairs, and promote your business abroad.” ’50 Underlying the argument that ‘others will’ is an essentially tragic view of human behaviour which implies that unethical behaviour is an inevitable part of human life. Thus, if we decide to act on principle and refuse to sell arms to dictatorial regimes, it will occur anyway and we will have suffered a relative economic loss. The danger of such a reading of global politics is that it appears to constitute a rejection of moral responsibility, one conducted on the basis that any state exercising moral agency would not affect the outcome – rendering action redundant. From a narrowly consequentialist perspective, this makes sense. However, for those seeking the wider goal of a world order based on shared liberal values, the UK perhaps has a duty not to legitimize illiberal regimes and prolong their existence by selling them arms.51 In short, the arms sales problem sets communitarian concerns about British jobs in the defence sector, and the viability of the British defence industry as an essential aspect of national security, against the cosmopolitan desire for a more liberal world order based on shared human rights values. In judging the decisionmaking process, the consequentialist argument that ‘if we don’t others will’ needs to be weighed against the Kantian view that profiting from violence and aiding the suppression of human rights are morally wrong in themselves.52

105

106

British Foreign Policy

‘Humanitarian’ intervention Arms sales are not the only ethical dilemma New Labour inherited from its predecessor. A key moral problem in foreign policy in the 1990s was that of when and how external actors should intervene in civil wars to prevent human rights abuses. In particular, the record of the international community in the cases of Rwanda (1994) and Bosnia (1992–5) was seen as an example of unethical policymaking that resulted in large-scale human rights abuses being allowed to take place without robust opposition. The United Nations forces deployed in both cases had overly restrictive rules of engagement, members of the Security Council lacked the political will to enforce their own resolutions, and, most damningly, UN personnel failed to protect civilians in their care. The UK has been implicated in each of these policy wrongs. The United Nations intervention in Rwanda (UNAMIR) was originally launched in October 1993 to help implement the Arusha peace agreement. In early 1994, information was obtained by UN officials on the grounds that weapons were being stockpiled, and the atmosphere became increasingly tense as radio and print media in the country stoked up ethnic tensions between rival Hutu and Tutsi groups. In January 1994, the UN commander on the ground, General Romeo Dallaire, requested permission to act on information about weapons caches, which would later be used in the genocide. This was turned down by the then head of the UN Department of Peacekeeping, Kofi Annan, who cabled that ‘the overriding consideration is the need to avoid entering into a course of action that might lead to the use of force and unanticipated repercussions’.53 When violence erupted in early April, a number of senior politicians supposedly under UNAMIR guard were assassinated whilst UN troops stood aside. In one location, the Ecole Technique Officielle, about 2,000 people gathered believing themselves to be protected from the surrounding Interahamwe and Rwandan army soldiers by the presence of UNAMIR troops. However, once foreign nationals had been evacuated, the UN report into the genocide noted that ‘the Belgian contingent at [the Ecole Technique Officielle] left the school, leaving behind men, women and children, many of whom were massacred by the waiting soldiers and militia’.54 As the massacres continued, the UN asked Dallaire to assist with the evacuation of expatriates in the country but again insisted that ‘this should not, repeat not, extend to participating in combat, except in self-defence’.55 When Belgium sought to extract its troops after seventeen of them were massacred, the Security Council voted to reduce the international military presence in the country from 2,500 to 270. By the time a more aggressive force under French command was deployed in July 1994, 800,000 people had been killed. This episode is important to our discussion as the UK has been represented as a key force in the international inaction over Rwanda. On 14 April 1994, British diplomats had supported reducing the size of UNAMIR, and a week later they spoke against its continuing presence on the basis of ‘lessons

The ethics of British foreign policy

learned’ from the failure of the Somalia intervention the previous year. When the United States suggested sending a team to gain more information about the situation, the UK objected and attempts to draw up contingency planning were, at the UK’s insistence, done on a ‘non-paper’ basis so they would be less official.56 According to Mark Curtis, the UK also helped to delay intervention that might have saved ‘tens of thousands more lives’ through demands for a ceasefire prior to deployment and through refusal to supply airlift capability for African forces willing to go in.57 Thus the UK can be seen to have failed in its responsibility, under the 1948 Genocide Convention as well as on humanitarian grounds, to protect civilians from genocide. The international community attracted further criticism for failing to protect civilians and prevent human rights abuses during the Bosnian conflict, and UK policymakers were key actors in this case as well. Although the UK did contribute troops to the United Nations deployment in the Former Yugoslavia, this operation was equipped for peacekeeping rather than enforcement actions. The UN’s emphasis on maintaining the consent of all parties and acting impartially – when added to a UN arms embargo that prevented the Bosnian government from arming itself – effectively meant that it had to stand by whilst Bosnian Serb forces used their superior firepower against civilians. This amounted to what Theo Farrell has called ‘a policy of endless appeasement’.58 The most deplorable episode in this conflict was arguably the failure to defend the ‘safe areas’ for civilians that were supposed to be protected by UN troops. The United Nations had a ‘mandate to “deter attacks” on Srebrenica and five other “safe areas” in Bosnia Herzegovina’ under Resolution 824 (1993).59 Under Resolution 819 (1993), the Security Council had demanded ‘the immediate cessation of armed attacks by Bosnian Serb paramilitary units against Srebrenica and their immediate withdrawal from the areas surrounding Srebrenica’.60 Despite these strong words, up to 20,000 people were killed when the Serbs overran these areas in 1995. Worse, since the Bosnian forces had been largely demilitarized under an agreement between UN forces on the ground and the surrounding Serb military, the UN had ensured that the Bosnian Muslims were not able to defend themselves. As with Rwanda, the UK was seen as an obstructive actor in attempts to confront human rights abuses aggressively in Bosnia. John Kampfner argues: ‘From the very beginning . . . the British refused a French idea of a force to protect Croatia. The next year they rejected the idea of a no-fly zone to protect non-Serbs in Bosnia. Between 1993 and 1995 Britain was the most ardent opponent of the US strategy of “lift and strike” – lifting the embargo on arms supplies to the Bosnian government, and using massive air strikes against Bosnian Serb positions to even out the odds on the ground.’61 The speed with which the latter policy led to Serbian concessions and a peace agreement in September 1995 suggests that the UK had been wrong to oppose it.

107

108

British Foreign Policy

This context of appalling human rights abuses weakly resisted or unopposed by the international community in the early 1990s is important to understanding why the New Labour government would intervene militarily on humanitarian grounds in Kosovo and Sierra Leone.62 It is also relevant to Britain’s support for NATO action to protect civilians in Libya in 2011. When the Serbian government began a counter-insurgency campaign in 1998 against the Albanian population in the province of Kosovo, the new prime minister, Tony Blair, was determined that the international community should respond forcefully. As Oliver Daddow has noted: ‘Blair had learned the “anti-appeasement” lesson of history and he was also helping legitimize the “lesson” that western inactivity in the Balkans could have disastrous consequences’.63 After talks at Rambouillet in France broke down in March 1999, Britain was instrumental in successfully arguing for military action to counteract the Serbs’ operations in Kosovo. NATO launched air strikes under Operation Allied Force that same month and continued until June, when, with the threat of a ground offensive if they refused to capitulate, the Serbs agreed to end their attacks and an international force was deployed to Kosovo (IFOR). The ethical basis of military action was explicitly raised by Blair from the outset when, during his television address on the commencement of the bombing, he argued: ‘It was “simply the right thing to do” to “defend our fellow human beings”.’64 In the middle of the campaign, Blair provided a more detailed rationale for the action in his now famous ‘Chicago speech’ in the US. Arguing the emergence of a new ‘doctrine of international community’ whereby ‘the principle of non-interference’ in the domestic affairs of other states ‘must be qualified in important respects’, Blair declared that ‘Acts of genocide can never be a purely internal matter.’65 As a result, he asserted that ‘The most pressing foreign policy problem we face is to identify the circumstances in which we should get actively involved in other people’s conflicts.’66 It is clear from Blair’s memoirs that he perceived a strong ethical basis to such a decision: ‘the only way of finding direction was first to ask some moral questions: should this be allowed to happen or not? Should this regime remain in power? Should these people continue to suffer injustice?’67 A number of ethical implications flow from this new, more activist stance in foreign policy. On the conduct of the campaign itself, Wheeler and Dunne note the (consequentialist) ethical question: ‘In the case of Kosovo, did the level of force employed exceed the harm that it was designed to prevent?’68 The actual numbers of people killed by the Serb forces were relatively low before NATO’s intervention. The scale of the refugee crisis afterwards could be used to argue either that this demonstrated the evil intentions of the Serb forces or that NATO had exacerbated the problem.69 The bombing of targets in built-up areas in Belgrade, including a television station, raised concerns over the proportionality of NATO’s offensive. In addition, the lack of direct,

The ethics of British foreign policy

material national interests involved led to criticism of the appropriateness of the UK’s involvement. As Rawnsley notes, since Kosovo was not of ‘strategic importance’ to the UK, Blair was criticized for acting in ‘the absence of any selfish British interest’.70 Malcolm Rifkind has further argued that sending troops into combat for humanitarian reasons may affect the ‘military covenant’ between soldiers and the state: ‘if the government of the day wants increasingly to use the . . . British armed forces in humanitarian wars where Britain’s own direct interests are not at stake then that has got to be clearly part of the basis on which recruitment takes place to the Armed forces in the first place’.71 In other words, there were strong arguments against intervention, on the basis of a communitarian ethics, since the UK government was risking British soldiers’ lives, and spending millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money, on a problem that did not threaten British national security. A further ethical problem was in the illegal nature of the campaign. NATO did not seek Security Council authorization for Operation Allied Force as it feared that Russia and/or China might use their veto to block the action. In the event, the campaign did arguably achieve a degree of legal cover when the Russian motion condemning the attacks was voted down by a majority of the Security Council.72 Steven Haines has noted that ‘It is an inevitable feature of emerging customary law that state practice has to depart from the existing law in order to create the conditions for the eventual emergence of a new customary norm.’73 Thus, the fact that the military campaign breached international law does not in itself mean that it was unethical. Indeed, the Independent International Commission on Kosovo appointed to review the case by the UN secretary-general Kofi Annan reported that it was ‘unlawful but legitimate’.74 Underlying this argument was a growing discourse that states had a ‘responsibility to protect’ innocent victims of conflict and severe human rights abuses, regardless of concerns over state sovereignty. Annan urged ‘Heads of State and Government’ to ‘embrace’ this doctrine ‘as a basis for collective action against genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity’.75 Following the damning reports on Rwanda and Srebrenica and the successful action in Kosovo, the international community seemed to be moving towards the view that human rights should take precedence over norms of sovereignty and non-interference. However, there was by no means consensus on this matter. In particular, Wheeler and Dunne assert that China, Russia and non-Western states outside the Security Council were concerned that ‘these “new rules” conflict with the “old rules” that protect states from unwanted interference in their affairs’.76 Although clearly in part motivated by their own selfish concerns that the international community should not interfere with their domestic conflicts in Chechnya, Tibet and Xinjiang provinces, these states did also advance the view that noninterference was an important ethical norm allowing for self-determination, diversity and order in global politics. In other words, states like China and

109

110

British Foreign Policy

Russia take the view that a communitarian ethics is more likely to contribute to international peace than the cosmopolitan ethics underpinning humanitarian intervention. Having a doctrine and agreed international rules on intervention seems to imply both a more cosmopolitan ethics and a Kantian desire to regulate behaviour and ensure consistency.77 However, critics of military intervention have noted that Western outrage at human rights abuses is far more muted when it comes to powerful states.78 In practice, it is only the sovereignty of weaker states that is threatened by this new doctrine. This could give rise to charges of hypocrisy. In addition, the selectivity of intervention has led to suggestions that military action must be motivated by more selfish interests. This assumption is underpinned by a belief that ethics involves the application of consistent rules and, arguably, includes the understanding of ethics as self-denial outlined above. If states are not acting consistently, so this argument would seem to go, they must be motivated by non-ethical concerns. Yet if we consider ethics as involving the exercise of moral choice, selectivity is inevitable (obversely, blindly obeying rules is in this reading a denial of moral agency). A further lesson advanced by New Labour politicians from the evidence of the wars of the 1990s was that negotiating peace with dictators like Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic only sowed the seeds for later conflict.79 However, the historical record does not bear this out. Since the ‘good’ Second World War was won through the military annihilation and then outright surrender of dictators, analogies between appeasement of Nazi Germany and that of Milosevic or Saddam implied that in the latter cases nothing less than total capitulation on their part would suffice as a moral outcome. Yet peace has been negotiated with autocratic regimes, ranging from Stalinist Russia, Mao’s China and Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam to Kim IlSung’s North Korea. The difficulty of couching war aims in moralizing (distinct from ethical) language is that this may impede the ethical search for a peaceful settlement.80 In April 2011, the UK again committed its forces to military action on humanitarian grounds, this time in Libya. Two months earlier, protests against the Gaddafi regime in Libya had led to violent clashes and an estimated 1,000 deaths. On 23 February 2011, the UN secretary-general described ‘egregious violations of international and human rights law’,81 and the Security Council is said to have ‘highlighted the need to uphold the responsibility to protect’.82 After some embarrassing prevarication in the UK’s response to the crisis, Britain came down firmly in support of Security Council Resolution 1970, which called for Gaddafi to be referred to the ICC and which instigated targeted sanctions on the regime. The UK then pushed for military action to prevent attacks on civilian areas, culminating in Resolution 1973 imposing a no-fly zone. The criterion Cameron advanced for this action was ‘Demonstrable need. Regional support. And a clear legal basis.’83 Although he did

The ethics of British foreign policy

later assert that it would not ‘be in British interests’ to fail to act in case this led to a resurgent terrorist threat from Libya and a refugee crisis, the primary motivation he identified was that ‘we simply cannot stand back and let a dictator whose people have rejected him, kill his people indiscriminately’. Cameron suggested that the Libyan people wanted the ‘rights and freedoms . . . enshrined in the values of the United Nations Charter’ and noted that once the Security Council had decided on Resolution 1973 ‘there is a responsibility on its members to respond’.84 In this way, the key obligation motivating UK actions was, for Cameron, that associated with being a permanent member of the Security Council with a superior responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. The problem that arose during the intervention was that substantial support did appear to exist for Gaddafi in the Western half of Libya. Representing this as a war between Gaddafi’s immediate family and the wider population was belied by events on the ground, and NATO’s air support was crucial in achieving victory for the opposition. In a speech in November 2010, David Cameron asserted that New Labour militarily ‘made too many commitments without the resources to back them up, and we have failed to think properly across government about where we were getting ourselves into and how we would see it through to success’.85 They then found themselves having to take sides in a civil war with some individuals who until recently had been suspected of Al Qaeda affiliation and whom the UK had colluded against in arranging their rendition to Libya to face questioning by the Gaddafi regime.86 If we judge the ethics of a policy by its consequences, an ethical calculation needs to be made by policymakers as to whether it is better to risk the prolongation of conflict, which entails further death and suffering, or to negotiate a settlement. On the one hand, the fact that the opposition movement prevailed and Gaddafi was toppled does suggest the policy was at least successful in bringing about the political result desired – albeit in a longer time frame than British policymakers might have hoped for. On the other hand, the act of intervention itself created responsibilities on the part of the intervening powers to produce a better outcome than non-interference would have produced. The extra-judicial execution of Gaddafi and his son and the rather dismissive manner in which Cameron responded to these events indicate a vacillating commitment to the principle of the rule of law that was, in part, supposed to be underpinning the ethics of military action by UK forces. Libya has shown signs of continuing political fragmentation in the postwar period. Furthermore, allegations have arisen that members of the new regime have colluded in the torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of individuals suspected of being mercenaries or loyal to the former Gaddafi government.87 Having been instrumental in bringing the opposition to power, the UK could be argued to have some responsibility for their subsequent conduct.

111

112

British Foreign Policy

Complicity and the war on terrorism A key ethical debate since the early 2000s has been over the extent to which the UK is morally responsible for the actions of allies (and states with which they cooperate) in the global war on terrorism. In particular, following the 9/11 attacks on the United States, Britain became implicated in the use of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment (CIDT) by partner states against terrorist suspects. It is alleged to have assisted in ‘rendition to detention operations’ through UK territory (on occasions involving individuals with joint British nationality), as well as operations globally. The UK has also contributed intelligence used by the US to pursue a policy of assassination by remote-controlled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones), largely in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. Although some allegations of CIDT have been made against UK troops on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, critics have generally not accused British officials or policymakers of either sanctioning acts of torture/CIDT or practising it themselves on detainees in their conduct of counter-terrorism operations. Rather, it is suggested that the UK has encouraged its use by accepting intelligence that may have been derived from torture,88 by giving information that led to the arrest of suspects that were then mistreated by allies such as Pakistan and the United States,89 by feeding questions to detainees alleged to have been subject to ill treatment,90 or by failing to follow up reports of abuse.91 A speaker at a 2010 Chatham House discussion group argued that ‘The only appropriate and principled stance was for governments not to engage in any intelligence cooperation whatsoever with countries known to use torture.’92 However, the UK has a responsibility to seek information about possible terrorist threats to protect its own citizens. Failure to do so would be a neglect of the state’s primary duty: to provide security for its citizens. If the UK stopped intelligence cooperation with states that were alleged to violate human rights, such as Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United States, it would be cutting itself off from the global effort to combat terrorism. Furthermore, under UN Security Council Resolution 1373, the UK is obligated to ‘take the necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist acts, including by provision of early warning to other States by exchange of information’.93 Therefore, it has legal responsibilities to the international community to continue to share intelligence on potential terrorist threats. This highlights the problematic borderlines of responsibility in world politics. International law tends to emphasize that states are only responsible for the behaviour of individuals who are under their control or who are acknowledged to represent them.94 However, the UK could be seen as incurring responsibility for US behaviour by virtue of its political support for US actions.95 More tangibly, the UK has offered physical assistance to these activities via the formalized intelligence-sharing arrangements and defence cooperation they undertake with allies like the US.

The ethics of British foreign policy

An example of this is in the United States’ use of ‘rendition to detention’ operations, whereby suspects were transferred to internment camps such as that on Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) and attempts were made to exclude them from recourse to the domestic civil legal system of the United States. The UK provided intelligence which resulted in the arrest of a number of individuals with connections to Britain who were later transferred to detention sites such as GTMO and apparently subjected to CIDT.96 Furthermore, despite suggesting that these operations had not been conducted on British soil, in February 2008 the then foreign secretary, David Miliband, had to apologize to Parliament for making false assurances that individuals did not pass through UK territory. In reality, on two occasions the US had rendered a detainee through the US facility of British Indian Ocean Territory in Diego Garcia.97 More seriously, allegations of Britain’s direct involvement in rendition to detention operations have emerged following the Libyan war. In 2004, the UK apparently provided intelligence on the dissident Libyan leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighters Group, Abdul Hakim Belhaj (later a leading general in the opposition), which resulted in his arrest and transportation to Libya, allegedly to face torture.98 In another rendition operation, this time of Belhaj’s deputy, Abu Munthir, Britain is alleged to have sought to arrange his transfer themselves, in cooperation with the Libyan government and Hong Kong authorities, with a CIA fax discovered in Libya apparently suggesting that the Gaddafi regime ‘had been co-operating with the British to effect Abu Munthir’s removal to Tripoli’ using ‘an aircraft available for this purpose in the Maldives’.99 If correct, these allegations go beyond mere political rhetoric or information sharing. Although guarantees about the treatment of detainees were sought, the record of the Libyan government on human rights should have suggested that rigorous monitoring would be required to ensure proper standards were being upheld. Otherwise, these activities could imply direct collusion in rendition to torture operations. Nevertheless, the ethical responsibilities underlying British foreign policy in this regard are not as straightforward as they are often represented as being. Some of the alleged victims of these operations hold decidedly illiberal and anti-democratic values,100 and may have constituted a threat to British citizens. The UK has apparently made use of intelligence derived from the questioning of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and other, more secretive, ‘black sites’ to avert terrorist plots.101 Yet upholding the dignity of the person is supposed to be important to the UK’s self-identity as a supporter of liberal values. If the UK transgresses norms such as the rule of law and anti-torture principles then it seems to undermine the very ethical basis upon which it is argued the war on terrorism is being fought.102 A related ethical dilemma of arguably even greater seriousness than rendition is the increasing use of attacks by UAVs on suspected terrorists in Pakistan, particularly in the FATA region. The United States justified its stance on detainees, and later this policy of targeted assassination, on the basis that the

113

114

British Foreign Policy

9/11 attacks ‘marked a state of international armed conflict between the United States and the al Qaeda terrorist organization’.103 In response the United States, exercising its right of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter, ‘ordered the Armed Forces to carry out military operations against al Qaeda’ including ‘the power both to kill and to capture’.104 After the initial success of counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan, Western intelligence agencies increasingly saw Pakistan as a major source of threats to their interests.105 A deal to allow Islamic law in the Swat valley, supposed to quell insurgent movements within Pakistan, was interpreted by the United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton as ‘basically abdicating to the Taliban’.106 According to the Long War Journal, the US had up to 1 October 2012 launched 316 strikes in Pakistan territory, most of which, it claims, killed unlawful combatants but some of which inevitably resulted in civilian deaths.107 The vast majority of these attacks (306) have taken place since January 2008. These attacks constitute an ethical dilemma in that they clearly violate the sovereignty of Pakistan, UK intelligence is being used in these operations and civilian deaths are occurring as a result. British law has abolished the death penalty and British foreign policymakers lobby internationally against it. Yet they also support a policy of assassination that involves a sentence of death without trial for the targets. That said, the UK government does have a right to self-defence, and given the Pakistan connections of many terrorist threats to UK citizens, one could argue the government is entitled to support action to counter the threats. Moreover, Pakistan has a duty under UN Security Council Resolution 1373 to ‘deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, commit terrorist acts and provide safe havens as well’.108 If they are allowing terrorist groups to operate with impunity on their territory then they could be seen as forfeiting their right to non-interference. In this case study, we can see tensions between communitarian demands for self-defence and the cosmopolitan desire to promote global values. There are also conflicting views about the way these choices are made. Some consequentialists would focus on the dangers for international order of subverting international law and violating sovereignty – particularly when we consider the declining power of the West. Others might highlight the successes achieved in inhibiting terrorist activities. Meanwhile, Kantians would perhaps emphasize the status of the anti-torture norm as a ‘peremptory norm’ in international politics; that is, torture is accepted as intrinsically wrong, regardless of the circumstances, throughout the world. Whilst this may be the case in a legal sense, the widespread use of torture across the globe may lead us to question whether this is more an aspiration than a statement of fact.

Aid The provision of overseas aid has long been considered an important ethical responsibility for British foreign policymakers. This sense of obligation has

The ethics of British foreign policy

both cosmopolitan and communitarian foundations. From a cosmopolitan ethical perspective, Britain’s former identity as an imperial power has left it with a deep responsibility for the welfare of citizens of less developed states. During the last few centuries, empires such as that of Britain derived a substantial part of their wealth from the exploitation of resources and manpower in poorer regions of the world and so their overseas aid can be viewed as a form of redress for past wrongs. In addition, development problems are often portrayed as a matter of concern for all of humanity; a global challenge to which all international policymakers are obliged to respond as those affected are fellow human beings. From this perspective, it is a policy responsibility that transcends national boundaries, but one which states have a duty to seek to fulfil on the basis that they possess superior resources to other political actors. From a communitarian viewpoint, providing aid is a means of furthering British influence and improving the reputation of Britain abroad. It is also perhaps an expression of the generosity of this community. Thus, it can have beneficial effects for the self-identity and self-esteem of British citizens. The difficulty with applying a communitarian view to overseas aid is that it creates scope for policy confusion: are British foreign policymakers supposed to distribute aid according to humanity’s needs, or according to those of the British community? Under past Conservative administrations, the provision of aid was overseen by the Overseas Development Administration (ODA), a sub-department of the FCO, and this bureaucratic placement seemed to imply, if only tacitly, that aid was linked to the pursuit of foreign policy goals. By contrast, Labour governments in the 1960s and 1970s afforded overseas aid its own department and a Cabinet position, raising its status within the Whitehall hierarchy and suggesting a distinction between aid distribution and more self-interested foreign policy ambitions. This division became more acute with the election of New Labour in 1997. The new government created a Department for International Development (DFID), led with gusto by Clare Short, which had a budget substantially exceeding that of its former parent department the FCO. The real value of aid doubled in the first ten years of the New Labour government, with Britain moving from being the fifth-largest donor in terms of volume of aid in 1998 to the second largest globally in 2007 – behind the United States.109 Short endeavoured to separate DFID’s purpose and activities from policies concerned with the narrow national interest, culminating in the International Development Act of 2002 which expressly forbade tying the provision of aid to the purchase of British goods and services. Indeed, policymakers have since bemoaned the initial reluctance of DFID officials to cooperate with British military and diplomatic personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.110 This has been attributed to Clare Short’s opposition to the Iraq invasion and desire to separate aid from operations in Britain’s self-interest.111 This charge was later denied by Sir Suma Chakrabarti, the permanent secretary at DFID at the time, in evidence to the Iraq Inquiry.112

115

116

British Foreign Policy

As part of the UN Millennium Project, New Labour policymakers committed themselves to the target of raising the level of overseas aid to 0.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI) by 2013, earlier than the global target of 2015.113 This has entailed a substantial financial and political commitment. The New Labour government inherited an aid budget in 1997 which was 0.26 per cent of GNI.114 When it left office in 2010, the aid budget had increased to £8.354 billion or 0.56 per cent of GNI.115 Between 2010 and the time of writing, the coalition government has kept DFID as a separate department and also made further efforts to achieve the 0.7 per cent goal – even expressing the intention to pass legislation to make this a binding commitment when parliamentary time is available.116 The prime minister also lobbied other European states to follow the UK’s lead, with DFID boasting in its 2012 annual report that in June 2010, David Cameron had ‘secured a commitment from EU nations at the European Union Foreign Affairs Council . . . to ensure that they spend 0.7% of GNI as ODA [official development assistance] by 2015’.117 In this way, a strong element of continuity is evident in Britain’s aid policy between the New Labour and coalition governments. Although there is cross-party agreement on the need to increase aid spending, where and how aid should be spent are questions that divide the development policy community. Oliver Morrissey notes disagreement over the conditions that should be attached to aid provision. In particular, influential donors such as the World Bank and the United States have argued for selectivity based on the notion that ‘countries with “better policies” (defined in some way by the donor) will make the best use of aid, therefore (more) aid should be allocated to such countries’.118 However, there is a difficulty in such calculations since, almost by definition, citizens of the most poorly governed countries are likely to experience greater need for help from the outside world. Yet offering financial assistance to countries that do not respect the human rights of their own people would seem to be rewarding bad government and enabling them to continue to exploit the resources and wealth of their territory without the burden of providing welfare to its occupants. In that scenario, aid cannot address the underlying causes of poverty and merely perpetuates injustice. For the World Bank and others, imposing strong conditions on recalcitrant governments is the best way to coerce them into better governance practices. The alternative, more akin to DFID’s strategy, is a policy of ‘conditionality with a light touch’.119 This involves forming partnerships with recipient governments to devise mutually agreed strategies for promoting development. Although this seems more in tune with global sensitivities over the norms of sovereignty and non-interference, it necessarily involves a lesser amount of UK government control, and hence accountability, over the use of British aid money. Which states are worthy of receiving aid has been a subject of much press comment in recent years as a result of the increasing economic power of Brazil, Russia, India and China – at one time recipients of substantial sums

The ethics of British foreign policy

in development assistance. Commentators noted that China and India were in receipt of British aid money despite the fact that both were pursuing a space programme and China’s economy had overtaken the British one in size.120 In response, the coalition government changed its policy to reduce and then finally end this anomaly. The impetus for doing so in India’s case, however, appeared to be a result of the political fallout from Britain’s failure to secure an order from the Indian government for Eurofighter aircraft – the contract apparently going to a French bid. The then secretary of state for international development, Andrew Mitchell, attracted political criticism in June 2011 for suggesting that UK aid to India was ‘partly designed to win the bid. It’s a very important relationship. The focus is also about seeking to sell [Eurofighter].’121 It is notable that when they failed to secure this contract (and after a media furore), Britain announced it was withdrawing aid to India after 2015.122 This idea of ‘aid for trade’ (linking overseas aid to British business interests) was declared unlawful in an important case brought against the UK government in 1994 by the World Development Movement. In what became known as the Pergau Dam affair, US$351 million worth of British overseas aid was being provided to build a dam in Malaysia in return, it was alleged, for British arms sales to the country.123 The High Court ruled that decisions to give aid ‘must be exercised for the purpose of promoting an economically sound development’.124 This was in line with the 1980 Overseas Development and Co-operation Act, which defined the purpose of aid as ‘promoting the development or maintaining the economy of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom, or the welfare of its people’.125 The then foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd, had apparently been advised by officials in the ODA (DFID’s forerunner) that the dam would not provide sufficient economic benefits to the Malaysian people to justify giving aid.126 The foreign secretary made his decisions ostensibly to facilitate good relations between the UK and Malaysia, but this was rejected as a justification by the High Court. What the Eurofighter and Pergau Dam controversies highlight are tensions between communitarian and cosmopolitan ethics in this policy area. Overseas aid is supposed to be provided for the benefit of people in foreign countries on the basis of their common humanity. It is intended to alleviate severe poverty, and a cosmopolitan ethic would suggest that aid distribution should be decided on the basis of who has the most serious need for assistance. However, since aid entails a substantial financial cost to the citizens of the UK, a communitarian ethics intrudes into policy calculations. With poverty evident across the globe, the temptation is to select targets for aid that would provide a humanitarian benefit and further Britain’s trade or foreign policy goals at the same time. The sense that overseas aid should bring some tangible benefit to British citizens has gained ground since the financial crisis that began in 2008. There are also signs that the British public are opposed to increases in overseas aid

117

118

British Foreign Policy

at a time of national austerity. Since the financial crisis, public support for development aid has declined, with support for increased action falling from 49 per cent to 35 per cent between September 2008 and February 2010 – despite the overall level of concern about global poverty remaining stable at between 74 per cent and 73 per cent.127 During this time, concern about corruption reducing the effectiveness of aid rose from 44 per cent to 57 per cent.128 In a 2010 poll, 66 per cent of respondents felt that Britain gave ‘too much’ foreign aid; meanwhile, 71 per cent were against introducing a bill to make it a legal commitment that Britain spend 0.7 per cent of its GDP on aid.129 Although UK governments since 1997 have been leading advocates of increasing aid contributions in multilateral forums such as the G8, G20 and European Union, they now potentially face a backlash from their own political community, asserting a more communitarian ethics during the current economic crisis.

Conclusion From these four dilemmas, we can see the complex ethical strands in British foreign policy. When it comes to identifying which community’s interests and values should be promoted, policymakers favour the narrow defence sector in the case of arms sales, that of ‘humanity’ or the international community in the cases of intervention and overseas aid, and state security and the transatlantic alliance in the global war on terrorism. Deciding how to fulfil these obligations is problematic as neither consequentialism nor deontologism is able fully to capture the implications of choosing between responsibilities. For instance, the fatalism of seeking arms sales because ‘others will’ in any case seems morally unsatisfactory, as it denies responsibility and agency – even if from a consequentialist perspective this may make sense, as the outcome remains the same but the UK benefits financially. Seeking to intervene in the affairs of a sovereign state for humanitarian reasons – to promote liberal norms and values – downplays the selectivity of intervention and often underestimates the consequent level of responsibility that the intervening powers will assume through their actions. The example of the UK’s conduct in the war on terrorism reveals the chasm between political conceptions of the responsibility states hold for their allies’ behaviour (and their complicity in any transgressions) and the limited legal accountability that exists in international law. Fighting non-state actors within the political and ethical boundaries of a state system is challenging, and often pits consequentialist efforts to protect state security against deontological goals of international order and justice. Meanwhile, debates on overseas aid provision highlight tensions between the desire to help alleviate poverty globally and the communitarian needs of budgetary restraint and self-interest.

The ethics of British foreign policy

Further reading Blair, T. (1999) ‘Doctrine of international community’ speech at the Economics Club, Chicago, 24 April, www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international/jan-june99/ blair_doctrine4-23.html. Influential outline of the ethical basis of Blair’s foreign policy. Brown, C. (2002) Sovereignty, Rights and Justice (Cambridge: Polity). Superb outline of the major ethical institutions and dilemmas of world politics. Bulley, D. (2009) Ethics as Foreign Policy: Britain, the EU and the Other (London: Routledge). Critical analysis of how identity and discourse shape ethical relationships in foreign policy. Dunne, M., Hall-Matthews, D. and Lightfoot, S. (2011) ‘Our aid: UK international development policy under the coalition’ Political Insight, 2,1, 29–31. Useful teaching aid summarizing the rationale for increasing overseas aid during recession. Gaskarth, J. (2011) ‘Entangling alliances? The UK’s complicity in torture in the global war on terrorism’ International Affairs, 87,4, 945–64. Macdonald, D. B., Robert G., Patman, R. G. and Mason-Parker, B. (2007) The Ethics of Foreign Policy (Aldershot: Ashgate). Nolan, C. J. (ed.) (2004) Ethics and Statecraft (London: Praeger). Excellent collection of essays on the moral dilemmas of foreign policymaking. Pattison, J. (2012) Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Who Should Intervene? (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Interesting consideration of who should intervene to uphold human rights and whether the existence of motives other than simple altruism is relevant. Phythian, M. (2000) The Politics of British Arms Sales Since 1964 (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Useful historical account of Britain’s policies on arms sales, from the Cold War to New Labour. Shane, S. (2012) ‘The moral case for drones’ New York Times, 14 July, www.nytimes. com/2012/07/15/sunday-review/the-moral-case-for-drones.html?_r=1. Think-piece defending the use of drone strikes on the grounds of proportionality. Smith, K. and Light, M. (2001) (eds.) Ethics and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Very readable survey of recent ethical issues in world politics. Walzer, M. (1973) ‘Political action: the problem of dirty hands’ Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2,2, 160–80. Good starting point from which to examine the moral compromises of leadership. Wheeler, N. J. (2000) Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Classic account of how humanitarian intervention impacts on international societal norms.

119

cha p t er sev e n

Defence and British foreign policy

To what extent is British foreign policy underpinned by its military power? How do Britain’s defence and foreign policies intersect? How successful has Britain been in using force to achieve its foreign policy goals? These are important questions for any student of British foreign policy. Despite optimism in the immediate post-Cold War era that inter-state violence might become obsolete,1 Britain has used its armed forces extensively since the early 1990s. This chapter seeks to explore how and why it has done so. The chapter begins with a discussion of the theory on force as an instrument of foreign policy and then proceeds with an examination of how Britain’s foreign and defence policymakers have shaped the purpose, structure, finance and performance of the UK’s armed forces.2 Perhaps the most infamous description of the relationship between war and foreign policy is that of the Prussian theorist Carl Von Clausewitz: ‘War is a mere continuation of policy by other means.’3 This comment has important implications for this chapter. In the first place, it is not meant to downplay war’s deadly effects or encourage policymakers to undertake military action lightly. Rather, Clausewitz is emphasizing that war should not be conducted for its own sake, but as a means to achieve policy objectives.4 Nevertheless, in conveying war as a ‘continuation’, Clausewitz does underline the fact that waging war is one of the policy options available to policymakers and, given its frequency, must be seen as a natural part of human affairs. Whilst the number and severity of inter-state wars have declined in the post1945 period,5 and some commentators have recently argued that humanity is becoming less violent overall,6 the use of military force remains a major factor in foreign policymaking. This is because making threats to use force, or actually conducting offensive operations, are important ways in which foreign policy actors can achieve desirable political outcomes. As Thomas Schelling argued: ‘The power to hurt is bargaining power. To exploit it is diplomacy – vicious diplomacy, but diplomacy.’7 Having substantial and well-equipped armed forces allows a policymaker to deter other actors (usually states), through the implied threat of military retaliation, from threatening the home state’s vital interests and impinging on their citizens’ security.8 This is sometimes described as defensive power.9 A state’s military can also be used to force other actors to bend 120

Defence and British foreign policy

to their will, as an instrument of compellence.10 This is characterized as offensive power.11 To act as a deterrent, the threat of forceful retaliation must be credible.12 This credibility is a question of means and desires: would a state such as Britain have the means to use violence against a transgressing actor and would it have the desire to do so? The Franks Report into the Falklands War of 1982 suggested that UK defence cuts may have led the Argentinians to doubt Britain’s desire and capacity to defend the territories.13 Even where the military capability demonstrably exists, deterrence cannot work unless the target state believes that force will be used. The US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, was blamed for failing to deter Saddam Hussein from invading Kuwait in 1990 when she declared in a meeting that the US ‘took no position on these Arab affairs’, in discussing the border dispute between Kuwait and Iraq.14 This was interpreted by Saddam as meaning that the US would not use force to intervene in any conflict. Even when the US later threatened to use force, Saddam seems to have calculated – wrongly – that they, and the wider international community, would not have the necessary political commitment to overturn his invasion. The most notorious examples of Britain issuing military threats to deter an adversary tend to be those which have failed – as in Neville Chamberlain’s warning to Hitler over Polish neutrality in 1939, or the attempts of the UK and its allies to deter Iraq from developing WMD between 1991 and 2003. However, on a smaller scale Britain has used force to deter external and internal actors from destabilizing friendly governments – such as in deployments to Jordan (1958), Oman (1957), Kuwait (1961), East Africa (1964) and Eastern Malaysia (1964).15 More recently, they sent a force to Macedonia in 2001 to prevent the spread of ethnic conflict from Kosovo. In early 2012, the UK defence secretary, Philip Hammond, issued a veiled threat that any attempt to block the Strait of Hormuz by Iran would be ‘illegal and unsuccessful’, adding that the UK and US had a ‘joint naval presence in the Arabian Gulf, something our regional partners appreciate’, which was ‘key to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open for international trade’.16 Allusions to military power were here designed to deter Iranian action without making an explicit threat that could be used to justify an escalation of tensions.17 The UK has also made extensive use of force for the purposes of compellence; that is, forcibly coercing other states to engage in desirable behaviour and comply with the norms and/or interests of the home state. Britain achieved a reputation in the mid-nineteenth century for ‘gunboat diplomacy’, whereby their superior naval forces would be used to blockade or bombard the harbours of hostile states into opening up trade or supporting their policy goals.18 A future prime minister, the marquess of Salisbury, wrote a damning critique of such influence attempts in 1864, citing the example of the British response to the murder of a British citizen along a country road in Japan.19 When news of the killing reached the UK, the then prime minister, Lord

121

122

British Foreign Policy

Russell, demanded a formal apology, £125,000 in compensation and the execution of the guilty men. The Japanese asked for a delay to investigate the crime, but the British introduced a blockade and, after an exchange of fire, began shelling the local harbour. The British consul’s satisfied despatch two days later read: ‘The operations were attended with complete success . . . The fire, which is still raging, affords reasonable grounds for believing that the entire town of Kagosima is now a mass of ruins.’20 This behaviour may have been useful at the time for opening up trade with weaker powers across the globe. However, it has left the UK with a negative reputation for using military force in the service of imperialistic aims, from Asia to the Middle East and Africa. Although the UK no longer sees itself as an imperial power, it continues to use military force to compel states to change their behaviour. The UK has engaged in large-scale coalition police actions against North Korea (1950–3) and Iraq (1991, 1998) to restore international peace and security, ‘humanitarian’ interventions in Bosnia (1992–2007), Kosovo (1999–2003, 2004), Sierra Leone (2000) and Libya (2011) to ameliorate suffering or prevent human rights abuses, and ‘self-defence’ operations in the Falklands (1982), Afghanistan (from 2001) and Iraq (2003–9). The coalition government came into power suggesting that the New Labour governments had been too free with their use of military force as a policy tool.21 However, within a year British warplanes were taking part in operations against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, ostensibly to deter attacks on civilians. To emphasize the pervasive importance of war in foreign policymaking, Malcolm Rifkind is fond of quoting another Prussian, Frederick the Great, who argued that ‘Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.’22 In other words, in an anarchic international environment, policymakers need to be able to make threats of violence and back them up with armed force where necessary to pursue foreign policy aims. A corollary of this is that an actor’s military power is an important tool to locate them in the hierarchical structure of international society. Great power status is seen as linked to having armed forces of the ‘first rank’.23 It is no accident that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council were, in 2011, also the five highest military spenders.24 Nineteenth-century British diplomats excused their behaviour to the Japanese in Kagosima by stating: ‘You must remember that we are one of the first nations in the world, who, instead of meeting civilized people as you think yourselves, in reality encounter barbarians.’25 In other words, military might has historically been seen not just as an indicator of power but as a mark of civilization and a measure of an actor’s right to shape outcomes and set the international agenda. Criticisms of European troop contributions to NATO operations often carry the subtext that those who are not prepared to use force should have less say in political discussions.26 Conversely, British policymakers often cite

Defence and British foreign policy

their military capability as a source of political influence – especially with the United States.27 The significance of intangible elements such as ‘status’ and ‘reputation’ reminds us that military power is not simply about resources. Powerful cultural, sociological and psychological factors, within and between states, affect both how armed force is used and whether it is effective. Clausewitz’s maxim is important for our discussion because it suggests that war is a political and not a technocratic exercise, however many acronyms and jargonistic phrases its practitioners may invent to obscure its nature. In seeing war as designed to achieve political aims, we are reminded that military action needs to be linked to domestic politics, balanced against other policy options and continuously re-evaluated to see whether the costs incurred are commensurate with the outcomes war can achieve. Explaining this process, Clausewitz saw war as not only a sort of game played by professional experts (soldiers and sailors), but also an instrument for statesmen pursuing policy objectives, and the ‘expression of popular passions’ among the people.28 Each of these factors can pull in different directions, with militaries using tactics that undermine the overall policy, governments failing to resource the professionals and interfering with their plans, and the people’s ‘passions’ either jingoistically calling for a disproportionate response or failing to support rearmament and the use of force in the face of threats. As a result, Clausewitz saw military victory as reliant on the ‘will of the military’, the ‘will of the government’ and the ‘will of the people’ in order to be sustained.29 This formula is apparent in the idea of the ‘military covenant’ – a key concept in contemporary discussions over support for Britain’s military interventions abroad. Richard Dannatt, former chief of the Defence Staff, described it as ‘the compact of trust, honour and respect between the government, the armed forces and the public whose interests they serve’.30 The covenant has faced considerable challenges over deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Critics of the government have highlighted the lack of political direction in campaigns such as the ‘war on terrorism’ and the poor resourcing of the armed forces. Critics of the forces have noted tactical and strategic failures as well as huge cost overruns in procurement projects. Meanwhile, the public are viewed as offering insufficient support for the military and as lacking understanding of the political and military difficulties of fighting counterinsurgency and counter-terrorist operations abroad. This chapter seeks to explore Britain’s use of the military to further its foreign policy aims by looking at four key debates. Firstly, there is the question: what is the purpose of Britain’s armed forces? In the absence of an imminent threat from another state, commentators have queried the need for Britain to maintain substantial military resources. Debates over Britain’s role in the world have combined with discussion over the types of threat the UK faces (such as non-state terrorist groups and insurgencies) and

123

124

British Foreign Policy

the implications of the digital age, leading to questioning of the utility of force and the ‘outputs’ that traditional state military structures are able to achieve.31 Alongside questions of purpose are ones of structure: should Britain maintain an expeditionary capability or focus on home defence? Or should it concentrate on building niche specialisms to support likely coalition and international partners? These questions are in turn linked to ones of finance: how much can Britain afford to spend on its military (especially in the midst of a global financial crisis)? How can the massive waste and inefficiency of the procurement process be overcome? Lastly, it is important to consider how well Britain has performed as a military actor in world politics. Are its armed forces fit for purpose? How well has the use of force supported foreign policy goals?

Purpose Before addressing the specific roles and functions Britain’s armed forces are designed to serve, it is worth recalling that having the capacity to exercise force has in itself huge symbolic value for an actor’s authority and legitimacy in international relations. Max Weber defined the modern state as ‘the form of human community that (successfully) lays claim to the monopoly of legitimate physical violence within a particular territory’.32 Furthermore, most forms of political order were either forged in, or the product of, war.33 So many of the features of modern European states, from their representative institutions, their constitutions, civil service bureaucracies and taxation to their military and security apparatuses, were developed to pursue war aims that Charles Tilly was moved to argue that ‘War made the state, and the state made war.’34 Thus there is a strong political and cultural framework to discussions of what capacity for violence the UK should have and when it should be used. Scholars of military sociology note that logics of appropriateness and transnational norms can influence defence planning in ways that may seem to lead to irrational outcomes compared to the actual threats states face.35 In addition, many of the founding cultural myths of nationhood and state revolve around military victories or defeats.36 The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the victories at Trafalgar (1805) and Waterloo (1815), the first day of the Somme battle in 1916, the withdrawal from Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain in 1940 all resonate in debates over Britain’s defence to this day. Attempts to cut the navy’s surface fleet, talk of merging the RAF with the other services, or plans to disband historical regiments all have to contend with the powerful resonances these branches of the armed forces have in local and national memory. Thus, at the international and domestic level, social and cultural forces operate to shape beliefs about what sort of armed capability the UK should possess and when and how it should be used. The most basic function of Britain’s military forces, following Weber’s maxim above, is to defend the British mainland. However, with the end of

Defence and British foreign policy

the Cold War, defence planners have noted the absence of any imminent inter-state threat.37 Western European states are seen as inhabiting a ‘peace community’ whose members represent no military threat to one another.38 This situation was underpinned by the United States’ security guarantee and NATO in the early Cold War, and then reinforced by both the deterrence capacity of nuclear weapons and European political integration into the European Union as the twentieth century progressed.39 As a result, discussion of the purpose of UK forces has largely revolved around how they contribute to Britain’s status as a great power, and how they may address more diffuse threats to British interests and values globally. In relation to the first of these, Britain’s status as a great power, the relationship with the United States has long been crucial in determining Britain’s force postures. In the 1950s, Harold Macmillan defended expenditure on a nuclear bomber fleet on the basis that ‘to have a voice in the use of Deterrent air power . . . [the UK] . . . must contribute a long range bomber force of a size and quality which would command respect in the Pentagon’.40 New Labour defence reviews and strategy documents called for British forces to have a high level of interoperability with those of the United States – requiring investment in precision weapons and network-centric warfare (see below).41 Whilst this aspiration seems to have been quietly abandoned in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), the review report still calls for a ‘focus on areas of comparative national advantage valued by key allies, especially the United States . . . such as our intelligence capabilities and highly capable elite forces’.42 In other words, having a military of the first rank is seen as necessary in order for other states (notably the United States) to view the UK as a significant international actor. Britain’s military capability is also an important facet of its own self-identity.43 When the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was considering what to do about the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands in 1982, the first sea lord, Admiral Leach, sought her out in the House of Commons and urged military action on the basis that ‘if we do not, or if we pussyfoot in our actions and do not achieve complete success, in another few months we shall be living in a different country whose word counts for little’.44 The chief of the Defence Staff, David Richards, argued of the 2010 defence review: ‘the key to this SDSR is nothing less than determining what sort of nation we see ourselves being’.45 Meanwhile, David Goodhart has argued that the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan ‘may depend on that nebulous question . . . what sort of people do we think we are?’46 There is nothing inevitable about the answer. The 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) noted that ‘We could of course as a country, choose to take a narrow view of our role and responsibilities which did not require a significant military capability. This is indeed a real choice.’47 The former prime minister Harold Wilson argued in the House of Commons in 1967 that ‘Our commitment is not to police the world. We have made it clear that we do not

125

126

British Foreign Policy

believe that to be the role of this country.’48 Christopher Hill has suggested that Britain may need to ‘down-scale, possibly to the level of a Spain or a Canada, by eschewing both global activism and a high-cost defence policy’ in the future.49 Yet Hill recognizes this is difficult, for the same reason that Oliver Franks saw it as problematic for the British to accept decline in the 1950s: ‘it is part of the habit and furniture of our minds to be a great power’.50 In the post-Cold War era, particularly during the New Labour years, the capacity and willingness to use force were seen as a major factor in the continuance of Britain’s status as a major international actor. This view persists in coalition government announcements on defence. In response to American concerns over the depth of defence cuts in the SDSR, William Hague argued that ‘The UK will remain, within the context of Nato, a military power of the first rank’, and the then defence secretary, Liam Fox, asserted that he held a ‘global vision of Britain’s place in the world’.51 The SDSR report declares: ‘Our country has always had global responsibilities and global ambitions. . . . we should have no less ambition for our country in the decades to come’.52 In short, it is important for British identity to maintain significant armed forces. In the absence of a major inter-state threat to the British mainland, however, the uses to which these forces may be put has changed. Without such a threat, British military interventions abroad are described as ‘wars of choice’.53 This reality is underlined by the SDSR’s plans to have its suite of national security capabilities in place by 2020 – with significant shortfalls apparent in the meantime.54 The 1998 SDR set the British military the task of supporting the foreign policy goal of Britain’s being ‘ “ a force for good” in the world’.55 Wyn Rees notes that the characteristics of these ‘new wars’ of choice to which the UK has been committed in recent years are that they are distant (requiring power projection capabilities), interventionist (involving international coalitions to support the contravention of sovereignty) and asymmetric (requiring more adaptive and sophisticated forces).56 Thus, the remit of the armed forces has had to become much wider and embrace activities that would formerly have been seen as ‘civilian’. Liam Fox, the former defence secretary, noted prior to gaining office: ‘The strategic goal of most operations now is not solely to correct the behaviour of another state, or punish it for some transgression. Increasingly, the goal is to replace the vacuum of a failed state with a stable, functioning and representative government.’57 Such an ambitious goal, with its attendant costs, places considerable strain on public support for the armed forces.58 Policymakers sought to mobilize public opinion in favour of military operations in Iraq by emphasizing the possible threat that Saddam’s regime might present to British territory.59 However, warnings of WMD able to be mobilized within 45 minutes to strike British bases in Cyprus were discovered to be founded on faulty intelligence.60 Worse, Tony Blair later admitted he did not understand that the intelligence on this ‘45 minute’ threat related to battlefield weapons rather than the kind

Defence and British foreign policy

of strategic missile capability that would be needed to threaten British sovereign territory seriously. In the case of the Afghanistan war, the New Labour and coalition governments have similarly tried to present this campaign as fundamental to British security. Yet a 2011 FAC report argued: ‘at a strategic level, we seriously question whether the efforts expended towards these ends have a direct connection to the UK’s core objective, namely the national security of the UK and its allies’.61 Indeed, rather as in the apocryphal story of the computer which, when asked in 1969 when the US would win the Vietnam war, replied ‘you won in 1964’, the committee concluded that ‘there is evidence to suggest that the core foreign policy justification for the UK’s continued presence in Afghanistan, namely that it is necessary in the interests of UK national security, may have been achieved some time ago, given the apparently limited strength of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan’.62 Two other important roles for the military include the evacuation of British nationals from trouble spots and the support of peacekeeping operations worldwide. In relation to the first role, Britain has deployed forces to Sierra Leone in 2000, Lebanon in 2006 and Libya in 2011 to evacuate British civilians.63 In Lebanon and Libya, small numbers of forces were deployed and military aircraft and naval vessels were used to transport British nationals. The Sierra Leone case entailed a more substantial commitment, with the commander on the ground (David Richards, later chief of the Defence Staff) interpreting his mandate liberally.64 Originally, 1,000 troops were sent to help in an evacuation. However, Richards used them to secure the capital city, Freetown, as well as the airport; went on to assist in the capture of Foday Sankoh, the rebel leader; and gave support to the UN operation in the country (UNAMSL) and the elected government – actions that brought an end to the civil war. These activities were later hailed by the New Labour government as evidence of how military force could be used in the service of humanitarian concerns. However, it appears to have been driven more by the commander on the ground, David Richards, than by a coherent government approach to Sierra Leone.65 As noted in chapter 5, being a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Britain has a responsibility to contribute to efforts to promote international peace and security. British forces are regularly used to support UN and EU peacekeeping missions designed to achieve these aims. For instance, when ethnic violence erupted in Kosovo on the night of 17–18 March 2004, the NATO commander of the Kosovo Force (KFOR) called for support from the Operational Readiness Force, which was at the time the responsibility of the UK. Within a day, up to 750 British personnel were deployed, including elements of the 1st Battalion, the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, the Grenadier Guards and 30 Signals Regiment. On 19 March, patrols were commenced and the violence subsided.66 However, with its extensive military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, British contributions to UN peacekeeping missions have been noticeably thin on the ground

127

128

British Foreign Policy

British Army deployments as of 24 July 2012 Afghanistan: 9,500 troops deployed to support NATO’s ISAF mission, with the 12th Mechanized Brigade assuming the lead for British involvement in Helmand province, as it has since April 2012. Africa: The British Peace Support Team (BPST): This mission has three main parts: the International Mine Action Training Centre (IMATC), a joint British and Kenyan venture aimed at alleviating the suffering caused by landmines; the Peace Support Training Centre (PSTC), with a presence in the Kenyan Defence Staff College; and the British Army Training Unit Kenya, training in a wide variety of climatic conditions, from desert to rainforest. The International Military Assistance Training Team (IMATT): The IMATT’s mission is to help develop the Sierra Leone armed forces into a democratically accountable, effective and sustainable force to fulfil security tasks required by the government of Sierra Leone. Brunei: Infantry battalion, used for jungle warfare courses. Canada: The vast British Army Training Unit Suffield (BATUS), situated on the Alberta plain, is used for training purposes. Five battle groups, each containing approximately 1,400 soldiers, are trained at BATUS each year. Cyprus: Two sovereign base areas (SBAs) at Akrotiri and Dhekelia, with two resident infantry battalions: the Joint Service Signals Unit at Ayios Nikolaos, 62 Cyprus Support Squadron Royal Engineers and 16 Flight Army Air Corps at Dhekelia, with other support troops. UK troops also separately support the UN peacekeeping operation in Cyprus (UNFICYP). Germany: HQ United Kingdom Support Command (Germany) (UKSC(G)) garrison comprising mainly a signal brigade and logistic support units. It also supports the deployment of both the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) Group and 1 (UK) Armoured Division. Gibraltar: Royal Gibraltar Regiment, regular deployments for low-level training. South Atlantic Islands: Garrison comprising naval, land and air elements. Information derived from www.army.mod.uk/operations-deployments/22713.aspx, accessed 8 October 2012. These are not the only deployments, merely those of significant duration and size.

since 2003. According to UN figures, Britain was contributing only 274 troops out of a total deployment of 81,443 troops worldwide in June 2012; only 2 police officers of 14,098 and 6 military experts out of 2,316.67 Britain has not committed significant troop numbers to a UN peacekeeping operation outside of Europe – Sierra Leone aside – for decades and so this function seems to be carefully aligned with Britain’s security interests.68 To summarize, the purpose of maintaining significant military forces in the absence of an inter-state threat to the UK seems to be to uphold Britain’s status as a great power. Military action abroad is, at times, cloaked in the language of necessity and represented as defending Britain’s national security. Yet it is more appropriate to consider such interventions as ‘wars of

Defence and British foreign policy

choice’. This is not to deny that they may have an impact on Britain’s security at the margins, disrupting terrorist networks or preventing the spread of conflict. But they arguably do not make a difference to Britain’s very existence. The evidence of this is perhaps in the behaviour of comparable nations such as Japan, France, Germany, Spain or Italy, which have offered far lower troop contributions (if any) to coalition actions since the early 2000s. British military forces are used to evacuate British nationals and support peacekeeping operations, but such deployments are small and often of short duration. The exceptions, in Bosnia and Kosovo, were the product of specific regional pressures and their proximity was clearly a factor in the UK’s willingness to commit troops in periodic bursts.

Structure Defence planning is notoriously difficult for the simple reason that the future is unknowable. The Soviet Union’s dramatic collapse in 1991 was a surprise and challenge to many international relations experts and required a radical reconsideration of British defence.69 Whilst demographic experts had long predicted volatility in the Arab world,70 the timing and nature of the Arab Spring in 2011 came as a surprise even to regional experts.71 This too may necessitate recalculations in force postures depending on the nature of the regimes which emerge. The unpredictability of future threats and policy goals is particularly problematic for defence due to the long delay in many equipment cycles between the initial order and the item coming into service. Thus, the Eurofighter, now renamed the Typhoon, originated from discussions in the late 1970s over the need for an air-to-air combat fighter. Production agreements were signed in 1986 but the aircraft did not enter into service until 2003, seventeen years later, by which time the Soviet threat it was meant to counter had disappeared and it had to be adapted to fulfil a ground-attack role.72 Britain’s geography and history have played an important part in the configuration of its force structures – and required an adaptability that some other states have lacked. Being separated from the continent by the English Channel meant that for centuries Britain did not require a large standing army, such as those of France and Russia, to protect its borders. Instead, its emphasis was on developing a technologically advanced and substantial navy to protect its sea lanes and supply lines around the mainland as well its international trade. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Britain was a small albeit prosperous island nation in charge of a vast empire. This meant that it had to learn to prioritize the use of force.73 Its armed forces were expeditionary, prepared to fight in different climates and terrain but able to project power on a global scale only through collaboration with local troops.74 British military doctrine developed a reputation for pragmatism, flexibility and fast learning – though often after initial failure.75 As Hew

129

130

British Foreign Policy

Strachan notes: ‘British military doctrine stresses the “manoeuvrist approach”, emphasising flexibility and adaptability, speed of decisionmaking and the use of the unexpected.’76 This colonial experience is important as it is arguably more relevant to contemporary defence than much of the force postures of the twentieth century. After the pre-1914 professional army was all but wiped out in the early stages of the First World War, Britain had to introduce a continentalstyle army, latterly conscripted, which totalled 8.5 million personnel, supported by a staggering 22,000 aircraft.77 The numbers of armed forces personnel declined considerably with demobilization to around 300,000 in the 1930s before rocketing again during the Second World War. However, even by 1957, the number of servicemen and women in the armed forces still totalled 700,000.78 In 1965, the UK had 60,000 service personnel committed ‘east of Suez’.79 Subsequent defence reviews and policy papers in the postwar period sought to reduce the size of the armed forces and row back on Britain’s international commitments. This was achieved first by decolonization, then by withdrawal from British bases east of Suez, and finally by demobilization after the Soviet Union’s collapse. Between 1990 and 1998, Britain’s defence expenditure declined by 23 per cent in real terms and the number of personnel in the armed forces fell by a third.80 Nevertheless, Britain’s armed forces still contained a surface fleet designed to confront Soviet submarine attacks in ‘the Greenland–Iceland–UK gap’, and heavy armoured divisions deployed in Germany to resist a (now defunct) Soviet invasion of Western Europe.81 The 1998 SDR aimed to address this by restructuring the forces to reflect their likely future roles better. As noted above, the UK no longer faced a direct threat from other states, and the SDR report concluded that ‘the risk of a strategic attack on NATO is now so remote that we no longer need to maintain forces specifically for that contingency’.82 Instead, the review envisaged Britain’s military as being used to address ‘a major regional crisis involving our national interest, perhaps on NATO’s periphery or in the Gulf’.83 The emphasis would be on forces that were ‘more deployable and more mobile’,84 with investment in ‘precision’ weapons and expeditionary forces to ensure greater ‘force projection’.85 The navy was restructured to move away from its former ‘blue-water’ role of patrolling the Atlantic Ocean to ‘a brown-water navy designed to project power inland and to conduct operations along the coast’.86 This less inward-looking defence posture would be adopted in order to support closely the foreign policy aspiration for Britain to be a ‘force for good’ in the world – a phrase repeated nine times in the report.87 Given the more distant nature of likely threats and the strong moral component of the policy aims to which Britain’s forces would now be expected to contribute, the review emphasized the need to collaborate with other international partners, especially the United States. Nevertheless, it did set out what Britain as a military actor in its own right would be expected to deploy in any crisis.

Defence and British foreign policy

The assumption made by the SDR was that British forces could be committed to either one large (division-sized) deployment or two concurrent mediumscale (brigade-sized) operations – one a relatively short war-fighting deployment, the other an enduring non-war-fighting operation.88 Such commitments would not be expected to run simultaneously for more than six months.89 These plans were put into practice and worked effectively in the Kosovo and Sierra Leone operations, which both involved a brigade-sized commitment. After 9/11, the MOD issued three White Papers on defence designed to enhance further the UK’s power projection capabilities.90 The war on terrorism presented a new strategic environment in which British forces would need to attempt to kill or capture terrorist targets living among civilian populations in remote and hostile places such as Afghanistan. Counter-terrorist operations needed to be more precise, to avoid alienating the indigenous population, and more agile, so that opportunities to act with decisive force were exploited. The UK sought to achieve this by embracing some of the technological possibilities of the revolution in military affairs (RMA). In particular, it developed its own variant labelled ‘network-centric warfare’, which would involve procuring weapons platforms that would allow greater connectivity between forces and use force more effectively through ‘effects-based operations’.91 The 2004 White Paper also restructured the army to allow it to conduct three small- or medium-scale operations or one large and one small deployment – as part of a coalition. These plans began to unravel, however, as Britain’s overseas commitments became more extensive and increasingly violent. Following the invasion of Iraq, Britain reduced its troop numbers in that country from 26,000 to 9,000 during 2003. Yet the military situation began to worsen through 2004 and 2005.92 By 2006 dissatisfaction with the coalition occupation of Iraq had become a full-blown insurgency, which spread to the formerly more peaceful southern areas under British control.93 The low numbers of British troops meant that they were unable to provide security in the region. Major-General Shirreff notes in testimony to the Iraq Inquiry that in Basra the single battalion commander could ‘put no more than 13 half platoons or multiples on the ground, less than 200 soldiers on the ground, in a city of 1.3 million’.94 As attacks on British forces increased, the focus was moved to ‘force protection’ – that is, to defending British troops and supply convoys – and away from defending the security of the Iraqi population.95 Despite the fact that the Iraq campaign was clearly a war-fighting deployment, in 2006 the British took control of Helmand province in Afghanistan, an area associated with pro-Taleban sympathies. Contrary to the SDR’s planning assumptions, UK forces were now engaged in two war-fighting operations simultaneously, and would continue to be so for the next three years.96 The impact of these operations on force structures would be to focus attention on the army and the lower levels of funding it received compared to the

131

132

British Foreign Policy

other services. Critics noted that the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force were benefiting from large capital projects such as two new aircraft carriers and the Typhoon and Joint Strike Fighter programmes, whilst British soldiers were suffering from a lack of protection from more low-tech problems such as improvised explosive devices (IEDs).97 It also resulted in a weakening of the resources available to the Iraq deployment.98 The Nimrod crash in Afghanistan in 2006 meant that forces in Iraq lost their surveillance support from the Nimrod fleet.99 The NATO ARRC Headquarters, apparently viewed as ‘the most capable of the NATO headquarters’, which had been considered for deployment in Iraq, was now in Afghanistan.100 The armoured Reaper UAV was sent to Afghanistan, despite the forces in southern Iraq not having control of their own UAV resources until 2007.101 When the British General Shirreff requested reinforcements and support in 2006 to launch Operation Sinbad, an operation designed to increase the British presence in Basra and promote security, he was not able to secure all the resources needed because of the deployment in Afghanistan.102 In short, the result of the increasing use of military force by the New Labour governments was a widening gap between Britain’s commitments and capabilities. The responsibility for this outcome has to be shared among the various actors forging defence policy. Senior military leaders were clearly overconfident about the capacity for the UK to sustain major combat operations in more than one place.103 Politicians seemed to fail to grasp the detail on the military commitments envisaged and, in the case of Iraq, lacked the political will to resource the intervention properly as it became more difficult. Meanwhile, the media and wider public opinion appeared to vacillate in their support of Britain’s international status as a military actor, often representing troops as ‘victims’ and questioning any loss of life incurred on operations.104 In an age of austerity, such contradictions are beginning to unravel. The financial crisis has had a dramatic effect on the structure of UK defence and the political desire to project force globally in the short term. Coming into office in May 2010, the coalition government announced a Strategic Defence and Security Review to report in October 2010. When it did so, it recommended considerable reductions in Britain’s defence capability. In the light of the continuing belief that the British mainland did not face an existential threat, the review downgraded the UK’s maritime air and surveillance capabilities by scrapping the Nimrod aircraft, which was useful for antisubmarine warfare as well as monitoring ships around Britain’s shorelines.105 Work on the proposed aircraft carriers would go ahead but HMS Queen Elizabeth would not come into service until 2018 and either this or the sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales, would be placed in a state of ‘extended readiness’ soon afterwards – effectively mothballed. The navy’s 3 Commando Brigade (Royal Marines) were also to face cuts, with an expectation that they would only deploy up to 1,800 people in an amphibious operation.106 The army would be

Defence and British foreign policy

restructured so that the number of deployable brigades would be reduced from seven to six. In practice, this would mean that Britain’s contribution to any large-scale operation would be reduced by a third, from the 46,000 used in 2003 to 30,000 in a future conflict. Similarly, in an enduring operation such as Afghanistan, the army could only deploy 6,500 rather than the 9,500 currently in theatre.107 At the time of writing, the total size of the army is expected to be 90,000 by 2015, falling to 82,000 by 2020.108 The coalition government has offset criticism by noting that by 2020 the UK will have better-equipped forces: carriers with Joint Strike Fighters and Type 45 destroyers for the navy, Joint Strike Fighter and Typhoon squadrons for the RAF, and twelve new Chinook helicopters as well as more comprehensive intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) capabilities for the army. The decision to maintain the carrier programme, as well as the move from heavy armoured brigades to more deployable and agile, light and medium ‘multi-role’ brigades, suggest that the coalition government wishes to retain an expeditionary and power projection capability.109 To fill the potential gap in capacity, the government signed an agreement with France in November 2010 that would see British and French forces training together and preparing for a possible future deployment of a 10,000strong expeditionary force in ‘high-intensity peacekeeping, rescue or combat missions’.110 Adjustments were made to the carrier procurement programme so that British and French forces would be ‘interoperable’; that is, that their planes could fly off each other’s carriers.111 This move also increased interoperability with US forces. The defence review, however, quietly dropped the aspiration of previous reviews that the British Army should have the kind of networked forces which the United States has developed.112 The Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) of medium-weight vehicles, networked using the latest digital communications equipment, was envisaged in the 1998 review and alluded to in the 2010 SDSR, but no firm plans are in place for the vehicles’ production. Infrastructure for major combat operations will largely be put in a state of ‘extended readiness’ – that is, mothballed: in place should they need to be reconstituted but with the expectation that some years’ notice would be provided before a major threat emerged. Therefore, in practice the SDSR will mean the UK has far less capacity to launch major combat operations, particularly on a large scale. This may have important ramifications for Britain’s international status, at least in military terms. Anthony King asserts that hitherto it was ‘only by retaining a divisional capacity that a nation retained its membership of the elite club of great powers’.113 Alternatively, Jeffrey Bradford notes that for some time Britain’s defence contributions to coalition operations, particularly in the eyes of the United States, have been more qualitative than quantitative.114 In keeping an expeditionary component of its armed forces, the UK aims to be a ‘niche provider’ that will back up the larger contribution of its key ally: the United States.

133

134

British Foreign Policy

Finance Economics are hugely important to any consideration of how a state arranges its defences and is able to project power abroad (see chapter 8 below). Having a strong industrial capacity and substantial economic resources means that a state can afford to finance well-equipped and technologically sophisticated forces.115 Even if it does not maintain them in peace time, an industrially productive state can rapidly escalate its defence capacity in time of need.116 A balance needs to be struck between the potential armed forces that a technologically advanced state could produce and those which are definitely required. Adam Smith noted that the first duty of a sovereign is ‘protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other societies’ but that this duty becomes ‘gradually more and more expensive, as the society advances in civilization’.117 Two linked problems emerge from this process. One is that the prosperity of the state is actually a key thing which the armed forces are supposed to be defending. Excessive defence spending could threaten the viability of that which they are seeking to protect, and so planners need to decide what level of expenditure is enough to provide a reasonable (rather than an absolute) level of security. Thus, General Sir David Richards defended the cuts to the armed forces under the SDSR on the basis that ‘The most important thing for Britain’s security is for us to be a prosperous nation. So it may be that in the short term some of our most cherished programmes have to be forfeited.’118 A government which weakens its economy to maintain high defence spending can find itself vulnerable to political and economic threats domestically and internationally. The collapse of the Soviet Union was partly attributed to its attempts to maintain high military expenditure in the 1980s.119 The massive debt the United States accumulated from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has led some commentators to express concern about the extent to which the US is now economically beholden to China.120 Secondly, since the military relies on public support for their operations, expenditure also needs to be weighed against domestic commitments so that it can maintain political goodwill.121 When the coalition government took office, the defence budget had an unfunded deficit of £37 billion.122 Added to the financial crisis of 2008, the effects of which were still reverberating, this meant that significant cuts had to be made. The armed forces were said to have found few defenders of their budget in the media, with journalists largely being ‘deficit hawks first and national security hawks second’.123 The proposed 8 per cent cut in real terms to the MOD budget compared favourably with the more dramatic cuts to the budgets of the FCO (24 per cent), the BIS (25 per cent) or the Treasury (33 per cent) and the overall average of 19 per cent across Whitehall.124 Yet, as the MOD was also asked to find the money for the replacement of the nuclear deterrent, it was estimated that the budget

Defence and British foreign policy

would decline by an amount ‘equivalent to over 20 per cent in real terms over the next five years’.125 Adding to these budgetary pressures was the spiralling cost of military equipment, with defence industry annual inflation estimated at 7 per cent.126 There is no doubt that, after the SDSR, Britain’s armed forces face a very difficult financial future. Yet they have faced similar, if not more drastic, contractions in the past. In 1919, defence planners introduced a ‘ten-year rule’ on the basis that no threat was conceivable within a decade – something reminiscent of current plans for capabilities to be in place by 2020.127 In 1957, Duncan Sandys’ defence review noted that ‘Over the last five years, defence has, on an average, absorbed 10 per cent of Britain’s gross national product.’128 This level of spending was seen as damaging Britain’s economic wealth. Sandys justified substantial cuts to the armed forces on the basis that ‘Britain’s influence in the world depends first and foremost on the health of her internal economy and the success of her export trade. Without these, military power cannot, in the long run, be supported.’129 By 1970, the former secretary of state for defence Denis Healey could proudly proclaim that: ‘When I left office, for the first time in its history, Britain was spending more on education than on defence.’130 Without immediate inter-state threats to British territories, political pressure favours defence cuts and a more reduced role internationally – especially in periods of austerity.131 As with the SDSR, the Sandys review saw defence cuts as sustainable through greater cooperation with allies as part of a wider collective security effort.132 This is a theme common in many defence reviews and reforms.133 However, allies are not simple burden sharers and can add pressure to increase budgets. There is a certain irony in that, having spent at least two decades undermining the British Empire and pressing for decolonization, the United States would oppose Britain’s withdrawal from east of Suez in the 1960s – even offering a loan in 1967 to ease the UK’s budgetary problems provided Britain continued with its overseas commitments.134 When the coalition government announced its spending review in 2010, voices in the US expressed disquiet and urged the UK to ensure it would keep to its NATO spending requirements.135 The cuts envisaged to the armed forces arguably represent an implicit foreign policy decision to reduce Britain’s influence in the world. Comparing the average defence expenditure across Europe, Keith Hartley calculates Britain’s world role as costing around 1 per cent of GDP, equivalent to an annual cost of £15 billion.136 In 2009, the UK spent 2.7 per cent of its GDP on defence, in contrast to Germany’s 1.4 per cent, France’s 2.1 per cent (France also has a world role) and a European average of 1.7 per cent.137 As Britain’s expenditure falls, it is inevitable that its ability to ‘choose’ when to use force and project power successfully will decline. Attempts to pool resources will help but they cannot plug the gap entirely.

135

136

British Foreign Policy

Performance Having explored the purpose, structure and financing of Britain’s armed forces, we now turn to evaluating their performance. This is a difficult task, given the inherent political sensitivities of commenting on an activity which involves individuals risking their lives to protect their country’s citizens. In addition, the technical nature of modern warfare can present challenges to a lay person seeking to understand the conduct of a military operation. However, recalling Clausewitz’s maxim on the political purpose of war, the aim of this discussion will not be to comment on whether British military personnel were cowardly or heroic, but to evaluate how successful they have been in using force to promote the government’s political aims. The case study chosen is that of the Afghanistan campaign, ongoing from 2001. The size and length of this deployment offer an excellent case study in which to explore how the UK’s military sets out its objectives and then adapts over time to changes in the strategic environment in theatre, as well as the political directives it receives from home.

Afghanistan Britain has a long history of military involvement in Afghanistan. In two Anglo-Afghan wars in the nineteenth century, Afghans inflicted humiliating losses on British forces. In the first, in 1842 a retreating column of 4,500 men, along with thousands of civilians, was massacred as it made its way from Kabul to the Khyber Pass after being promised safe passage.138 In the second, at the battle of Maiwand in 1880, the Afghans achieved one of the few defeats of a European army by a non-European power, causing massive casualties. These events have tended to be romanticized in Afghan history and used as cautionary tales by Western commentators criticizing military involvement in the region. However, if there is a lesson to be learned from them, it is not that using military force in this country is doomed to failure; rather, it is that if force is used, it must be used to pursue attainable political goals. In each Afghan war, Britain overcame these defeats and achieved future victories using overwhelming force. The British then arranged a settlement which would allow them to withdraw their presence whilst maintaining some influence (in the first war, by restoring the Afghan leader, Dost Mohammed Khan, whom they had deposed). This made political sense as Afghanistan’s real importance was as a buffer between British India and the Russian Empire. Provided Russian influence could be minimalized, there was no need to colonize the territory, and attempts to maintain a diplomatic or military presence were recognized as unnecessarily provocative. In short, two key lessons could be drawn from this past involvement: the need for overwhelming force and the need for limited political objectives.

Defence and British foreign policy

Britain’s contemporary military involvement in Afghanistan was sparked by Al Qaeda’s attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001. Of the 2,977 victims, 67 were British. The group responsible for the attacks had run training camps in Afghanistan, had partly planned the operation in the country, and its leaders were living there at the invitation of the Taleban government.139 A major diplomatic effort was launched to kill or apprehend the attacks’ instigators and prevent future terrorist operations. NATO unanimously invoked its Article 5 provision triggering the Washington Treaty’s collective-defence provisions.140 Meanwhile, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1368 calling the attacks ‘a threat to international peace and security’. At the same time, an ultimatum was issued by the United States president to the Taleban government on 20 September 2001, demanding that they surrender ‘all the leaders’ of the Al Qaeda group and ‘every terrorist and every person in their support structure’ or ‘share in their fate’.141 On 28 September 2001, the Security Council passed Resolution 1373 setting out what action states should take to combat terrorism and committing members to cooperate with each other to this end. After the Taleban government failed to accede to the ultimatum, the US and UK reported to the Security Council on 7 October 2001 that they had begun military operations. This was justified by them under Article 51 of the UN Charter, which recognizes ‘the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence’.142 Initially, Britain’s military engagement was minimal. The US had taken the lead on the military operation in Afghanistan and deliberately adopted a strategy of having low troop numbers in support of indigenous Afghan forces. The Royal Navy had fired some Tomahawk missiles against Al Qaeda and Taleban targets, and the RAF had provided reconnaissance and air-to-air refuelling capabilities in October 2001 under Operation Enduring Freedom.143 British troops were first deployed on the ground in November 2001 to secure Bagram airfield in a largely symbolic gesture. However, Britain did play a leading role in the creation of the International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan, authorized under UN Security Council Resolution 1386 and designed to provide security around Kabul for the fledgling Afghan Transitional Authority, which would govern until elections could be arranged. British troop contributions peaked at 2,100 before declining when Turkey took over responsibility for ISAF in June 2002. In April of that year, Britain provided a battle group to support Operation Enduring Freedom, named Taskforce Jacana, which mostly consisted of Royal Marines from 45 Commando Brigade. Its aim was to ‘deny and destroy terrorist infrastructure and interdict the movement of Al Qaida in eastern Afghanistan’.144 In short, it was engaged in counter-terrorist operations. This group was withdrawn in July 2002. At the outset, there would be tensions between the two missions of counterterrorism and development. ISAF forces were sceptical of the benefits of destructive combat missions conducted under Operation Enduring Freedom

137

138

British Foreign Policy

and saw these as alienating local populations. At the same time, United States forces were critical of the level of security being provided by ISAF, with the acronym being reimagined as standing for ‘I Saw Americans Fight’.145 In 2004, with the British Army’s occupation of southern Iraq seeming to be going well, the UK offered to take control of Helmand province in Southern Afghanistan in 2006. Mike Jackson notes that British planning assumptions were that by that time, UK armed forces ‘would be either out of Iraq or down to a training team, a large training team basis, but we would not be conducting operations’.146 As noted above, this was not the case and UK forces were still engaged in war-fighting operations in 2005 and 2006. Nevertheless, British policymakers saw it as important to honour their commitment to deploy in Afghanistan. The MOD, DFID and FCO worked together to devise a plan for pursuing development in Helmand based on the triangle of territory between the provincial capital Lashkar Gar, the NATO base at Camp Bastion, and the town of Gereshk.147 Assessments of the region prior to the deployment noted the likely hostility that troops would face. However, the defence secretary at the time, John Reid, contrasted the mission’s purpose with that of the unpopular US operations in neighbouring provinces: If we came for three years here to accomplish our mission and had not fired one shot at the end of it we would be very happy indeed. If the American Operation Enduring Freedom came here to counter terrorism and seek them out and had not fired a shot in three years’ time they would be very unhappy and disappointed.148

Underlying this contrast was a widening foreign policy aspiration for the use of force in Afghanistan. The initial self-defence justification for operations in the region was based on countering terrorism and denying Al Qaeda a base for training and planning attacks on the UK. This was achieved with remarkable rapidity, with most of the foreign fighters linked to Al Qaeda being killed or forced across the border with Pakistan in a matter of weeks in the autumn of 2001. The Taleban government that had harboured them was also swept from power and into exile. In the power vacuum that followed, NATO forces were deployed to provide stability and assist in reconstruction. Yet the level of actual tangible reconstruction occurring remained remarkably low for the next few years, in part due to the inefficiency and paucity of the supply of aid and the fact that key players such as the US and UK were distracted by the war in Iraq. Thus, the intervening forces failed to capitalize on the relative calm enabled by their initial military successes. By 2006, support for the occupation among the Afghan population as a whole was in decline, and this was particularly the case in the largely Pashtun province of Helmand, which had traditionally supported the Taleban. In addition, the UK had created local enemies by replacing the allegedly corrupt governor, Sher Mohammed Akhunzada, with a Kabul-appointed technocrat, Mohammed Daoud.149 Given the difficult political circumstances, one would have expected Britain’s forces to have set

Defence and British foreign policy

themselves limited goals in discrete territorial areas and ensured that significant resources were available to achieve them. The opposite appears to have been the case. In April 2006, the UK deployed 3,150 personnel as part of Operation Herrick 150 4. However, only 600 of these, largely from 3 PARA (16 Air Assault Brigade), were combat troops.151 Despite initially intending to focus on a development zone around Lashkar Gar and Gereshk, the force commander, Brigadier Ed Butler, was persuaded by the newly installed governor to extend the reach of British forces by garrisoning the northern towns of Sangin, Musa Qaleh and Now Zad in what was described as a ‘platoon house’ strategy. The logic of this policy was to extend NATO’s influence in the province by demonstrating its resolve to hold territory and confront insurgents seeking to challenge the Afghan government. However, in practice, these platoon houses were too lightly manned to impose any security around them and were subject to constant attacks. Fighting reached an intensity not seen by British troops since the Korean War, with one soldier, Dean Fisher of the Royal Fusiliers, reported to have fired some 40,000 rounds of ammunition in Now Zad.152 At times, they were in danger of being overrun and only the use of airpower was able to prevent this from occurring. In October 2006, Brigadier Butler negotiated a withdrawal from Musa Qaleh with local tribal leaders on the understanding that they would not allow the Taleban to return;153 however, the town fell to the Taleban in February 2007 and was only retaken by US forces, with Afghan and British support, in December 2007.154 At the end of the first deployment, almost no development activity had taken place and the army had spent much of its time in so-called ‘kinetic’ operations involving extreme levels of force. For this reason, Robert Egnell describes this deployment as ‘nothing short of failure’.155 When 16 Air Assault Brigade handed over operations to 3 Commando Brigade after a six-month tour, the new deployment, double the fighting strength, sought to adopt a different strategy. Rather than be holed up in fixed positions, the Royal Marines of 3 Commando formed mobile operations groups, around 250 strong in 40 vehicles, to ‘seek out Taleban’.156 Yet this failed to achieve the desired effect of providing dominance over the territory and was mockingly dubbed ‘advance to ambush’ by British troops.157 Instead of winning over the population, in contrast to the belligerence of the previous deployment, the number of engagements with the enemy increased, ‘from 537 during 16 Brigade’s tour, to 821 during 3 Brigade’s tour’.158 In 2007, 3 Commando Brigade were replaced by 12 Mechanized Brigade; however, despite their greater armour, the number of engagements increased again, to 1,096.159 The new brigade adopted the strategy of clearing larger areas of Taleban influence, but since the brigade did not have the resources to hold them, the Taleban would in time creep back. This led the commander, Brigadier Morimer, to describe such operations as ‘like mowing the lawn’.160

139

140

British Foreign Policy

It wasn’t until 52 Brigade took over the security of the province from 12 Mechanized Brigade that concerted attempts were made to reach out to the local population and provide more focused security. With greater British troop numbers and supported by US and Afghan forces, 52 Brigade sought to adopt the US counter-insurgency strategy of ‘clear, hold and build’, which was achieving success in Iraq.161 To secure the consent of local people, commanders even went to the extent of offering 48 hours’ notice of operations. The aim was not to kill as many Taleban as possible but to hold territory in a way that might allow development efforts to take place. This concept was extended for the next deployment in April–October 2008, which aimed to ‘go deep not broad’.162 With the introduction of the ‘surge’ of US troops into the region after 2009, progress on development and security was seen as improving. At the time of writing, some analysts are optimistic about the outcomes of British involvement in Afghanistan and identify a number of notable advances in the educational and social opportunities available to Afghans.163 However, it took some years for any tangible results to be achieved and the early stages of intervention, in which Britain took the lead in Helmand province, are generally considered to have been a failure. The question is: why? The British military’s actions in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2008 could be argued to have failed due to confusion over military tactics, over military and political strategy, and over the overall political aims of the operation. For the rest of this chapter, I will briefly examine each of these problems to identify what they tell us about the UK’s use of force and how this does or doesn’t relate to its foreign policy goals.

Why did the initial stages of intervention fail? Confused tactics The tactical decision to locate troops in platoon houses and forward operating bases in the early deployments encouraged attacks through their insufficient strength. In addition, ‘kinetic’ operations using substantial firepower to suppress attacks alienated the local population. The different tactics adopted by each successive deployment could be interpreted as attempts to learn from previous failures. However, the choice of approach seems to have derived more from the culture of each unit than from the demands of the mission, with the paratroopers emphasizing aggression, the Royal Marines favouring mobility and the mechanized brigades engaging in large clearing operations. Farrell notes that a genuine alignment between tactics and strategy was only achieved with the introduction of 52 Brigade, which was ‘a newly formed Type A brigade, and hence one that was less committed to an established repertoire of core competences and one more open to new alternatives introduced by Brigadier Mackay’.164 As such, it would seem that tactical failings were themselves due to the rigid thinking of the army’s organizational culture.

Defence and British foreign policy

Confused strategy Confusion arose very quickly in the UK’s military strategy in Afghanistan as to whether troops were supposed to be doing counter-terrorism, counterinsurgency or peacekeeping. The initial purpose of this campaign was to facilitate development and engage in peacekeeping, as noted in the quotation from John Reid above. Yet when the Taleban launched extensive attacks on British forces, this aim became impossible to fulfil because of the need for force protection. The alternative strategies available were counter-terrorism and a full-blown counter-insurgency effort. A counter-terrorism operation might have been possible given the size of the deployment, with Britain’s forces targeting specific individuals perceived to be engaging in terrorist activities. However, such a strategy would not have allowed for any long-term development in the province and might have alienated the local population. As a result, it was not chosen. Yet the other possible mission – that of a counter-insurgency campaign – would not have been viable because of the low ratio of troops to civilians in the province.165 Anthony King notes that counter-insurgency doctrine emphasizes the importance of ‘concentration’ of forces in ‘ink spots’ that are built up and from which control can then emanate outwards.166 Yet the early deployments, with low troop numbers widely dispersed, used precisely the opposite strategy. Herrick 4, containing only 600 infantry, was attempting to control a population of 1.5 million.167 Even by 2008, 3 Commando Brigade had only 50 soldiers in the Lashkar Gar territory, which was ‘a supposedly decisive “ink spot” ’.168 As Britain is a former colonial power with a long history of fighting counterinsurgency campaigns, such strategic errors may seem particularly strange. A number of commentators have attributed these failings to a lack of strategic thinking in British military culture.169 According to Theo Farrell, the British military has ‘weak organisational memory. It invests relatively little in developing and promulgating lessons learned.’170 The chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Jock Stirrup, acknowledged these failings in 2009, stating: ‘we have lost an institutionalized capacity for, and culture of, strategic thought’.171 Thus, the swingeing adaptations in tactics and strategy from 2006 to 2009 can be seen as resulting from the need to relearn the lessons of past wars which the organizational culture of Britain’s military had allowed to be forgotten. The problems in strategy associated with the Afghanistan campaign have also been attributed to over-optimism among military commanders and a lack of awareness of the political context at home. Stephen Grey argues that ‘As seen from London or Washington, the story of Helmand was more often of commanders who pushed soldiers into harm’s way, sent back endlessly optimistic reports, and extended the conflict beyond the resources and political will available back home.’172 Moreover, Grey has little sympathy for complaints about equipment shortages, asserting that ‘If an operation was launched with insufficient troops (or helicopters) it should not have been launched at all.’173 However, as we noted at the beginning of this chapter,

141

142

British Foreign Policy

military force needs to be used in the service of political aims. Civilian policymakers cannot absolve themselves from blame if military strategies go awry, since they approve military action and are supposed to provide it with the requisite political direction, resources and oversight. The lack of political and strategic direction from senior military commanders and policymakers is evidenced by the planning officer of 52 Brigade, who stated that they ‘received very little in the way of higher formation direction in campaign terms’ and so were ‘at liberty to identify what effect we wanted to have, where, and (to a greater or lesser degree) when we wanted it to be put into effect’.174 In contemporary warfare, civilian policymakers need to be far more integrated into decisionmaking than this account suggests, if the political objectives of military action are to remain in focus. Confused political aims As noted above, the initial aim of the early commitment of British military forces in 2002 was to engage in counter-terrorism. But when the UK introduced a substantial force into Helmand province in 2006, the remit had broadened to bringing about ‘governance, security and political and social change’175 with the goal of ‘a secure, stable, prosperous and democratic Afghanistan, free from terrorism and terrorist domination’.176 The introduction of wider aspirations such as ‘social change’, ‘democracy’ and ‘prosperity’ were ambitious political goals in a country that had been riven by ethnic conflict for decades – and which had many customs and traditions, particularly with regard to the treatment of women, that were anathema to Western policymakers. In addition, John Reid, then defence secretary, identified assisting counter-narcotics efforts as an important part of the remit, risking alienating the local population by removing a rare source of employment and wealth creation.177 Looking back, then, we can see that the sheer number of war aims was counter to doctrinal thinking about what military force can achieve.178 The difficulty of each objective, let alone of them in combination, would be daunting. Furthermore, such diffuse goals were not going to be achievable with the small force of 3,300 personnel envisaged. In short, the aims of the Afghanistan campaign were too many, too large, and insufficiently resourced to be realizable.

Winning and/or ending the war in Afghanistan Could the Afghanistan campaign still succeed in serving Britain’s foreign policy goals? In a 2011 report on the UK’s foreign policy towards Afghanistan, the FAC questioned ‘whether the efforts expended towards these ends have a direct connection to the UK’s core objective, namely the national security of the UK’, and was also moved to ask ‘whether the ambitious aims of the Government and the international community more widely are achievable’.179 The authors clearly felt that the New Labour and coalition governments had

Defence and British foreign policy

set themselves overly ambitious goals in Afghanistan and needed to reduce the UK’s commitment as soon as practicable. The coalition has since decided to withdraw all but a handful of troops from Afghanistan by 2014, with the prime minister suggesting that ‘people want an endgame . . . They want to know that our troops are going to come home, they have been there a very long time.’180 In short, policymakers clearly feel that the public will no longer support the continuing use of force in the service of the ambitious agenda originally envisaged for Afghanistan. David Cameron has indicated that this withdrawal will take place despite the imperfect nature of Afghan democracy and the ‘huge developmental problems’ with which the country is faced.181 Yet some commentators have identified achievements in Afghanistan – particularly after 2008 – and perceive that these gains should not be abandoned in the rush to pursue an ‘exit strategy’. Theo Farrell has argued that ‘there is no question that in most districts in Helmand there have been significant improvements in infrastructure, basic services and governance’.182 Nevertheless, the former foreign secretary David Miliband has critiqued the lack of progress on negotiating with the insurgents, given the closeness of the exit date for UK troops, suggesting that ‘without a political framework, a political settlement, then we are going to be getting closer to the end date of 2014, but without an endgame and I think that is dangerous’.183 Overall, the Afghanistan campaign is likely to be judged on the basis of whether this territory ever again becomes a haven for global jihadists who threaten British citizens. The more ambitious goals of widespread social transformation are receding in the rhetoric of policymakers, indicating that they are quietly being dropped as unattainable.

Conclusion: Britain as a military actor This discussion has revealed a number of tensions in Britain’s use of military force to pursue foreign policy aims. Having substantial and effective armed forces is an important aspect of Britain’s self-identity; yet economic pressures are working to reduce the scale and type of operations that Britain is able to conduct abroad. British military culture favours action, and service personnel willingly volunteer to support the goals of British foreign policy with violence; however, this ‘can-do’ attitude perhaps comes at the price of the failure to make a realistic assessment of the size of the tasks being undertaken and the resources available to complete them. Britain’s armed forces are comparatively well equipped and trained and are prepared to fight; but force alone cannot lead to victory if the political strategy is not viable – as Clausewitz recognized in the nineteenth century. Substantial inquiries are often held after conflict, as in the Franks Report, the Butler, Hutton and Chilcot inquiries, and the FAC reports into Britain’s deployment of force. Military force may be more successful in achieving foreign policy goals if a greater effort is expended

143

144

British Foreign Policy

on analysing all the challenges, problems and opportunities of conflict prior to acting.

Further reading Aron, R. (2003) Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (London: Transaction). Especially Chapter 2, ‘Power and force’, 47–70. Classic theoretical examination of how the use of force relates to foreign policy. Ashdown, P. (2007) Swords and Ploughshares: Bringing Peace to the 21st Century (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Former practitioner’s argument on how the international community can resolve conflict and transform post-conflict societies. Dorman, A. (2009) Blair’s Successful War: British Military Intervention in Sierra Leone (Aldershot: Ashgate). Interesting case study of how force can achieve desirable political goals. Farrell, T. (2010) ‘Improving in war: military adaptation and the British in Helmand province, Afghanistan, 2006–2009’ Journal of Strategic Studies, 33,4, 567–94. Howard, M. (1983) Clausewitz (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Excellent and accessible account of Clausewitz’s theory. Ledwidge, F. (2011) Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan (London: Yale University Press). Provocative account of the failures of equipment supply, strategy and interdepartmental cooperation. Schelling, T. C. (1966) Arms and Influence (London: Yale University Press). Classic text theorizing how military force can be used to influence other actors in world politics. Strachan, H. (2009) ‘The strategic gap in British defence policy’ Survival, 51,4, 49–70. Attempts to reconnect defence policy with first principles of strategy. White, N. D. (2009) Democracy Goes to War: British Military Deployments Under International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Surveys the relationship between the use of force and a deepening structure of international law.

c h a pt e r e ig ht

Economics and British foreign policy

How powerful an actor is Britain in the global economy? Why is Britain so reliant on world trade for its economic prosperity? How have economic matters affected Britain’s foreign policymaking? How does Britain pursue economic goals through its foreign policy? These are significant questions, but ones that can often be neglected in British foreign policy discussion.1 A traditional conception of foreign policy as about diplomacy, security and the use of military force has served to obscure the importance of economic pressures to foreign policymaking. Alternatively, literature focusing on the decline of the state and the rising importance of firms and non-state actors tends to use economics as an example of the lack of power governments have in shaping political outcomes. Thus, economics becomes a realm outside governmental action, or in which governments cannot be anything other than minor actors. This chapter seeks to remedy this; firstly by outlining the kinds of economic activity which actors such as Britain can undertake in world politics, then by going on to explore how economics and British foreign policymaking have intertwined historically, before analysing Britain’s current status as an economic actor.

The state as an economic actor British foreign policy, in the reading of this book, is about how the UK government manages its relations with actors external to its territory. Any discussion of its actorness in the economic arena is therefore bound up with debates over what kinds of impact states (or more specifically the national governments that represent them) can have in this realm. The economic dimensions of foreign policy have proved problematic for analysts as economic activity permeates borders, challenging the pretence of sovereignty performed by states and undermining their special status as the ultimate actors in global politics. Some small states have seen their control over political outcomes ceded to MNCs – firms which bring investment and employment but which can also disrupt social and political ties, leading to fragmented and weak societies and governments.2 Meanwhile, even large states are at the mercy of markets, as the Mediterranean countries of the Eurozone are currently appreciating. For decades analysts have been charting an apparent decline in the 145

146

British Foreign Policy

power of the state in the face of growing interdependence, the rise of nonstate economic actors, the freer movement of capital, and the forces of globalization. As far back as 1969, Charles Kindleberger described the state as ‘about through as an economic unit’ as a result of the rising power of transnational corporations.3 The 1973 energy crisis seemed to be confirmation that the power of individual states was on the wane.4 Yet when the global financial crisis erupted in 2007–8, it was states that had to act, albeit often collectively, as in the 2009 G20 agreement in London, and their interventions did make a difference to market behaviour.5 Thus, Susan Strange was perhaps more adroit in her remark that depicting the state as irrelevant to the international economy represents a ‘gross exaggeration’.6 This is not to suggest that states are the only, or even perhaps the primary, actor in the international economy in many instances. But at times, they do have the capacity to act and affect outcomes, and so the economic policies of states are worthy of analysis on that basis.7 In her book The Retreat of the State, Susan Strange identified a number of ‘functional responsibilities’ of the state in the international economy, of which eight are relevant to this chapter.8 One of the key duties of government Strange outlines is the need to maintain the value of the currency. Countries which rely upon imports, such as the UK, have to be able to buy goods abroad at a competitive rate, and so they require a strong currency – though not so strong that their exports become unduly expensive. A level of stability in the value of the currency is desirable so that traders can import and export goods and services and make a profit. Otherwise, currency fluctuations may mean that what the traders wish to sell is suddenly worth less than they spent on its manufacture, leading to a loss. If such circumstances persist, firms will not wish to invest, because of the higher risk involved, and trading activity declines. The value of the currency also affects a government’s access to credit, the rate of interest they will pay on borrowing, and the cost of any overseas commitments. What decides a currency’s value depends on international factors, such as its strength relative to other currencies, and global market perceptions of the health of the domestic economy. The sheer size and scope of the world’s financial markets prohibit any one state – even a superpower like the United States – from counteracting market forces for long. As a result, Strange notes that the responsibility for managing markets and providing currency stability is now ‘both a national and a collective one. Inflation in one important economy can easily spread to others.’9 However, currency values are also an important status symbol in world politics. As I outline below, the UK has, at times, maintained sterling at an artificially high rate in accordance with perceptions of Britain as a great power – a policy which had costly social and economic effects. States are able to exercise a degree of choice in the form of capitalist development that occurs within their territory.10 Some states have opted for highly open economies that are fully integrated into the global economy, whilst others

Economics and British foreign policy

have sought to close off their markets to foreign competition and influences. Theorists of economic security often convey debates over national political economy in terms of two broad policy directions: liberalism and mercantilism.11 Liberals see advantages for innovation and efficiency in opening markets to competition, whilst acknowledging the greater risk this presents to the survival of some industries. By contrast, mercantilists see it as important to protect certain key sectors of the economy from foreign competition, for national security, welfare or developmental reasons. In practice, most states have vacillated between these two directions in response to the international economic environment and domestic political changes. Even where governments may be more inclined to one position in macro-economic policy, particular sectors may experience the opposite influence. For example, the economically liberal Thatcher administration gave extensive support to the defence sector in securing contracts. Linked to states’ choices over the form of capitalist development they wish to promote is their capacity to exert control over foreign trade, imposing import tariffs or subsidizing exports. However, global governance arrangements such as the WTO, as well as regional frameworks such as the EU, the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), may limit the scope for states to act unilaterally (or at least impose a penalty for doing so). States can also attempt to correct market fluctuations or imbalances, though this may not be sustainable in the long term. For instance, the financial crisis that began in 2007–8 led to a lack of liquidity in the financial system. Credit dried up as lenders lost confidence in the viability of banks and sought to hold on to their reserves rather than reinvest. To correct this problem, governments, including that of the UK, engaged in ‘quantitative easing’, buying up government bonds from financial institutions in the hope that they would in turn lend more to their customers. This effectively meant printing money to increase its supply and thereby provide the necessary liquidity.12 When the run on the Northern Rock bank in 2007 threatened a wider collapse of confidence in the UK banking system, the British government acted in February 2008 to nationalize the bank, offering loans and guarantees totalling £55 billion.13 Likewise, if nationally important firms look to be going bust, government can step in to offer them financial support, as the Heath administration did with Rolls-Royce in 1971.14 These kinds of measures, however, can only be short-term. If a government prints too much money then this can lead to hyperinflation, as in the cases of Weimar Germany (1921–4) and Zimbabwe (2008–9). Nor can governments continually support key firms without risking encouraging a lack of innovation and/or reckless behaviour. Indeed, Strange describes ensuring competitiveness as another functional responsibility of the state. This could be seen as relating both to internal competition between firms within the state and to Britain’s ability to compete economically with other states at a global level. The UK often subjects proposed mergers to scrutiny by the Competition

147

148

British Foreign Policy

Commission to ensure that any one firm would not dominate a particular sector of the market in such a way that competitors would be forced out or face unfair discrimination – although here too a government’s capacity to influence outcomes may be limited. For instance, successive administrations in the UK have raised concerns over the problems of defence procurement. But the defence industry has significant structural problems affecting competitiveness. Large capital projects require substantial infrastructure and expertise to carry out, and few firms have the capacity to undertake them. Moreover, failing to secure a contract might mean being effectively excluded from a particular sector for decades. As a result, defence firms have consolidated and merged into consortia to weather such eventualities. In the process, the industry has narrowed to a few firms with massive political and economic influence, thus undermining competition.15 Important domestic responsibilities of states include taxation and providing a social welfare ‘safety net’ to mitigate the negative effects of economic downturns or sectoral fluctuations. The state’s ability to tax is a key facilitator of its foreign policy aims, but opposition to tax rises can also act as a brake on overreaching policy goals. (It was King Charles the First’s desire to raise taxes to fund military spending, particularly for the ‘Bishops’ Wars’ in Scotland, that contributed to the English Civil War.) Excessive taxation can stifle innovation and investment, threatening productivity and competitiveness. Obversely, a disinclination to tax for domestic political reasons may lead to excessive borrowing to make up the shortfall, resulting in indebtedness and economic imbalances of power (the United States and its funding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a case in point).16 With regard to social welfare, the expense of this can have knock-on effects on the scope for pursuing ambitious foreign policy goals. As we shall see, the priorities of full employment and welfare in the UK in the post-1945 period had a major impact on the capacity of Britain to fulfil its wider international obligations. The final and most fundamental responsibility of the state that Strange outlines, in relation to international economic activity, is in providing the infrastructure through which trade and finance can take place. As Ron Smith notes: ‘Markets are not independent of the state. Political structures are a necessary condition for their existence. In particular they require an effective legal system.’17 States fulfil the vital function of overseeing the security and probity of market activity, guaranteeing property rights, including intellectual property, and providing a forum for seeking redress in cases of fraud, theft or breaches of contract. They also often provide the transport and communications infrastructure through which trade and finance are conducted – or at least license others to do so. Whilst this may convey an impression that the UK has considerable autonomy in devising economic policy, the reality is, however, that many of these responsibilities are shaped by bilateral relationships, as well as by regional and international bodies. British firms are subject to the laws of the countries

Economics and British foreign policy

in which they operate, as well as UK, EU and international law, and these affect the pattern of trade and even firms’ business structure. For instance, legislation in the United States requires that foreign ownership of its domestic airlines is no more than 25 per cent of the total.18 This has meant that British Airways has not been able to merge formally with American Airlines and instead has arranged to cooperate with the US company without launching a takeover. Airline mergers and cooperative arrangements also need to be approved by the European Commission.19 In addition, the European Commission has to approve government support for particular firms to ensure this does not affect the rules of the single market. In short, the British state, in the form of its national government, is able to make choices in its economic policy. Its people have decided to adopt a liberal economic system and the government has agreed to abide by the economic rules of the WTO and European Union. It retains the ability to manipulate the value of its currency and correct market fluctuations – though the effectiveness of such measures may be limited. Whilst wider networks of regional and global governance arrangements are in place that shape the form and content of economic activity in the UK, these are theoretically consensual and Britain could withdraw from them – albeit at a high cost, financially and politically. Having set a context to understanding how states can act economically, we now turn to the specifics of how this relates to foreign policy.

Economics and foreign policymaking Economic matters are important to foreign policymaking as they affect both a state’s capacity to act and what form its interactions with other global actors may take. In the first place, economic wealth provides the capacity for foreign policy action. As David Cameron put it in 2011: ‘our strength as a country is built on our economic strength’.20 Conversely, Cameron has argued elsewhere that ‘Economic weakness at home translates into political weakness abroad.’21 Attempts to project power abroad, militarily, economically or politically, may involve considerable expenditure. The state has to have the economic resources in place to finance such action. For this reason, Hans Morgenthau identified industrial capacity as one of the nine characteristics of national power.22 In addition, the government must have public support, or at least acquiescence, for the use of these resources. Recognizing this, Francis Pym described British foreign policy as ‘determined by what the British public wants, and by what they are prepared to pay for’.23 To calculate a state’s global economic status and potential ability to exert influence in world affairs, commentators often focus on its share of world markets, total GDP and productivity.24 The openness of a state’s economy to global trade can also be a factor in identifying its power to control economic outcomes. On the one hand, an

149

150

British Foreign Policy

open economic state is likely to be more innovative and competitive and have a greater level of interaction with global markets, giving it the scope to exert influence over a wider range of regional and international actors. On the other hand, such a state would also be more affected by negative international economic forces such as inflation or credit crises.25 Keohane and Nye make a distinction between susceptibility, or ‘being open to damage from the world system’, and vulnerability, meaning ‘susceptibility qualified by the ability to limit the damage’, to draw out the differences in the power states have to resist the negative effects of global economic crises.26 In their framework, a state might often be susceptible to damage but could in practice be relatively invulnerable to all but the most serious economic threats if it could recover quickly. This constitutes a power of resistance rather than action, based on either economic self-sufficiency or a capacity to adapt to and recover from economic shocks. States with large open economies, such as the UK, may be susceptible to global economic changes but have the underlying capacity to ride out short-term problems. Since economic activity is a primary mode of interaction between the actors in global politics, changes to the form or volume of trade or finance can have repercussions for diplomatic relations between states, and hence for foreign policy. Liberal advocates of free trade in the nineteenth century saw more trade as leading to greater political harmony in the world, as economic ties created mutual prosperity and an interest in maintaining peace.27 Yet contests over trade or attempts to adopt protectionist measures can lead to worsening relations between states. In other words, economic relations shape the milieu of foreign policy decisionmaking. A corollary of this is that foreign policymakers do, at times, seek to interfere with trade to manipulate their interactions with other governments. This is described as economic statecraft.28 If a government wants to improve relations with a rival, or encourage them to adopt a particular policy, it can do so with the inducement of opening up market access, with preferential terms of trade, or with the blanket advantage of ‘most favoured nation’ status.29 Alternatively, a government may seek to change the policy of a foreign government through the threat of tariffs or sanctions. Thus, when the US introduced tariffs of 30 per cent on steel imports in March 2002, the EU (including the UK) threatened to introduce counter-tariffs worth US$2.2 billion. These were to be targeted at products from states expected to be the key battlegrounds in the forthcoming presidential election, such as citrus fruit from Florida.30 Fearing a trade war and electoral unpopularity, the US administration announced the removal of the tariffs in December 2003. Economic sanctions are common, albeit controversial, tools of foreign policy.31 They entail restricting the target state’s access to markets in particular goods or services to coerce them into altering their behaviour.32 Sanctions can be wide-ranging and encompass whole sectors of economic activity, designed to emphasize a state’s ostracism from international society (for

Economics and British foreign policy

example, the United States’ ongoing isolation of Cuba, trade restrictions on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, or the sanctions applied to Iran since the early 2000s designed to coerce it into bringing its nuclear programme under the inspection of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA). The effectiveness of wide-ranging sanctions on ‘rogue’ states has been called into question because of their humanitarian cost and the difficulty of maintaining them over time. Sanctions on Iraq from 1990 to 2003 were accused of hurting the innocent civilians suffering under Saddam Hussein’s regime, were frequently breached and gradually lost international support.33 However, there is some evidence that they were effective in curtailing Iraq’s development of WMD.34 They were also considerably less costly in financial terms to outside powers than the alternative policy of full-scale war which was subsequently adopted. In response to criticism of the humanitarian impact of sanctions, the international community sought to promote the concept of ‘smart sanctions’. These targeted more specific goods, services or individuals viewed as crucial pressure points and were designed to change a particular policy. Joy Gordon lists typical examples of these kinds of sanctions as ‘arms embargoes, financial sanctions on the assets of individuals and companies, travel restrictions on the leaders of a sanctioned state, and trade sanctions on particular goods’.35 However, organizing and maintaining international agreement to enforce sanctions is problematic when they seem to transgress established norms of sovereignty and non-intervention. Thus, travel sanctions on Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe in the 2000s were tailored to emphasize his ostracism from international society. Unfortunately, his diplomatic status meant he was able to flout these restrictions on a regular basis, attending Europe–Africa summits, the former Pope John Paul II’s beatification in Rome, and the UN General Assembly.36 Moreover, it is very difficult to pinpoint specific sanctions that are likely to be effective. Would a cruel leader forego ethnic cleansing if it meant they couldn’t shop in Paris? It seems unlikely. The secretive nature of many tax havens means that it is difficult to ascertain where a leader has hoarded their riches. Thus, financial sanctions are difficult to enforce. Trade restrictions may be circumvented through third parties. In all, sanctions perhaps work best as a statement of disapproval from the international community rather than as an independently effective coercive tool. Whilst economic policy is an important conduit and enabler of foreign policy, it can also create problems when domestic and international pressures conflict. For instance, attempts to resolve domestic economic problems through protectionism, such as President Bush’s steel tariffs, may lead to international disputes. The singling out of a particular sector as embodying the national interest can have a negative effect on wider economic relations – as in December 2011, when David Cameron’s desire to preserve the competitiveness of the City of London led to a breakdown in Britain’s relations with its EU partners. Furthermore, efforts to manipulate economic activity

151

152

British Foreign Policy

The FCO website lists 40 countries subject to UK sanctions and export controls. Sanctions targeting particular individuals are listed as follows: Visa ban and asset freeze on named individuals: Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burma, Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Guinea, Iran, Iraq (restrictions on government funds), Korea, DPR (North Korea), Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Montenegro, Serbia, Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe.a Travel ban on named individuals: Moldova, Sierra Leone. Arms export controls: Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Benin (E), Burkina Faso (E), Burma, Cape Verde (E), China, Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) (E), Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Gambia (E), Ghana (E), Guinea (E), Guinea-Bissau (E), Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of China), Iran, Iraq, Korea, DPR (North Korea), Lebanon, Liberia (E), Libya, Macao (Special Administrative Region), Mali (E), Niger (E), Nigeria (E), Pakistan (nuclear restrictions), Senegal (E), Sierra Leone (E), Somalia, Sudan, Taiwan, Togo (E), Zimbabwe.b Restrictions from UN sanctions past: Haiti. FCO website, www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-us/what-we-do/services-we-deliver/export-controlssanctions/country-listing, accessed 25 July 2012 a Restrictions on individuals in Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia relate to the EU Common Position 2004/694/CFSP (14/10/04) as extended by Common Position 2007/635/CFSP (02/10/07), freezing the economic resources of certain persons indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. These are listed as timing out on 10 October 2008. In relation to Lebanon, the FCO lists a ‘potential’ travel ban and asset freeze relating to those suspected of involvement in the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. b Small arms and light weapons exports are restricted to all states in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), under the ECOWAS Moratorium (1998) and Code of Conduct (1999). This accounts for the presence of the states marked ‘(E)’ on this list.

to service foreign policy goals can backfire. Tariffs or sanctions on one state may have unintended negative effects on friendly governments, which may have a secondary role in targeted industries, supplying components or services. In addition, the over-use of economic tools in foreign policymaking may result in a world of petty economic barriers to trade.37 In short, economics is pertinent to British foreign policymaking as it impacts on the capacity of Britain to act globally. It also shapes the form that action may take. Foreign policymakers can make use of economic tools in the service of foreign policy goals, ranging from ‘negative’ actions, designed to restrict economic activity (such as tariffs, quotas, exchange controls, sanctions and regulation), to more ‘positive’ actions aimed at its promotion (e.g. development aid, investment, subsidies, underwriting, tax breaks, and negotiating commercial treaties and regimes). However, since its relative economic strength has declined, the UK has limited power to act bilaterally to coerce other states to change their behaviour. Globalization means that states can circumvent bilateral attempts to restrict trade or finance, and even multilateral efforts can falter if a sufficiently powerful state is willing to breach

Economics and British foreign policy

embargoes. Arguably the UK’s greatest influence as an economic actor continues to be its role in shaping the milieu of the global economy. Many of the major international economic organizations and institutions, from the IMF/ World Bank to the WTO, were established according to rules negotiated by British policymakers, and the UK continues to participate fully in their economic policy discussions. In addition, the UK remains a key member of the European Union, the largest global economic actor – despite the UK’s failure to adopt the Euro. In the following sections, I intend to explore how British policymakers have historically performed the economic functions most closely associated with foreign policy, namely: maintaining the value of the currency, controlling trade, and ensuring competitiveness. I will then explore an example of Britain’s policymakers seeking to impact on the global economic agenda: the 2009 G20 Summit in London. In doing so, I will argue that despite Britain’s economic decline relative to other powerful states in world politics, it continues to hold the capacity to influence international economic debates and exercise a leading role in coordinating global responses to financial crises.

Britain’s economic priorities: maintaining the currency value Upholding the value of sterling has historically been both a symbol of Britain’s status as a global power and vital to the maintenance of its international commitments. In the late nineteenth century, sterling was the primary reserve currency in the world economy, and its convertibility into gold – the gold standard – was seen as underpinning a remarkable era of financial stability in the UK. The origins of this stability are attributed to the fiscal prudence engrained in British governments as a result of safeguards in the British constitution. The ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 had established the primacy of Parliament in overseeing the financial affairs of state.38 In 1844, the Bank Charter Act set out the Bank of England’s powers but also guarded against excessive government borrowing by requiring that no government could expand the money supply without asking Parliament’s permission.39 Furthermore, the laissez-faire policies of British governments in the Victorian era meant that firms could not automatically expect bailouts when they encountered financial difficulties and so had to be careful in their investments. In short, government economic policy was subject to a substantial level of oversight and favoured more gradual economic growth than the booms and busts that would become a staple of the twentieth century.40 Since sterling was a global currency, this national financial stability was seen as spreading outwards into the world economy.41 There are difficulties with evaluating the economic realities of the nineteenth century due to the paucity of record keeping outside the major industrializing countries. Nevertheless, the strength of the UK economy and the conservatism of Britain’s macro-economic policies did lead to a lengthy period of financial stability.

153

154

British Foreign Policy

These relatively benign economic conditions would face challenges in the early 1900s. UK governments increasingly felt the need to defend the value of the currency as economic and foreign policy became increasingly enmeshed. With the advent of the First World War in 1914, the gold standard was suspended. To finance its war effort, Britain had to borrow heavily from the United States, a country which had formerly been a major debtor to the United Kingdom.42 This meant that the UK no longer had sufficient reserves to intervene to counteract negative market forces. It was also experiencing a decline in its relative economic output as other states caught up and overtook the UK in key sectors. The result was that Britain could no longer exert as great an influence on world economic activity as it previously had, leaving its currency more vulnerable to external pressures. After the First World War, Britain’s changing debt relationship with the US heralded a shift in economic power from London to Washington, and the beginnings of the replacement of sterling by the dollar as the global reserve currency. Yet, as Ron Smith notes, becoming a hegemon is a costly business, and the motivation is ‘more likely to be political or ideological; the status it brings is valued; power, not money, is the attraction’.43 At this stage, the United States was not prepared to accept the responsibilities of a global financial hegemon – in particular, the need to intervene in world markets at times in the interests of the system as a whole, not just the national interest.44 The UK attempted to recover this role by reintroducing the gold standard in 1925; however, after the Wall Street Crash in 1929 and subsequent turmoil in financial markets, it was forced to leave this system in 1931. As a consequence, the global economy lost a stabilizing factor and a facilitator of world trade, and governments worldwide retreated into more inward economic policymaking. Maintaining the value of the currency became a concern for the UK in the interwar years as a result of the combination of a range of new economic pressures. For a long period in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Britain benefited economically from its colonies.45 The value of sterling was maintained by virtue of Britain’s economic strength and prestige as the world’s leading industrial nation and required little government interference. However, with crippling war debts and the expansion of imperial commitments after the First World War, the UK faced balance of payments problems that undermined sterling’s value. Thus, the economic costs of Britain’s foreign policy became increasingly burdensome. In addition, as rival states industrialized, imports began to rise and exports fell. Governments had periodically to use their reserves to buy up sterling to increase its value. The underlying reality of the interwar period was that Britain was simply not economically strong enough to maintain its position as the leading global economic actor. However, it would take decades for this to be accepted by British policymakers.

Economics and British foreign policy

The gold standard was a mechanism that tied the value of sterling to the price of gold. In principle, it meant that investors could exchange their holdings of sterling for gold at a fixed rate. As gold prices were generally stable, this was seen as providing a level of stability to the financial system. However, since currencies are subject to inflation, the government would at times have to buy up sterling in order to decrease its supply and so make it more valuable. As noted above, trying to correct market valuations of a currency is difficult even for the most economically powerful states. As Britain’s economy faltered in the 1930s, it could no longer afford to keep intervening to keep sterling at an artificially high rate. However, this created real problems for Britain’s identity as a world power. Rejoining the gold standard in 1925 was seen as Britain’s duty. Treasury officials launched a rearguard action to try and keep to the gold standard with some very emotional arguments. One memorandum at the time suggested: ‘Sterling holds a unique position among the world’s currencies. It does so partly by virtue of tradition . . . Countries have put a trust in us which can only be betrayed with grave moral and economic reactions.’a For civil servants to be using such emotive language is an indication of their attachment to the idea of Britain as an economic actor of global significance. Although this might seem an arcane debate, it continues to be relevant in current international discussions. Policymakers are searching for a stable benchmark to which national currencies might be pinned. In 2011 there were fears that China was quietly reducing its dollar reserves in favour of gold,b and a number of commentators have advocated some form of global reserve currency, in the form of either gold or IMF bonds based on the value of a basket of currencies.c a

Cabinet Office, ‘Sterling and the gold standard’, 98. Wiggin, ‘China nudges world’; Evans-Pritchard, ‘Return of the gold standard’. c For instance, Stewart, ‘IMF boss calls for global currency’; Butler, The Golden Revolution. For a critique of the gold standard, see Eichengreen, Golden Fetters; for a recent update of Eichengreen’s arguments, see Eichengreen, Exorbitant Privilege. b

Britain’s decreased economic strength should have become apparent during the Second World War, when Britain faced bankruptcy early in the conflict. In December 1940, Winston Churchill wrote to President Roosevelt arguing that ‘The moment approaches when we shall no longer be able to pay cash for shipping and other supplies.’46 The United States responded with LendLease, a system through which the US supplied the UK and other countries fighting the Axis powers with defence material to support their war efforts. However, US officials continually called for evidence that Britain really was in dire financial straits. Congress demanded Britain gave up most of its dollar reserves, and the UK then faced a balance of payments crisis when the US abruptly terminated Lend-Lease after the war in Europe ended. Having been heavily subsidized by the US during the war, the UK suddenly found itself expected to fund all its overseas commitments, despite having little nonmilitary economic activity.47 What prevented bankruptcy and a more abrupt retreat from a world role was the launch of the European Recovery Program by the United States from

155

156

British Foreign Policy

1948 – otherwise known as Marshall Aid. Indeed, this aid is an excellent example of how foreign policy and economic interests can be intertwined. British foreign policymakers utilized their diplomatic skills to the full, with British statesmen such as Winston Churchill – in his Fulton speech of 1946 – and Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary, emphasizing the Soviet threat to US interests in Europe and the dangers of economic collapse leading to communist revolutions. The result was that the United States introduced grants to European countries to promote economic activity. A total of US$2.7 billion was given to Britain (more than to any other European country), money which did not have to be repaid and could be used as the British government saw fit.48 But this could only delay the unbalancing effect of excessive overseas expenditure. At the end of the Second World War, Britain had substantial military commitments in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Africa, India and the Far East. Paying for these required that Britain’s currency maintain an artificially high value, so that it could get a good rate of exchange on goods abroad. Yet this meant that the cost of British exports was kept high also, impacting on British industry, and governments had to restrict the money supply so that inflation could not undermine the currency value. Bearing the lingering costs of war, and the need to rebuild, Britain was not capable of keeping up this policy for long. Sterling was forced to devalue from US$4.03 to US$2.80 in 1949 and would face a series of crises in the postwar era. In short, having been the world’s reserve currency at the beginning of the twentieth century, by the end of the Second World War sterling required increasing government intervention to maintain its value. Policymakers felt it necessary so to intervene for practical reasons – to support the UK’s foreign policy commitments abroad – but also to maintain British prestige and a self-image of Britain as a leading economic actor. Thus economic policy and foreign policy were becoming increasingly entwined. Britain’s foreign policy commitments required greater economic intervention on the part of the state. Meanwhile, its economic needs were heavily shaping its foreign policy goals; in particular, economic dependence on the United States was moving the government towards alignment with that country in foreign policy terms. This became ever more apparent in the post-1945 era. Crises in the postwar era The weakness of Britain’s currency (and its dependence on US support) was highlighted in 1956 when the Suez crisis erupted. This was provoked when Britain, France and Israel contrived to invade Egypt to reverse its nationalization of the Suez canal. Losing access to Middle Eastern oil, Britain had to rely on Western oil, paid for in dollars, thus leading to a dollar deficit in Britain’s reserves. Opposing the invasion, the Eisenhower administration moved to use its economic power to threaten the UK’s gold and dollar reserves in the hope that this would coerce Britain into abandoning its involvement in the

Economics and British foreign policy

invasion of Egypt. The US also blocked Britain’s attempts to exercise its drawing rights on IMF funds, meaning that the UK had to spend £845 million of its reserves countering adverse currency speculation.49 Ultimately, this economic pressure was too great and the UK pulled out of the operation, abandoning its ally, France, and souring its relationship with that country for nearly two decades.50 A further series of currency problems was sparked by the election of the Labour government in 1964. Aggressive speculation was threatening a run on sterling. The ‘Paris Club’ of ten leading economic nations agreed to help raise US$3 billion to shore up the value of Britain’s currency, but the drain on the UK’s reserves served to highlight the expense of Britain’s overseas commitments ‘east of Suez’. In 1967, sterling was devalued once more, from US$2.80 to US$2.40. The UK prime minister, Harold Wilson, disingenuously declared to British citizens that ‘It does not mean that the pound here in Britain, in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued’, knowing that the rising cost of imports would mean just that. What is curious about these currency crises, and the domestic economic problems they created, is that they have been wholly attributed to Britain’s foreign policy. The desire to maintain sterling as a reserve currency was driven by the need to fund the UK’s overseas commitments and as a symbol of Britain’s global status as a leading power. Andrew Gamble argues that ‘without the massive deficit on capital account and on government account the British economy would not have suffered balance of payments problems in any of the years that sparked sterling crises in the 1950s and 1960s’.51 Dobson likened the value of sterling to the atom bomb as ‘a prestige symbol of the first order’.52 This attitude continues to be apparent among British policymakers and has had important ramifications for the nature of Britain’s relationship with the European Union. When the UK joined the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM) in 1990, sterling was priced at £1 to 2.95 Deutschmarks – a level which a number of commentators, including the financier George Soros, identified as overvaluing sterling.53 Choosing his moment carefully and utilizing a US$10-billion hedge fund, Soros exchanged sterling for Deutschmarks and in the process contributed to a run on sterling that resulted in the UK’s crashing out of the ERM on 16 September 1992 – a date henceforth known as ‘Black Wednesday’. This outcome has shaped Britain’s economic relationship with the continent ever since. From that date, the pound has floated freely on the exchange markets. Attempts to promote British monetary union with those countries that adopted the Euro in 1999 have faced continual reminders from the media and policy elites of ‘Black Wednesday’ and of the lack of support from European partners in countering market speculation from traders such as Soros. In addition, governments themselves were seen as compromised economic actors. After New Labour was elected in 1997, the Bank of England was put in charge of monetary policy, with its Monetary

157

158

British Foreign Policy

Policy Committee of nine economists – five from the Bank of England and four external members appointed by the chancellor of the Exchequer – given the task of pursuing an inflation target of 2 per cent.54 An alternative mode of evaluating the economic value of a country has emerged and even perhaps surpassed currency exchange rates. A weak currency is now defended as a boon to exports. In the place of currency values, the evaluation of credit rating agencies, including Standard and Poor, Moody’s, and Fitch, are now seen as primary indicators of economic prowess. Although these agencies have long evaluated the financial risk of investing in different countries and sectors globally, they achieved a particular prominence in the aftermath of the financial crises that began in 2007–8. When the coalition government was elected in 2010, the chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, launched an austerity programme of cuts to public services with the aim of preserving Britain’s ‘Triple A’ rating – the agencies’ benchmark indicating that investing in Britain carries the lowest level of risk. Whilst at the time of writing this status had been maintained, the downgrading of other European economies led to diplomatic controversy, with France bemoaning Britain’s better rating despite worse economic indicators. In the light of the historical importance attached to markers of economic prowess, such as the value of sterling, it is hard not to see attachment to the ‘Triple A’ rating as yet another example of policymakers fixating on a prestige symbol, akin to the gold standard, whose importance in locating Britain’s economic position globally carries undue weight next to its domestic impact. In sum, the value of Britain’s currency has long been considered a measure of its global prestige and relative power within the international economic system. However, this has come at a domestic cost. The attempt to play a role as an international economic hegemon continued long after Britain could afford it. Policymakers have tended to fixate on one measure of Britain’s economic worth, be it the gold standard, the value of sterling relative to the dollar or Deutschmark, or more recently the ‘Triple A’ rating of risk agencies, as the ultimate standard by which to judge policy success. Meanwhile, Britain’s past economic dependence on the US and faltering economic ties with Europe have had significant long-term effects on its foreign policy leanings.

Britain’s economic priorities: trade As noted in chapter 4, Britain’s self-identity emphasizes the image of Britain as a ‘trading nation’, and policy speeches routinely include a sentence or two emphasizing the importance of trade to Britain’s economy. For example, William Hague stated in July 2010 that ‘We are . . . the world’s sixth-largest trading nation even though we comprise just 1% of the world’s population.’55 This status is seen as being a major source of strength, but, as noted above, having an open economy reliant on world trade can also render a state more

Economics and British foreign policy

susceptible to global economic downturns. To understand why the UK has come to place such emphasis on international trade, it is necessary to examine political choices made in the nineteenth century over what form of capitalist development the UK should pursue, and what influence the government should have on economic activity. Britain’s position as a major international trader developed with its maritime power. As its explorers spread to the corners of the globe to plunder and ravage in the sixteenth century, they also discovered new markets. In 1600, Elizabeth I granted a monopoly of the trade east of the Cape of Good Hope to the newly founded East India Company – one of the world’s first limited liability companies. Over the next two centuries, Britain would build an empire based on commercial activity with firms such as the East India Company, with its standing army of 200,000 men, at the vanguard.56 To maintain this global network, the country amassed a technologically sophisticated navy that patrolled the sea lanes and kept international trading links open. By the early nineteenth century, Britain had merged politically with its territorial neighbours and had acquired considerable wealth and power from its global trade, finding itself a major power exercising a global reach. In his book The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith had theorized that the protection of trade was ‘essential to the defence of the commonwealth, and, upon that account, a necessary part of the duty of the executive power’.57 This was viewed as applying to all states in the abstract. However, foreign policymakers came to see it as a particular concern for Britain, as its population outstripped its natural resources. Pitt the Younger is said to have declared that ‘British policy is British trade’ to underline the importance of economic considerations to Britain’s foreign policy.58 In short, the importance of trade to British foreign policy was a process that had long historical roots prior to the nineteenth century. Andrew Gamble, however, has argued that one important political decision in 1846 set Britain on a course to becoming especially reliant on world trade for its wellbeing: the repeal of the Corn Laws. Between 1815 and 1846, the British government had maintained a punitive tariff on wheat imports in order to protect domestic farmers. As Britain’s population rose, the artificially high price of bread became a cause of social unrest and was seen as reducing the profits of manufacturers. Meanwhile, the notion of free trade as a symbol of human liberty and a public good in its own right was becoming increasingly influential. The ‘Manchester School’, comprised of star orators such as Richard Cobden and John Bright, was urging freer trade as a means to increase Britain’s industrial competitiveness and ‘promote international harmony’.59 When the tariffs were lifted, cheap food imports were enabled. Gamble sees this as having ‘aided the expansion of the cities as well as an urban proletariat and contributed to an enormous enrichment of the whole British propertied class’.60 But as free trade allowed the population to grow beyond a level

159

160

British Foreign Policy

sustainable by domestic food production, it also meant that ‘Britain’s future and very survival became tied to the world economy’.61 Whilst Britain was the leading industrial nation, this reliance on international trade was not viewed as a problem. The ideology of free trade exercised a pervasive influence on policymakers for much of the rest of the nineteenth century. In practice, this meant that governments voluntarily restricted their role in economic affairs to the negotiation of commercial treaties. As Donald Platt put it: ‘Once a Treaty had been negotiated, it was up to the British trader to look after his own interests in fair and equal competition with rival foreign traders.’62 With few exceptions, successive governments refused to guarantee loans to support investments abroad and claimed no special privileges for British firms pioneering new markets abroad, desiring only equal access.63 This meant that British firms did not benefit from the kind of government support offered to their rivals on the continent.64 Yet there was confidence that, as the most technologically advanced nation, Britain would be able to out-compete its rivals, and free trade was viewed as a universal good that would benefit all in the long run. The limited governmental role envisaged under free trade and laissez-faire principles had the further consequence of implying a division between government and commercial activities. A tension existed between those who wished to identify foreign policy with the ‘high politics’ of security and diplomacy and those who wished to include the ‘low politics’ of trade and finance.65 Disraeli questioned this division, reflected in the organizational separation between the consular and diplomatic services, in 1842, arguing: ‘in a country where commerce was one of the principal sources of public wealth, and the avowed intention of the public revenue, a commercial interest was a public interest of the highest class’.66 Nevertheless, the liberal philosophy underpinning free trade manifested itself in a distrust of any one firm or sector’s receiving government support as a detriment to a plural society and the wider public good that competition brought. Enthusiasm for free trade began to wane at the end of the nineteenth century as Britain’s economic rivals caught up and then overtook it in industrial productivity and output in key sectors.67 But what ultimately undermined this ideological commitment was the experience of total war in the twentieth century. As the First World War progressed, Britain was forced to place a greater part of its economy on a war footing. Its lack of self-sufficiency in agriculture began to tell as Britain relied on increasingly vulnerable supply lines to Canada and the United States. State intervention in economic activity became more and more prominent, with rationing being introduced to counteract the scarcity caused by German submarine attacks. As Lord Vansittart recalled in his autobiography, ‘we had little strength to spare. In April [1917] the loss of allied tonnage reached its peak, and 60% of it was British. With only enough food for six weeks we . . . reduced our rations.’68 The entry of the United States into the war eased the financial burden of the UK.69 But an

Economics and British foreign policy

important principle had been breached. Britain’s reliance on international trade had come to be seen as a potential risk to its security, and government had had to take charge of much of the economy to prosecute the war. For a period after the war, successive governments sought to restore free trade principles to British economic policy and open its economy to international markets. However, the Wall Street Crash in 1929 and subsequent Great Depression of the early 1930s led to a protectionist response from many of the major economies in the world – most notably the United States. Britain responded by introducing the system of ‘imperial preference’ at the Ottawa conference of 1932. This involved bilateral negotiation of preferential tariffs between the UK and its dominions. Any concessions made by the UK were automatically granted to other empire countries in what was termed ‘mostfavoured-empire-nation treatment’.70 Yet concessions made by dominion countries to the UK were not extended to other empire countries except by separate bilateral agreement. As such, these measures were not a fully generalized system of protection. Rather, they can be seen as an attempt to use the economic tool of preferential tariffs to improve Britain’s bilateral relations with the dominions and promote the political integrity of the Commonwealth. It would take the extreme experience of total war in the Second World War, in which Britain’s economy was more fully committed to the war effort than that of Nazi Germany, to shift thinking away from free trade as the driving force of economic policy.71 This time the debilitating effects of total warfare for a six-year period meant that state interference would be necessary for some time to rebalance the economy to peacetime activity and allow industries to recover. Furthermore, Britain had been compelled by the US to reduce exports to the minimum necessary to prosecute the war, to ensure that the UK wasn’t ‘freeloading’ off American generosity under Lend-Lease.72 At this point, Britain had effectively lost its ability to control trade, through financial dependence on the United States. In the postwar era, the United States did ultimately allow the UK to introduce protectionist measures in the face of the alternative of Britain’s financial collapse. As a result, Britain was once again able to function as an economic actor. In the immediate aftermath of war, the Attlee government pursued a programme of nationalization that would mean unprecedented levels of government interference in trade. Nevertheless, the United States, in its newly accepted role as global hegemon, would continue to press for the liberalization of markets. Moreover, the UK never fully reversed its desire for free trade, since a country which relied so much on international trade would inevitably benefit from the liberalization of world markets. Instead, it was the fragility of the British economy that required protectionist measures. As Keith Robbins has argued: ‘Empire was a source of wealth for Britain . . . but only as an open system integrated into the main current of the international economy and not as a defensive mechanism to shelter Britain from foreign

161

162

British Foreign Policy

competition.’73 Policies such as imperial preference were pursued only as long as they were politically useful. When they threatened to conflict with efforts to integrate the UK into the European economic area these policies were largely abandoned.74 As the British economy recovered from the ravages of war and expanded during the 1950s, British governments recovered their enthusiasm for freer trade. Having excluded itself from the formation of the European Community in 1957, the UK risked adverse trading conditions with its continental neighbours. Its response was to launch a European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in 1960, along with Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. However, the UK’s commitment to this regime was questionable from the outset. Britain began negotiating to join the European Economic Community (EEC, later the European Community or EC) in 1961, effectively offering to abandon its relationship with the EFTA nations. When the Labour government was elected in 1964, it suffered balance of payments problems and a run on sterling. As a result, it introduced a 15 per cent surcharge on manufactured imports which is said to have ‘wiped out virtually all the concessions which had accrued to members since the Association was formed’.75 After protests, the UK reduced the tariffs and finally abandoned them in 1966. Nevertheless, their imposition in the first place is indicative of the UK government’s lack of commitment to the EFTA. Such actions would not be possible once the UK finally joined the EC in 1973, having left EFTA the year before. The EC required adherence to a common external tariff and the suppression of internal tariff barriers to trade among members. The immediate effect of British membership of the EC was to reinforce the shift away from dominion and Commonwealth trade towards Europe – a process which had begun prior to accession negotiations in the early 1960s but accelerated thereafter. Britain’s trade is now finely balanced between EU and non-EU markets. In 2011, UK exports to the EU made up 53.8 per cent of total export trade, and EU imports to the UK 50.4 per cent of total imports.76 As an indication of the continuing economic importance of Britain’s relations with its neighbours – despite globalization – William Hague noted in his first speech as Foreign Secretary that ‘the latest figures show that at the moment we export more to Ireland than we do to India, China and Russia put together’.77 This was despite concerted efforts by the New Labour governments to engage with these emerging markets and promote British trade. As a member of the EU, Britain has argued strongly in favour of a freer internal market within Europe and the liberalization of European economies. The BIS has been keen to emphasize the benefits of this liberalization, asserting that the advent of the single market has led to a doubling of trade between EU countries and, since the 1980s, may account for a 6 per cent higher income per capita in the UK, equating to £3,300 a year per British household.78 Whether it has contributed to wider benefits to the global economy and has helped to liberalize global trade is a matter for debate.

Economics and British foreign policy

Being a member of the European Union, the UK is tied to common policies on agriculture and fisheries that are widely viewed as discriminating against developing countries and contributing to global inequality. The UK government has acknowledged this and has pressed for reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), in particular, for decades. However, it has not been able to overcome opposition from France and other states that derive a disproportionate benefit from these arrangements. This has created tensions in international negotiations. The institutionalized subsidizing of agriculture by the European Union has meant that this regime has presented significant barriers to freer trade globally, even while it has reduced internal tariffs and trade restrictions. Yet the UK government is unable to influence the global agenda unilaterally in this regard, since it is tied into a common negotiating system. William Wallace argued against the idea of a ‘purely national trade policy’ in 1992 on the basis that ‘The Community had represented British (and other EC) interests in international trade for nearly 20 years.’79 The lack of reform of the CAP is evidence of the trade-offs that are apparent in belonging to a supranational organization such as the EU. On the one hand, the UK is able to pool sovereignty and so have a greater influence on global economic policies than it might achieve alone, thanks to the collective bargaining weight of the EU’s twenty-seven member states.80 On the other hand, its individual freedom of action is necessarily restricted. That said, the UK retains a capacity to decide how far it integrates its economy with the rest of Europe. Moreover, although the UK is conventionally represented as a leading advocate of freer trade in Europe, its support for lifting trade barriers with European partners has been qualified in an important respect: the UK has so far not joined the Eurozone, giving it greater freedom to adjust interest rates in times of crises but at the same time maintaining a currency barrier to the free exchange of goods and services. To summarize, Britain has a longstanding historical identity as a trading nation and has extensive links with the global economy. The combination of early industrial development, an ideology of free trade and a population outstripping the agricultural capacity of its territory has left Britain reliant on world trade to maintain its prosperity and economic position. Closer integration with the European economy, and membership of the European Union, have allowed Britain to continue to influence the terms of global trade agreements; but this has come at the expense of its capacity to pursue an independent economic policy and has rendered Britain complicit in protectionist arrangements such as the CAP.

Britain’s economic priorities: ensuring competitiveness Since Britain’s economic power is necessarily relative to the strength of other states, economic competitiveness is a major priority for British foreign

163

164

British Foreign Policy

policymakers. Fears over the relative efficiency, quality and quantity of Britain’s industrial output were raised at the end of the nineteenth century as other states began to rival the industrial prowess of the UK. The decline in the UK’s ability to dominate world trade was inevitable given the productive potential of other advanced states such as France, Germany and the US. Nevertheless, it gave rise to a host of theories as to why the UK had lost its clear lead in key sectors – from the willingness of foreign governments to support their trade with diplomacy, to a lack of domestic innovation and investment at home as well as the poor health and social security provisions of the British state (thereby leading to an unhealthy and disaffected working class). Governments responded by gradually increasing their support for industry, engaging in diplomacy to support important markets, and introducing health and welfare provisions intended to invigorate the productive capacity of the workforce and provide stronger workers and soldiers for the Empire. Yet these measures were criticized in turn as contributory factors in their own right to Britain’s relative decline. In the second half of the twentieth century, a declinist literature, spearheaded by the historian Corelli Barnett, represented the UK as a decaying economy and polity, weighed down by an overgenerous welfare system and lacking the innovative leadership and culture that had pioneered Britain’s dominance in the nineteenth century. Yet a glance at the current economic data sees the UK as still a strong performer in the global economy, ranking sixth in the world in 2010 according to the World Bank, behind the US, China, Japan, Germany and France.81 Prior to the financial crisis that began in 2007–8, the UK economy had an average annual growth rate of 2.95 per cent between 1997 and 2007, which compares favourably with France’s 2.3 per cent or Germany’s 1.69 per cent.82 Since economic growth and output are often used as a sign of the vitality of a national economy, it would appear that the UK economy retains the capacity to perform well in comparison with similar states. If we look at how the growth rate, output and balance of the UK economy have changed, it may be possible to get a more accurate picture of Britain’s economic competitiveness. Growth During the nineteenth century, the UK did manage to achieve growth averaging 3 to 4 per cent at times, but this fell to below 2 per cent in the 1880s before rising to around 2 per cent in the first decade of the twentieth century.83 Much has been made of the higher growth rates in other economies, particularly on the continent, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but since other states were industrializing later, their growth rates would inevitably be higher as they were starting from a lower base. Similarly, in the post-1945 period commentators have noted the greater growth achieved by France and Germany; yet Britain’s growth rate between 1951 and 1973 was almost 3 per cent – hardly sluggish.84 Overall, the rate of growth of GDP per capita in the UK is said to have risen from ‘about 1 per cent in the late

3000000

600000

2500000

500000

2000000

400000

1500000

300000

1000000

200000

GDP (US$m)

700000

500000

100000 0

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Exports and imports (US$m)

Economics and British foreign policy

0

Year Goods exports Services imports

Goods imports GDP

Services exports

Figure 8 Total UK exports, imports and GDP, 1980–2009 Source: Derived from BIS, UK Trade Performance, 14.

nineteenth century, to 1.8 per cent during the “normal” interwar years, and to just over 2 per cent in the decades after 1951’.85 The economy did contract substantially during the oil crisis of 1973, but it rebounded between 1979 and 1988 when Britain’s productivity growth exceeded that of its major continental comparators, namely Germany, France and Italy.86 As indicated above, Britain has achieved higher growth than Germany and France in recent years – though its growth since the 2008 financial crisis has been lower because of its greater susceptibility to international market fluctuations. Figure 8 indicates the broadly upward trajectory of growth, excepting a period of recession in 1993 and the severe downturn in 2008–9 when the economy shrank by 6.4 per cent.87 Since that time, the UK has flitted between low growth and minor contractions in different quarters. Although the crisis in the Eurozone has impacted on the expected growth of the economy, Goldman Sachs predicts that in the long term (by 2050), the UK may be the largest economy in Europe thanks to its younger demographic from immigration.88 Output The continual emphasis on British decline can sometimes give the impression that its economy is less productive now than in the past. In reality, the opposite is the case. As Andrew Gamble has noted, the wealth Britain generates ‘will be approximately three and a half times as great in the year 2000 as it was in 1900’.89 Moreover it was only as recently as 1971 that West Germany overtook Britain to become the second-largest trading nation; according to Gamble, the first European nation to do so ‘since trade statistics began to be collected’.90 Britain’s share of world manufacturing output has declined, from

165

166

British Foreign Policy

4.1 per cent in 1970 to 2.3 per cent in 2010 – meaning that the UK had slipped from fifth to ninth in global rankings.91 Its share of world trade in total has also fallen, though its overall ranking remains high – at sixth in 2009 (having been fifth in 1980 and again in 2007). Its share of world exports fell from 4.4 per cent in 2000 to 2.8 per cent in 2009, but this was a trend apparently shared by most major economies except Germany, as the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China increased their exports.92 One area in which the UK has increased its market share is in services exports, reaching a high of 8.2 per cent of the global market between 2002 and 2007 before declining slightly to 6.1 per cent in 2010 – leaving it behind the US (14 per cent) and narrowly behind Germany (6.3 per cent) as the third-largest services exporter in 2010. In 2011 it rose again to 6.6 per cent, restoring the UK’s ranking as the second-largest services exporter after the US.93 See figure 9. Furthermore, as figure 10 shows, the productivity of Britain’s workers rose substantially between 1990 and 2008 in comparison with that of other G7 countries.94 It then fell as a result of the financial crisis but remained higher than it was in 2005. In 1990, Britain’s productivity level per worker was lower than that of any other G7 country. By 2007, it was the highest in the G7. In 2010, it was still higher than that of Germany, Italy and Canada. Balancing the economy In accounting for the decline in Britain’s relative share of global economic activity, commentators have often seized on particular structural aspects of its economy that appear to contribute to this trend. In the first place, it has long been a complaint that British firms are too inclined to invest abroad rather than in domestic industry. Arguing against returning to the gold standard in 1925, John Maynard Keynes advocated an alternative plan of discouraging foreign investment and encouraging home investment – one that was rejected as recommending Britain’s ‘separation . . . from the rest of the world’.95 In the postwar period, a narrative developed that the continental European economies had benefited because their industry had to start from scratch and so were able to take advantage of the latest technology. But Corelli Barnett queries this interpretation, arguing that Britain had the opportunity to use Marshall Aid to invest in its industry but instead used it to fund the welfare system and Britain’s world role. Barnett notes that ‘in 1950, Britain’s investment in industry and infrastructure came to only 9 per cent of GNP [gross national product], as opposed to Germany’s 19 per cent. Thus the actual total of the investment was a fifth less than the German total.’96 This was apparently despite the fact that West Germany received less Marshall Aid than the UK. Post-1945 commentators have routinely bemoaned the lack of public and private investment in industry, which is seen as hampering domestic innovation and continuing the UK’s susceptibility to world market fluctuations.97 Andrew Gamble attributes the lower productivity of the UK economy in the postwar period to ‘persistently low levels of investment in Britain, generally

Economics and British foreign policy

10 9 8

Goods (%)

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 2010

2011

2010

2011

2009

2008

2007

2006

0

Year 16 14

Services (%)

12 10 8 6 4

2009

2008

2007

0

2006

2

Year UK

France

Germany

Japan

USA

Figure 9 UK percentage share of world exports of goods and services, 2006–2011 Source: WTO.

167

British Foreign Policy

110 105 100 95 PPP

90 85 80 75

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2003

2004

2001

2002

2000

1999

1998

1997

1995

1996

1994

1993

1992

1991

70 1990

168

Year Canada G7

Germany France G7 exc. UK

Italy

Japan

UK

USA

Purchasing power parities (PPPs): 2004 = 100. Figure 10 GDP per worker, 1990–2010 Source: ONS, ‘International comparisons of productivity, 2010’.

about half the levels of investment in manufacturing of Britain’s major contributors’.98 This trend of having a high proportion of capital invested overseas can be seen to have continued. The BIS notes in a 2010 report that ‘The UK has had a significantly higher ratio of FDI [foreign direct investment] to goods exports than key competitors since 1998, followed by the USA and France.’99 The United States is the largest recipient of this investment, followed by the Netherlands and Luxembourg.100 Britain’s high level of overseas investment can make the calculation of its economic activity difficult. The same BIS report notes that the UK has ‘outsourced a lot of its lower priced manufacturing industry overseas to places like China, more so than its competitors, as suggested by the UK’s relatively high levels of outward FDI’.101 This process may skew the data on the UK’s real manufacturing assets as firms may be trading from outlets overseas and so not feature in exports, even though their earnings would eventually flow back to the UK through their income account. According to the BIS, this may make exports seem lower than they really are in terms of value to the Exchequer. Nevertheless, as figure 11 indicates, the value of imports continues to exceed exports by some margin.

Economics and British foreign policy

£billion, seasonally adjusted

35 30 25 20 15 10 5

Month Exports

2011 Dec.

2011 Nov.

2011 Oct.

2011 Sep.

2011 Aug.

2011 July

2011 June

2011 Apr.

2011 May

2011 Mar.

2011 Feb.

2011 Jan.

2010 Dec.

2010 Nov.

2010 Oct.

0

Imports

Figure 11 Value of UK trade in goods, 2010–2011 Source: ONS, UK Trade December 2011, 6.

At the time of writing, it is hoped that the decline in the value of sterling after the 2008 financial crisis will improve Britain’s competitiveness in the long run by reducing the price of British goods. However, with this deficit in the balance of trade, the economy is suffering in the short term because of the rising costs of imports as a result of sterling’s lower purchasing power. Thus far, discussion has tended to focus on decline; however, there is one area of the economy which has shown considerable growth in recent decades and is forecast to continue: that of exporting services. The BIS notes that ‘UK trade in goods and services . . . grew by an average of 8 per cent per annum between 1985 and 2008, and an average of 10 per cent a year between 2002 and 2008’.102 This trade rose as a percentage of Britain’s GDP from 10 per cent in 1991 to a high of 18.7 per cent in 2009, before falling slightly to 18.1 per cent in 2010.103 In 2009, services accounted for 41 per cent of UK exports.104 With the continuing growth in the Chinese and Indian economies, British policymakers hope to benefit from this economic boom by providing highvalue goods and services to the growing middle classes of these two countries. However, the global downturn resulting from the financial crisis has exposed the fragility of relying too much on external markets and on financial services, both of whose revenues are vulnerable to global economic cycles. In response to the negative effect of the rapid contraction of global trade in 2009, the coalition government advocated reducing public expenditure

169

170

British Foreign Policy

and rebalancing the economy towards manufacturing and in favour of greater exports.105 Whilst this aim may make economic sense, achieving higher numbers of exports to the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, China and India has proved difficult because of various trade barriers (linguistic, political and cultural) that persist despite globalization. Furthermore, these emerging economies are also rivals, and Britain’s attempts to increase its manufacturing exports will face strong competition from economies with higher rates of government and private investment in their own industries. In sum, although the UK has suffered a substantial economic downturn following the financial crisis that began in 2007–8, it remains a wealthy state with high levels of output and competitiveness. The historical trend towards large overseas investment, a legacy of Britain’s imperial past, continues to affect the balance of the UK economy and may impact on its long-term economic competitiveness. Meanwhile, the low rates of growth since 2008 suggest the economic recovery will be slow and will result in the UK’s falling behind emerging economies such as China, Brazil, Russia and India in the long run. These trends may impact on Britain’s future status in the major forums of international economic policymaking – as well as affecting the resources available to pursue military and economic interventions abroad. Having endeavoured to provide a deeper, historical account of how Britain has achieved the economic position it currently occupies, I will now turn to a 2009 case study of Britain conducting foreign policy to promote its economic goals. Despite the gloomy prognosis of British decline, the UK is still a substantial actor in the world economy and has arguably occupied a leadership role, with the acceptance of other powerful states, in forums such as the G8 and G20.

The 2009 London Summit of the G20 The year 2009 was an important one for the global economy. World trade was suffering a severe contraction and the leaders of the most powerful states, grouped together in the G20, needed to decide how they should respond. Before analysing how they chose to do so, it is important to establish the context to the London summit in more depth. The first stirrings of insecurity in the global financial system were felt in the summer of 2007 when the sub-prime status of many major banks’ mortgage assets in the United States threatened to render them insolvent. As fear about the viability of many of the world’s major banking institutions spread, the flow of credit dried up. A ‘credit crunch’ resulted, with global economic activity threatening to grind to a halt. In 2009, the crisis peaked, with the dollar value of world trade falling by 21 per cent.106 To appreciate the magnitude of this contraction, it is worth noting that between 1948 and 2008, world goods trade ‘only fell in eight of these sixty years, and never by more

Economics and British foreign policy

than 4 per cent in dollar terms (in 2001)’. The 2009 economic downturn clearly constituted a seismic event in the world economy.107 As one of the largest national economies in the world, one already noted as especially reliant on world trade for its prosperity, the UK had an interest in responding to this crisis and stimulating world trade. How it pursued this policy and gained agreement from other countries is a useful case study of Britain’s capacity to function as a global economic actor. The UK was already scheduled to host the G20 summit in April 2009. As such, the most powerful political actors in the international economy would be coming to London to discuss an economic agenda defined by British policymakers. Britain’s priorities were to try and bolster the reserves of the IMF and reduce the stigma of borrowing from the fund (thereby opening up a useful source of credit to governments in financial difficulty); to get agreement on further stimulus efforts; to ‘detoxify’ the system of global finance and increase regulation; and to rebalance the world economy by removing trade barriers and facilitating exports to China and other emerging markets. What is curious, if the memoirs of politicians are to be believed, is how intergovernmental in nature were these negotiations. For all the talk of the growing power of firms and markets and the decline of the state, it was state actors, including the British government, that were expected to act to support the faltering global economy. According to Alistair Darling, UK chancellor of the Exchequer at this time, negotiations began on a bilateral basis in early February with the visit of the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao: ‘Gordon [Brown] pressed his opposite number on the crucial point, the need to rebalance a world where China exported and America imported . . . Premier Wen showed that he was open to talking about it . . . There was a recognition that China needed to do more to boost domestic demand and encourage their people to spend more.’108 In other words, British policymakers were laying the groundwork for the talks via bilateral discussions with other powerful economic states (the Chinese economy was the third largest in the world at this time). Gordon Brown is said to have chartered a plane to fly across Europe, South America and the United States, drumming up support for the measures which the UK perceived as crucial to its economic interests.109 Two weeks prior to the summit itself, a meeting of G20 finance ministers was held, which included the governors of the central banks. Darling has since asserted that ‘nearly all the conclusions reached by the heads of government had been agreed at this earlier meeting’.110 Yet further political obstacles would present themselves before agreement was reached. On the eve of the summit, President Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Merkel of Germany held a joint press conference at which Sarkozy threatened to boycott the summit if tighter rules on financial regulation were not pushed through.111 In the event, Sarkozy did attend. Nevertheless, he continued to insist on greater regulation of international finance. At the height of the summit, it looked as though the differences between member states on this

171

172

British Foreign Policy

and other issues might threaten the chances of reaching a common position and undermine the whole event. To bring an agreement closer, Gordon Brown, as leader of the summit, decided to restrict negotiations to leaders, and banned advisers and finance ministers from the room. As Peter Mandelson, the business secretary at the time, describes it: ‘In a crucial lunchtime meeting with his fellow world leaders, he essentially locked them in until he had obtained practical agreement on a range of stimulus measures, interestrate cuts and regulatory moves.’112 A dispute between China and France over naming and shaming tax havens was apparently resolved by President Obama, who took Sarkozy to one side and brokered a solution accepted by both sides.113 The summit concluded with a series of agreed proposals, including a trebling of the resources available to the IMF to US$750 billion, support for ‘a new SDR allocation of [US$]250 billion’, US$100 billion of additional lending from the multilateral development banks (MDBs), and US$250 billion of support for trade finance.114 In total, the G20 leaders’ statement boasted that this would constitute ‘an additional [US]$1.1 trillion programme of support to restore credit, growth and jobs in the world economy’.115 President Obama averred at the summit’s end that ‘By any measure the London summit was historic.’116 The key questions for our discussion are: was the UK able to achieve its objectives, and what difference did British policymakers make to the summit’s outcomes? On Britain’s objectives, the greater support for the IMF had been a key priority, and this did constitute a success. Some additional lending and support for trade finance also represented a form of stimulus. However, there was no agreement on a substantial coordinated round of further financial stimuli; economic stimuli for green projects were not supported; and China ensured that references to green initiatives were marginalized. This attracted criticism from environmental lobbyists, with the World Wildlife Fund’s campaign director seeing it as ‘a huge missed opportunity’.117 Overall, an agreement was reached and it did contain the most important priority for the UK: a more powerful and autonomous IMF. How far British policymakers had an independent effect on the outcome is difficult to appraise. For New Labour policymakers, the summit is described in terms of a heroic narrative, with Gordon Brown, in particular, playing a crucial part. Darling asserts that ‘If he had not been there, it wouldn’t have happened.’118 Peter Mandelson went further in arguing that ‘this was Gordon’s success, and it reinforced his status as the leader of the world’s fightback’.119 In this interpretation we can see the culmination of a host of factors constructing the UK as an important actor in world politics. Its institutional status within the structure of global finance and trade afforded Britain an influential position in negotiations to deal with the crisis, as noted in chapter 5. In the self-identity of British policymakers, Britain was a leading actor forging a global agreement, and the outcome was conditional on the actions

Economics and British foreign policy

of individual British policymakers (especially Brown). The policy, and its negotiation, were constructed very much according to the Westminster model, with a strong core executive steering a firmly intergovernmental process (see chapter 3). Non-state actors do not feature, except in the off-stage form of markets waiting to respond to the agreement. An alternative reading might be more sceptical about how far Britain, and its individual leaders, were able to exert meaningful influence on the outcome. Darling acknowledges in his memoirs that other states already recognized the urgency of the situation and the broad need for a response: ‘There was a genuine sense of fear. Even the Asian countries could see that what was happening in the West would affect them.’120 Other powerful states, notably China, were advocating strengthening the IMF and affording the World Bank and IMF a greater independence from US and European dominance.121 Therefore this is not a clear-cut case of Britain achieving a policy in the teeth of resistance from other powerful actors. When the summit was threatened with impasse over a dispute between China and France, it was the United States president who brokered a solution, not the nominal summit leader, Gordon Brown. Moreover, the aftermath of the summit did not see an end to financial instability in the international system. The Eurozone subsequently suffered a series of debt crises that, at the time of writing, have not been resolved at the international level. Globally, total worldwide debt rose from US$84 trillion in 2002 to US$195 trillion in 2011.122 Growth has stagnated, particularly for the UK. One could try and blame the domestic policies of the Brown government’s successor for Britain’s economic performance. Cuts to public spending have affected domestic demand; but global demand does not seem to have recovered either. Thus, if we are seeking to identify Britain’s impact on the summit, it is really in gaining agreement on what should be discussed in London, hosting the summit in an efficient manner, and compelling leaders to resolve their differences, through the exclusion of non-leaders from the final negotiations. These are no small achievements. Britain was playing a leadership role in pressing for agreement, and remains an important actor in global economic policy terms. At crucial points in negotiations, China, the United States and France had more obvious independent effects on the outcome, and the former two states appear to be most important in deciding what does and doesn’t get discussed. Nevertheless, Britain was at the centre of these discussions thanks to its institutional status as the president of the G20 at that time. It was also able to impress upon other states the need for substantial intervention in the international economy, and for this to be a global effort rather than a national one. As noted above, following the Wall Street Crash in 1929, economies around the world retreated into an economic nationalism that severely impacted on free trade and global demand. In 2009, Britain was an important driver promoting a common, global response that maintained free trade and sought to reduce tariff barriers.

173

174

British Foreign Policy

Conclusion In short, Britain continues to be at the centre of international economic policymaking in the early twenty-first century. The UK had been an imperial power with a global position of pre-eminence for centuries, and so post-1945 commentators charted the UK’s decline from this status and saw a much more circumspect role for this state in world affairs. However, they perhaps went too far in presenting this change in Britain’s position as meaning that it would henceforth be a marginal and largely irrelevant presence in the international economy. In reality, the UK continues to exercise influence in the major forums shaping global economic policy, and even arguably fulfilled a leadership role in the G20 summit in 2009.

Further reading Baldwin, D. (1985) Economic Statecraft (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Extensive analysis of how economic tools can be used to pursue foreign policy goals. Bayne, N. and Woolcock, S. (2003) The New Economic Diplomacy: Decision-Making and Negotiation in International Economic Relations (Aldershot: Ashgate). Series of essays offering broad coverage of the terrain of economic diplomacy and recent developments in this field. Buzan, B. (1991) People, States and Fear (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf), 2nd edn. Especially chapter 6. Explores the tensions and potential contradictions in seeking economic security. Cain, P. J. and Hopkins, A. G. (1980) ‘The political economy of British expansion overseas, 1750–1914’ Economic History Review, 33,4, 463–90. Interesting article identifying links between domestic economic concerns and imperial expansion. Gamble, A. (2012) ‘Economic policy’ in Heppell, T. and Seawright, D. (eds.) Cameron and the Conservatives: The Transition to Coalition Government (Basingstoke: Palgrave), 59–73. Contemporary examination of how the coalition government has conducted its economic policy. Grant, W. (2002) Economic Policy in Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave). Good overview of British economic policy since 1945. Pape, R. A. (1997) ‘Why economic sanctions do not work’ International Security, 22,2, 90–136. Critiques the data used by Hufbauer et al. to argue that the historical record indicates sanctions are effective in only 5 per cent of cases. Rowe, D. (1999) ‘Economic sanctions do work: economic statecraft and the oil embargo of Rhodesia’ Security Studies, 9,1–2, 254–87. Case study approach indicating when sanctions can exert sufficient pressure to change a government’s policy. Smith, R. (1991) ‘The political economy of Britain’s external relations’ in Freedman, L. and Clarke, M. (eds.) Britain in the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 97–142.

Conclusion: future challenges

How is British foreign policy likely to change or remain the same in the future? It is a question that is impossible to answer with any precision because of the unpredictability of future events. As chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown would regularly boast that the New Labour government had put an end to ‘Tory boom and bust’. He then took office as prime minister at the outset of one of the worst economic crises in a century. Many Western policymakers were taken by surprise as the revolutions of the Arab Spring gripped North Africa and the Middle East in 2011. The French foreign minister declared that her country ‘had not seen these events coming any more than anyone else’ despite its extensive diplomatic connections with Tunisia, in particular.1 This serves as a reminder that we cannot know what new or resurgent economic shocks, political upheavals or military threats British policymakers will have to confront in the future. We might, however, follow the edict of Confucius that says ‘Study the past, if you would divine the future.’ Whilst it has been noted in chapter 7 that the incidence of inter-state war has declined, violence is still likely to be a feature of international relations in coming decades.2 Whether this is attributed to biology, to human nature, to immoral societies, to the masculine social construction of international politics or to international anarchy, competition over resources, power and ideas has been a feature of human behaviour since the beginning of recorded history, and so it is unlikely it will vanish altogether. The question is where this violence will occur and how it might involve the UK. Similarly, economic instability has been a feature of human societies for centuries and is likely to persist. The price of free markets seems to be susceptibility to bubbles and panics as investors rush to find the latest golden opportunity and then flee equally quickly in fear of losses. British policymakers cannot avoid the impact of these cycles, merely try to ameliorate their effects. Alternative political communities and ideas about how we should live will also emerge over time. The state has been very resilient as the primary institution for action in world politics. The bureaucratic and ideational technologies that underpin state power, particularly in developed countries, will not disappear in the short term (in the absence of some major catastrophe). But past 175

176

British Foreign Policy

political systems, including feudalism, Christendom and empires, have dissolved because of disease, resource scarcity or competing ideologies. It is all but inevitable that the same fate will befall the states-system in time. In short, underlying pressures to use force or counteract market cycles will continue to provide a backdrop to British foreign policymaking in the future, even as states such as Britain face challenges to their pre-eminence in international society. That military, economic and social challenges are likely to persist should not lead us to either of two analytical errors commonly made when predicting the future: the assumption that nothing fundamentally changes, or the assumption that future changes will be wholly negative. The advent of digital technology, new social media and advances in computing have changed work patterns, social interaction and even the way our brains work. These are real changes that will take time to understand and process. Furthermore, scientific advances in medicine and agriculture in the last century mean that more people are living longer and healthier lives globally than in previous generations. Change can promote insecurity and hence fear. But the emergence of new means to communicate with other people across the world and the opportunity to disperse knowledge and technology throughout human society could have real benefits in promoting fairer forms of political community locally, regionally and internationally. Would this mean the end of ‘foreign policy’, as some have predicted? Given the human need to belong to particular groups and the importance of difference to identity formation, it seems unlikely that humans will ever eradicate the category of ‘foreign’ altogether. As long as the world is divided into two or more political communities, some institution of governance will be making policy towards the foreign ‘other’. However, the norms and practices that underpin their interaction will change further, as they have already been noted as changing in chapter 1. Will there be a ‘Britain’ to conduct that foreign policy? On the one hand, the island geography of the UK is likely to provide some continuity in the importance of Britishness to the political identity of residents of the British Isles (excepting those in the Republic of Ireland). On the other hand, a major obstacle to this idea will be the referendum on Scottish independence which, at the time of writing, is due in 2014. It is conceivable that a vote in favour of separation might lead to the break-up of the UK, with Wales and perhaps Northern Ireland following suit. This would have substantial consequences for the territories’ standing in global politics and might result in the loss of the permanent seat in the UN Security Council, as well as reduced weight in the other institutions of economic, political and military power outlined in chapter 5. Yet if the result is against independence, then the strength of Britain as a political community is likely to be reaffirmed – even if devolution is offered instead.3 Here, then, is an immediate example of an event with an

Conclusion: future challenges

unknowable outcome (at the time of writing) that could have major repercussions for future foreign policymakers. The possibility of the break-up of the United Kingdom reminds us that challenges to British foreign policy may come from internal, domestic upheavals as well as external threats. Previous tensions over immigration and racial and religious differences could continue and be exacerbated if the UK reaches its predicted population of 70 million by 2027.4 British identity has received extensive government support, as discussed in chapter 4. The extent to which Britishness will continue to be an important identity, one that can be mobilized to support British actions abroad, will depend on how far future governments are willing to invest in its promotion and whether the British public remain receptive to these efforts. Attempts to galvanize the British people around a common identity will in part be reliant on how far the ‘British’ perceive a common interest in doing so, and this will in turn be based on their conception of international threats and opportunities. Thus far, we have discussed these in a very abstract fashion. However, more specific descriptions of possible future international trends have been offered in reports by the US National Intelligence Council (NIC), the British MOD and the Carnegie Endowment.5 These cannot, by their nature, be exhaustive or definitive. Rather, they represent useful attempts by experts in their respective fields to identify trends shaping the international political environment in the coming decades and so provide an important context to my discussion of future British foreign policy.

The future according to the US National Intelligence Council The NIC has predicted that the international system as we know it will be ‘almost unrecognizable by 2025’.6 The reasons for this change are given as a globalizing economy, a ‘historic shift of relative wealth and economic power from West to East’ and the rise of China and India – in addition to the growing importance of non-state actors such as ‘businesses, tribes, religious organizations, and . . . criminal networks’.7 Despite this bold assertion that the international system is to be transformed, precisely why these developments should have such a dramatic impact on international order is never quite explained. If anything, the survey underestimates the economic rise of China and Brazil, in particular, which have risen faster in the global rankings than predicted. However, the report’s authors suggest that this emergence of new players will not necessarily lead to challenges to the international system such as occurred with the rise of Germany and Japan in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.8 This is because China and India would probably be focused on overcoming domestic challenges of development and political stability. In addition, having risen within the existing order, the emerging

177

178

British Foreign Policy

economies would have little incentive to overturn structures which had enabled them to prosper. Therefore, assuming Britain survives as a political entity, it will be likely to continue to function as an actor within the prevailing norms of international society.9 Given China’s and India’s shared emphasis on sovereignty and noninterference, there may be some rowing back on international efforts to promote a ‘doctrine of international community’ in which international institutions have a more intrusive role in upholding human rights standards. Then again, given that both China and India voted in favour of referring the Libya situation to the ICC in February 2011, despite their concerns about the jurisdiction of that court, it may be that these states will in time become socialized into accepting the norm of conditional sovereignty where it does not impinge on their own national interests.10 How far the UK will be able to continue to perform a leadership role may also not change as dramatically as its relative decline would suggest, if some of the trends identified in the report come to pass. Noting the likelihood that the emerging economies will not seek to challenge the system as a whole, the authors go on to suggest that ‘They are also likely to want to preserve their policy freedom to maneuver, allowing others to carry the primary burden for dealing with such issues as terrorism, climate change, proliferation, and energy security.’11 In a sense, this would represent a continuation of the practice of the BRIC countries since the 1990s, with the United States and Europe being allowed to lead on normative issues from climate change to humanitarian intervention, and the rising powers being overtly obstructive only in relation to issues, regions and states in which they have a significant interest in maintaining the status quo. Cooperation has occurred among the major powers, as in the E3 + 3 negotiations with Iran, with sanctions being agreed despite the different values of China, Russia, Europe and the United States. Such arrangements may well continue to function reasonably well with the emergence of other rising powers such as India and Brazil. In this scenario, the UK, if it remains a key ally of the United States and continues its commitment to the European Union, could well persist in being an influential actor globally. It is anticipated that some of the demographic challenges facing Europe identified in the NIC report, such as an ageing population, will affect the UK less because of the immigration of young people. Yet new challenges have arisen that could have a major impact on Britain’s capacity to act internationally. The twin pillars of British foreign policy in the last four decades have been the special relationship with the United States and membership of the European Union. Fractures in Europe over how to respond to the financial crisis that began in 2007–8 continue to risk economic and political fragmentation. Were further economic shocks to lead to a break-up of the Eurozone, or nationalism to become a more potent force on the continent than European integration, then this would have major ramifications for how Britain

Conclusion: future challenges

cooperated with its European partners in international forums such as the WTO and United Nations. However, at the time of writing the political elites in Europe have, with the exception of Hungary, generally resisted retreating into national rather than regional solutions.12 The NIC outlines four possible scenarios as discussion points for thinking about the world in 2025, namely: a ‘world without the West’, in which Asian powers including Russia, China, India and Iran bandwagon to replace the hegemony of the United States; an ‘October Surprise’, in which the effects of climate change have increasingly severe repercussions; the BRIC nations’ competition for resources spilling over into open conflict, particularly between China and India; and the international agenda being more heavily influenced by non-state actors. The first and third scenarios suggest intergovernmental challenges for British foreign policymakers. The mechanisms of foreign policy would not fundamentally alter: states and their national governments would still be the key actors, the categories of foreign and domestic would be reinforced and Britain would be embroiled in power struggles that would not have been alien to nineteenth-century policymakers. The scenario of climate change could potentially be more transformative if environmental changes required wholesale migration from affected areas, increasing societal pressures from immigration and requiring deeper cooperation at a regional and international level. It is one that British foreign policymakers have already recognized as a challenge and sought to coordinate a response to, bringing climate change onto the international security agenda (as discussed in chapters 1 and 2). An even more radical change is envisioned in the last scenario, in the idea that non-state actors could have a growing influence as part of a process of ‘diffusion of power from state to nonstate actors’.13 Yet this argument is seriously underdeveloped, occupying only three pages where the other scenarios, involving states, occupy twenty, fifteen and thirteen pages respectively. This is perhaps indicative of the likelihood of the demise of a state-based international order within decades. A compelling argument to emerge from the report is that transnational crime, particularly associated with the weakness of the rule of law in Russia, could impact on states in Europe and even result in the creation of a ‘shadow’ international system.14 British foreign policy has already had to deal with the consequences of criminal behaviour allegedly emanating from Russia in the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.15 Commentators on Russia have warned of the potential threat Russian lawlessness represents to UK interests.16 The UK is also predicted to become more reliant on Russian gas imports as its North Sea reserves dwindle – a factor which could exacerbate its exposure to this challenge to the rule of law.17 However, how far transnational crime by itself would undermine the existing norms of international order and society is unclear.

179

180

British Foreign Policy

For the NIC, ‘The diversity in type of actor raises the likelihood of fragmentation occurring over the next two decades.’18 This is posited as offering the potential of a system of ‘Multipolarity without Multilateralism’, which would comprise a ‘patchwork of overlapping, often ad hoc and fragmented efforts, with shifting coalitions of member states, international organizations, social movements, NGOs, philanthropic foundations, and companies’.19 Although this is only offered as a possible future, it does seem to speak to Hague’s conception of a ‘networked world’ of greater bilateralism and issue-led cooperation, noted in chapter 4. Yet it arguably understates the extent to which coalitions, in the current climate, derive their legitimacy from the approval or acquiescence of the wider international community. For example, the Libya intervention in 2011 may have been a NATO-led mission under Operation Unified Protector; however, it derived its authority from UN Security Council Resolutions 1970, 1973 and 2009.20 David Cameron has sought to distance himself from Tony Blair’s record of intervention on a contentious legal basis by stressing that military action must have the support of the UN, as well as other countries in the region – for instance, the Arab League support for a no-fly zone over Libya.21 In other words, those taking part in action may be part of ad hoc coalitions of interested parties, but the broader legitimacy and authority for action are derived from multilateral institutions. To date, no coalition has chosen to intervene in Syria’s brutal crackdown of insurgents in 2011–12, in part because resolutions that might lead to such action have been vetoed in the UN Security Council by Russia and China.22 The Iraq invasion of 2003, and its political cost to those intervening, seem to have had the consequence that states are reluctant to act without a clear mandate from both regional powers and the UN. As such, multilateralism has arguably been strengthened. Furthermore, in the Libya case it is states, or groups that aspire to statehood, that continue to be the lead actors. As such, non-state groups have not yet come to rival or replace states in the formal structures of international politics. To summarize, although the NIC report begins by stating that the international system will be fundamentally different in 2025, the underlying implication of many of its scenarios is that states will continue to be the primary actors in world politics and that actors such as Britain will continue to practise foreign policy. They may even, if the emerging powers are willing to let them, continue to play a leading role on a host of global problems, from climate change to terrorism.

The future according to the UK Ministry of Defence In the MOD’s attempt to predict the future up to 2029, particularly when it comes to conflict, a host of challenges are identified similar to those in the

Conclusion: future challenges

NIC document, including geostrategic alliances, climate change, demography, globalization and energy resource scarcity.23 In addition, this report identifies those of failed and failing states, globalization and ideology. The UK state is still expected to function as a unitary actor in the international realm (although the report does acknowledge that ‘some conflicts will create risks, including extremism, within our own communities’).24 However, the impression offered is of a curtailing of the freedom of action of the UK due to the complex relationships of interdependence which are emerging in the twenty-first century. For instance, the report asserts that ‘The physical and virtual networks that support globalization, known as the global commons, will have to be protected and this may reduce the level of discretion for the UK.’25 In other words, the more interconnected the world becomes, the more Britain’s actions will impinge on others. This could be seen as affecting the UK’s capacity to act in the international realm, and hence its ability to construct a foreign policy. Or it might equally be read as requiring a greater degree of diplomatic, military and economic activity, due to the need to persuade or coerce other states and non-state actors to support British actions. Britain’s use of force as an instrument of foreign policy is predicted to become more restrictive and problematic in the coming decades for three reasons. Firstly, ‘Western legal and societal norms’ are identified as placing constraints on how the armed forces conduct their operations, and it is anticipated that fear of collateral damage will require ‘greater use of precision weapons’.26 The importance of such precision is underlined by the increasing sophistication of non-state actors, who are expected to ‘exploit information based technologies, to influence global opinion’.27 The prominence of non-state actors in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has made it difficult for UK forces to discriminate between combatants and noncombatants, and this trend is seen as likely to persist in future conflicts. Britain will have to invest in technology that enhances their armed forces’ capacity to discriminate if they are to retain support for their actions, both at home and abroad. Linked to this is the problem of cost. Precision weapons are more financially costly and this will increase the burden on already strained defence budgets. The spectrum of operations that the UK must prepare for is widening, including space, cyberspace, urban environments and extreme climates. As noted in chapter 7, defence inflation is running at upwards of 7 per cent. With the increasing welfare burden of an ageing population, the report concludes that: ‘UK Defence must decide whether to reduce its technological edge to niche areas or maintain broader based capabilities at lower technological standards.’28 The cuts outlined in the SDSR imply the coalition government has already chosen the former option. This will have implications for Britain’s capacity to act independently due to its narrowing range of capabilities.

181

182

British Foreign Policy

The third challenge is the pattern of alliances that the UK must negotiate. This has already proven difficult in the last decade, with major differences of opinion on the use of force apparent between the United States and the UK and other major European powers over Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011). The report envisages that the UK will ‘retain multiple global interests with inextricable ties to Europe and North America’.29 As such, it argues that ‘it will be necessary to maintain a position of balance as the US–Chinese and EU– Russian relationships develop’.30 But the report is vague on the kinds of strategic choices that the UK may need to make and how these might fit with Britain’s values. Competition over resources is expected to require the UK to engage in military action to protect the supply of raw materials, and this will have to be done ‘in concert with its partners’.31 But it says surprisingly little about the choice of partners available and what criteria policymakers might use to decide between them should they be in conflict. Despite the level of change implied by this account, the authors do assert that continuities will also be apparent. For example, they suggest that ‘The fundamental nature of conflict is enduring. It will remain a violent contest; a mix of chance, risk and policy.’32 Thus it anticipates that violence will continue to play a part in world politics, and the UK will have to keep significant capabilities so that it can use force to secure its interests. The report also foresees Britain exercising a leading role in global politics and continuing to ‘host many leading multinational corporations, retain leadership in some areas of science and technology and maintain its role in the international financial system’.33

The future according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace A more pessimistic forecast of Britain’s relative power and scope for leadership in global politics is apparent, however, in a Carnegie Endowment report on the world in 2050.34 In particular, they outline the scale of the shift in economic power from West to East, which is expected to have commensurate implications for British foreign policy. It is assumed that Britain’s lack of investment in its economy (noted in chapter 8) will continue, leaving it along with Germany as investing at the lowest rate in the G20, at 17–18 per cent per year. Meanwhile, the highest investment over the next four decades will be experienced by China and India, who are anticipated to have an average rate of 33–4 per cent per year.35 Britain’s lack of investment is likely to impact on growth. Among the already developed states of the G7, including the UK, GDP is expected to grow by less than 2.1 per cent annually. This will lead their share of G20 GDP to decline from 72.3 per cent to 40.5 per cent.36 The share of G20 GDP contributed by the four major European economies of Germany, France, the UK and Italy is predicted to shrink from 24 per cent in 2009 to 10 per cent in 2050.37 As a result, the report’s authors

Conclusion: future challenges

conclude that ‘to retain their historic influence in the world economy, European nations will increasingly need to conduct foreign policy under an EU banner’.38 However, Dadush and Stancil note that the EU’s response to the crisis in the Eurozone does not suggest that such cooperation will be forthcoming.39 In the light of this shift in global economic power, the authors assert that existing multilateral structures will weaken and the ‘governance and functioning of the bedrock international institutions – the G20/G8, World Bank, IMF, WTO, Global Stability Board, and the UN – will have to be rethought’.40 Static multilateral forums such as the UN and WTO are predicted to be sidelined in favour of ‘more flexible approaches involving a critical mass of players on a given issue or in a particular geographic region’.41 In other words, in common with the NIC and MOD reports, the authors anticipate a weakening of the formal structures of international society and order and a greater fragmentation in the patterns of cooperation. The report also sees the elevation of the G20 as the ‘end of wealthy countries’ dominance over the world economy’.42 There are some aspects of this analysis which are more optimistic about the UK’s future economic prospects. It ranks the UK highest in terms of technological catch-up with the United States in its sample of major states, and this level of convergence is likely to mean the UK will continue to benefit from technological innovations.43 Furthermore, although its share of world GDP will decline, Britain’s per capita wealth will remain higher than that of the rising powers.44 However, it would appear that the international environment is likely to be one in which it will be more difficult to promote Britain’s values and interests through egoistic foreign policy. Cooperation with other powerful states and regional groups is conveyed as fundamental to the exercise of power in future decades. In that sense, we can expect British foreign policymakers to have to pool their resources and compromise even more than they have in the post-Cold War era if they are to achieve their goals.

Conclusion In sum, this book has endeavoured to outline how the United Kingdom makes its foreign policy and constructs a sense of itself as an actor in international politics. The book has argued that the governance of British foreign policy is an important subject for analysis as policymakers do make choices in this field and these are important in shaping global political outcomes. Despite the ongoing threats to the primacy of states as an institution and to Britain’s position as a leading state, outlined in this chapter, these analyses imply that the political environment of global politics will continue to be intergovernmental, and the UK will remain a wealthy member of the G20 and a military power for decades to come. The fact that it will have declined in the world rankings with the rise of the growing economies of China, India, Brazil and

183

184

British Foreign Policy

perhaps Russia does not necessarily mean that it will no longer be able to exercise a leading role in some policy areas, or that it will not exercise power independently in the future. However, growing interconnectedness between the participants in international relations will mean that it is likely to incur a higher cost in doing so. As such, it would be advised to increase its stock of goodwill among fellow actors in world politics and work hard to maintain its links within existing and emerging networks of power. To do so will require many of the old skills of foreign policy, such as diplomacy, coercion, cooperation and alliance-building, in addition to the exploitation of new technologies.

Notes

Chapter 1 Introduction: analysing British foreign policy 1

2

3 4 5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21

In November 2011, Jin Liqun, chairman of China Investment Corp, declared: ‘If you look at the troubles which happened in European countries, this is purely because of the accumulated troubles of the worn out welfare society . . . The labor laws induce sloth, indolence, rather than hardworking’ (China Post, ‘China fund official’). For a theoretical discussion of agency in a globalized world, see Cerny, ‘Political agency’. Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, xvi. Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, 19. OPEC quadrupled the price of oil in response to Western support for Israel in the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria: Keylor, The Twentieth Century World, 320. E.g. Kindleberger, The International Corporation; Ohmae, The Borderless World; Ohmae, The End of the Nation State; Guéhenno, The End of the Nation State; Camilleri and Falk, The End of Sovereignty? Brian Hocking notes a view that ‘the twin forces of globalisation and regionalisation are challenging governments and have diminished the significance of . . . traditional instruments of diplomacy’ (‘Introduction’, 1). According to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) website, Britain is now party to over 14,000 treaties. Keohane, After Hegemony; Keohane and Martin, ‘The promise of liberal’. Hain, The End of Foreign Policy?, 6. Hain, The End of Foreign Policy?, 17. Hain, The End of Foreign Policy?, 26. Cooper, The Postmodern State and the World Order, 20. Josselin and Wallace, Non-State Actors; Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders. Whitman, ‘Global dynamics’. Kumar, ‘Global civil society’; Kaldor et al., Global Civil Society 2012; Falk, ‘On the political’; Nesadurai, ‘Introduction’; Shorr and Wright, ‘Forum: the G20’. Copeland, Guerrilla Diplomacy, 29. Copeland, Guerrilla Diplomacy, 45. Waever, ‘Resisting the temptation’, 243; Rosenau and Czempiel, Governance Without Government. Webber and Smith, Foreign Policy in a Transformed World, 11. Cameron, An Introduction, 6–7, 40–1. 185

186

Notes to pp. 4–9

22 23 24 25

26 27 28

29 30

31 32 33

34 35

36

37

Campbell, Writing Security, 35–50. Waever, ‘Resisting the temptation’. Ferguson, ‘Sinking globalization’. A. J. P. Taylor notes that: ‘Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police’ (English History, 1). Krasner, ‘Think again: sovereignty’, 1. See Krasner, Power, the State and Sovereignty, esp. part III. E.g. Hirst and Thompson, Globalization in Question; Held et al., Global Transformations, conclusion; Gilpin, Global Political Economy. Webber and Smith, Foreign Policy in a Transformed World, 2. See ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect; Blair, ‘Doctrine of international community’. Williams, British Foreign Policy, ch. 7. Watson, ‘Sand in the wheels’; Coates and Hay, ‘The internal and external’. See Wendt, ‘Anarchy is what states make of it’, 411, 421; Wendt, ‘Collective identity formation’. Disasters Emergency Committee, ‘Tsunami earthquake appeal’. Hollis and Smith described these two approaches as involving the different goals of explaining or understanding, with one seeking causal links and the other more diffuse contributory factors shaping events; see Hollis and Smith, Explaining and Understanding. For debates on the validity of each approach, see Walt, ‘The renaissance of security studies’; King et al., Designing Social Inquiry; Keohane, International Institutions; Walt, ‘International relations’; Smith, ‘Positivism and beyond’; George, ‘International relations’; George and Campbell, ‘Patterns of dissent’; Smith, ‘The discipline of international relations’. Smith, ‘Foreign policy analysis’, 45. The key text of the comparative approach was Rosenau, The Scientific Study. A disciplinary history of FPA is available in Hudson, Foreign Policy Analysis, 3–36. Smith, ‘Foreign policy analysis’, 47–8. For bureaucratic politics analyses, see Allison and Zelikow, Essence of Decision, ch. 3; Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics; Wallace, The Foreign Policy Process. A critique of this model is offered in Freedman, ‘Logic, politics and foreign policy’. A good overview of the main arguments is offered in Alden and Aran, Foreign Policy Analysis, ch. 3. Introductions to the study of political processes and foreign policy are given in Hill, The Changing Politics, ch. 9; Alden and Aran, Foreign Policy Analysis, ch. 4; Hilsman, The Politics of Policy Making, 74–7, 82–126. Groupthink analysis is particularly associated with Janis, Groupthink. It has since been applied in Smith, ‘Groupthink and the hostage’; Walker and Watson, ‘Groupthink’; Yetiv, ‘Groupthink and the Gulf crisis’; Badie, ‘Groupthink, Iraq’. For studies of beliefs and images, see Jervis, Perception and Misperception; Jervis, The Logic of Images; Herrmann et al., ‘Images

Notes to pp. 9–10

38

39 40 41

42

43

44

45 46 47

48

49

50

51

in international relations’; Houghton, ‘The role of analogical reasoning’; Dyson, The Blair Identity; Brummer, ‘Decision-making on the use of force’. For a summary of this approach, see Gross Stein, ‘Foreign policy decisionmaking’, 107–8. Recent examples include James and Zhang, ‘Chinese choices’; Mintz, ‘Applied decision analysis’; Oppermann, ‘Delineating the scope’; a useful overview is offered in Hudson, Foreign Policy Analysis, 39–45. Aristotle, Ethics, 64. Bull, ‘The case for a classical approach’. This is precisely the charge levelled in Avery et al., ‘The beltway vs. the ivory tower’. Interpretivism has its origins in hermeneutics, the study of texts to establish their essence or core spirit. It has moved beyond this approach in its antifoundationalism, an approach that rejects the sense that there is one foundational truth to be uncovered in favour of an acceptance of the conditional and fragile nature of interpretation. See Bevir and Rhodes, Interpreting British Governance, 171; Bevir, Interpretive Political Science; Gadamer, Truth and Method; Berger and Luckman, The Social Construction; also the forthcoming special issue of British Journal of Politics and International Relations on interpretivism and British foreign policy, due in 2013. I have found E. H. Carr’s extended essay What is History? a powerful influence on my own approach to historical research. I have also made extensive use of the interview archives available through the British Diplomatic Oral History Programme, which has posted a treasure trove of interview data with former practitioners on the Churchill College, Cambridge, website; see www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP. Hennessey, ‘John Garrett Memorial Lecture’. Aristotle, Ethics, 65. Beach, Analyzing Foreign Policy, part I; Alden and Aran, Foreign Policy Analysis, 1–14. See also the case studies in Smith et al., Foreign Policy. A rare intervention in this territory was provided by Heath, ‘Realism in British foreign policy’. Heath does ground his discussion on ‘interests’ and refers to power on a regular basis, but his faith in supranational organizations such as the EEC and his desire to see European states ‘harmonizing foreign policy within the Council of Ministers of the EEC’ (46) put him at quite a distance from the more statist, sovereignty-fixated realism of Mearsheimer, for instance (see Mearsheimer, The Tragedy). Useful introductions to realist thought include Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations; Waltz, Theory of International Politics; Donnelly, ‘Realism’; Mearsheimer, The Tragedy; Ned Lebow, The Tragic Vision; Der Derian, International Theory; Molloy, The Hidden History of Realism. For an excellent overview of liberal theory, see Dunne, ‘Liberalism’; also Burchill, ‘Liberalism’; Moravcsik, ‘The new liberalism’. The former permanent under-secretary of state at the FCO, Lord Kerr, complained in an interview that ‘too many’ entrants to the FCO now had degrees in ‘International Relations which I personally don’t think is a real university subject’ (Kerr, ‘Interview’). This might imply that the organization will be more aware of, and receptive to, international relations scholarship in future years

187

188

Notes to pp. 10–16

52

53

54

as these entrants proceed up the career ladder. For the record, a norm is an expectation of behaviour, one that usually implies a moral responsibility for members of a society to follow. For an excellent account of historical method, and the importance of referencing, see Evans, Telling Lies About Hitler. See Smith, ‘The discipline of international relations’; Kurki and Wight, ‘International relations and social science’; Beach, Analyzing Foreign Policy, 235. The most useful introductory texts on research methods were Wetherell et al., Discourse Theory as Data; Wetherell et al., Discourse Theory and Practice.

Chapter 2 1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13

14

15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24

The actors in British foreign policy

Clarke, British External Policy-Making, 74. Clarke, British External Policy-Making, 75. Davies, ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner?’. Denis McShane’s criticism of the FCO in this piece seems disingenuous. Whilst the foreign secretary may approve all invitations going out in the queen’s name, there is little doubt that the queen herself was deciding the content of the guest list. Witchell, ‘Ireland “will remember”’. FAC, The Role of the FCO, Ev. 21. Dickie, The New Mandarins, 129. Powell, ‘Interview’. Dickie, The New Mandarins, 129. Coles, Making Foreign Policy, 24. Kavanagh and Seldon, The Powers Behind the Prime Minister, 11. Campbell, The Blair Years, 206. The exception would be in Major’s negotiation of the Maastricht Treaty; see Patten, Not Quite the Diplomat, 23. Campbell, The Blair Years, 201. On the role of special advisers in government, see LSE GV314 Group, ‘New life at the top’. However, Blair did intervene at times to overrule Cook, most notably over arms sales. Daddow, ‘“Tony’s war”?’ Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, 52–3. Chandler, ‘Rhetoric without responsibility’. Owen, ‘The ever growing dominance’, 30. Kavanagh and Seldon, The Powers Behind the Prime Minister, 288. Christopher Meyer, Washington ambassador, asserts that between 2001 and 2003 ‘the Foreign Office impinged little on my life between 9/11 and the day I retired at the end of February 2003 I had not a single substantive policy discussion on the secure phone with the Foreign Office’; instead he dealt directly with the Prime Minister’s Office: Meyer, DC Confidential, 190. Kavanagh, The Blair Effect, 10; Hill and Oliver, ‘Afterword’, 129. Short, An Honourable Deception?, 160. Butler, Review of Intelligence, 160. Cross, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’; Gaskarth, ‘Where would we be’.

Notes to pp. 16–20

25

26 27

28 29 30 31 32

33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Blair, ‘Evidence of the Rt. Hon.’, 15. In questioning Blair for the Iraq Inquiry in 2011, Sir Martin Gilbert cited a Cabinet paper issued on 19 July 2002 in which the former prime minister was said to have told the president in April 2002 that the ‘United Kingdom will support military action to bring about regime change provided certain conditions were met’ (Blair, ‘Evidence of the Rt. Hon.’, 8). Blair had earlier been pressed at the inquiry on whether he had expressed firm commitments on military action to President Bush, and averred that ‘If we tried the UN route and it failed, then my view was it had to be dealt with’ (Blair, ‘Rt. Hon. Tony Blair’, 51). Dickie, The New Mandarins, 93. Jack Straw was foreign secretary, 2001–6. This is according to David Miliband; see FAC, The Role of the FCO, 42. Margaret Beckett was foreign secretary, 2006–7. Malloch-Brown, interview with the author. Hague, ‘The future of British foreign policy’. FAC, The Role of the FCO, 43. FAC, The Role of the FCO, 43. Further information on special representatives is available at www.fco.gov.uk/ en/about-us/who-we-are/special-representatives. FAC, The Role of the FCO, 53–4. FAC, The Role of the FCO, 58. JCNS, ‘The National Security’, 3. FAC, The UK’s Foreign Policy Approach, 68. The Cabinet is made up of the secretaries of state (i.e. ministers) from the most senior government departments as well as ‘ministers without portfolio’, who may have a role in the overall strategy of the government. Members are largely drawn from the House of Commons. Prime ministers wishing to appoint outsiders to ministerial positions of Cabinet rank have in the past done so by making them members of the House of Lords. For a good introduction, see Sampson, Who Runs This Place?, 88–94. Coles, Making Foreign Policy, 24. Peter Hennessey, in FAC, The Role of the FCO, Ev. 10. Interview with the author. Owen, interview with the author. At the time, David Owen was foreign secretary, Denis Healey the chancellor of the Exchequer and Tony Benn the energy secretary. Peter Hennessey, in FAC, The Role of the FCO, Ev. 10. Kavanagh and Seldon, The Powers Behind the Prime Minister, 277. Cook, The Point of Departure, 115. Cook, The Point of Departure, 116. Short, An Honourable Deception?, 150. Short, An Honourable Deception?, 147. Short, An Honourable Deception?, 71. Blair, ‘Rt. Hon. Tony Blair’, 20, 226. Blair, ‘Evidence of the Rt. Hon.’, 10–12. Straw, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 24. Burall et al., Not in Our Name, 14. Cook, The Point of Departure, 169.

189

190

Notes to pp. 20–24

54 55 56 57 58

59

60 61 62 63 64 65 66

67 68

69

70 71 72 73

74 75

76 77

78 79 80 81

Seldon, Blair, 327; Mandelson, The Third Man, 237–8. PAC, Who Does UK National Strategy?, Ev. 53. PAC, Who Does UK National Strategy?, Ev. 34. PAC, Who Does UK National Strategy?, Ev. 53. Boardman and Groom cite Macmillan’s consultation of the Cabinet over committing British troops to the defence of Jordan in July 1958, in which each Cabinet minister was made to express their view in turn: The Management of Britain’s, 145. However, Lloyd George is said to have noted that ‘a man who makes a five minutes’ speech in a Cabinet is voted a bore straight away’, suggesting the depth of discussion has historically been limited: Boardman and Groom, The Management of Britain’s, 145. GCHQ defines itself as a provider of both SIGINT (signals intelligence, electronically acquired or transmitted intelligence) and information assurance (the protection of sensitive government and commercial data); see www.gchq.gov. uk/about_us/whatwedo.html. PAC, Who Does UK National Strategy?, Ev. 19. PAC, Who Does UK National Strategy?, Ev. 25–6. PAC, Who Does UK National Strategy?, Ev. 25. PAC, Who Does UK National Strategy?, Ev. 21. Interview with FCO official, 2011. Interview with FCO official, 2011. For key texts on diplomacy, see Roberts, Satow’s Diplomatic Practice; Berridge, Diplomacy: Theory; Nicolson, Diplomacy; Hamilton and Langhorne, The Practice of Diplomacy. FCO, Annual Report and Accounts, 1. The FCO’s funding of the BBC Monitoring Service is expected to end in 2013–14. Information derived from www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-us/who-we-are/ourdirectorate, accessed 15 October 2012. Dickie, The New Mandarins, 102. Kerr, ‘Interview’. Allen, ‘The United Kingdom’, 254. The FCO also operates nearly 130 subordinate posts abroad, making a total of nearly 270 in total: FCO, Annual Report and Accounts, 2. Jay, ‘Interview’. Lord Kerr notes in interview that the embassy in Washington had 600 staff, more than half of whom were from the Ministry of Defence: Kerr, ‘Interview’. Jay, ‘Interview’. Lord Carter of Coles defined public diplomacy in his 2005 report as ‘work aiming to inform and engage individuals and organisations overseas, in order to improve understanding of and influence for the United Kingdom’ (Carter, Public Diplomacy Review, 4). Hague, ‘Britain’s prosperity’. For a collection of these remarks, see Parris, Parting Shots. Bryson, ‘Ambassadors going out with a bang’. Bryson, ‘Ambassadors going out with a bang’.

Notes to pp. 25–29

82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

91

92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

102 103

104 105 106 107 108

109 110 111 112

113

Copeland, Guerrilla Diplomacy, 4. Copeland, Guerrilla Diplomacy, 177. FCO, Annual Report, 2007–8, 28. Bryant, interview with the author. Hague, ‘Britain’s foreign policy’. FAC, Second Report, Session 2008–9, para. 76. Dudley Edwards, True Brits; Meyer, Getting Our Way, 6. FCO, Annual Report and Accounts, 62. FAC, The Role of the FCO, 26. Information on the German Foreign Ministry and its funding is available at www.auswaertiges-amt.de/DE/AAmt/00Aktuelles/ 111123_Haushalt_2012.html, accessed 16 October 2012. FAC, The Role of the FCO, 25. Evans and Steven put the amount at £100 million out of an annual budget of £830 million: Organizing for Influence, 4. FCO, Annual Report and Accounts, 36. FAC, The Role of the FCO, 26. Cook, ‘Mission statement’. FCO, Departmental Report and Accounts, 2008–9, xvii. Dickie, The New Mandarins, 97. FCO, Annual Report and Accounts, 1. FAC, The Role of the FCO, 34. FAC, The Role of the FCO, 49. Meyer, Getting Our Way, 16–17. FAC, The UK’s Foreign Policy Approach. On concern about language training, see para. 33. DFID, Annual Report and Accounts. The former PUS Michael Jay argued: ‘You must have a sense of the British Government’s policy towards Ethiopia or towards Nigeria or towards Nepal; you can’t have two offices each representing different bits of the British Government trying to deal with the same people in the administration. It doesn’t make any sense at all; it is a recipe for incoherence’ (Jay, ‘Interview’). Burall et al., Not in Our Name, 15. Burall et al., Not in Our Name, xi. House of Lords, A(FC) and others, para. 116, 154. Burall et al., Not in Our Name, 16. For further information on Parliament and foreign policy, see Carstairs and Ware, Parliament and International Relations; Sampson, Who Runs This Place?; Clarke, British External Policy-Making, 114–33. Abrams, ‘Mandarin slated’. Dickie, The New Mandarins, 151. BBC, ‘Mackinlay defends’. For further information on the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee, see www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/ commons-select/european-scrutiny-committee/role. For the committees correspondence, see www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/european-scrutiny-committee/ ministerial-correspondence.

191

192

Notes to pp. 29–31

114

115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123

124

125 126 127 128

129

130

131 132 133

134

Robinson, ‘Public affairs television’; Wanta et al., ‘Agenda setting and international news’. Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent. Scheufele and Tewksbury, ‘Framing, agenda setting’, 9–12. Coles, Making Foreign Policy. Hutton, Report of the Inquiry. Hough, Understanding Global Security, 205. Howe, interview with the author. Koinova, ‘Four types of diaspora’. Pathirana, ‘Tamil diaspora united’. David Owen notes in an interview with the author (2003) that his foreign policy towards Israel when foreign secretary was constrained by a desire not to create political difficulties for the prime minister, Jim Callaghan: ‘He let me know quite early on that Harold Wilson had said when he was stepping down: “You know, Jim, I am going to support your government but the one area where I reserve the right to not support you would be on Arab–Israeli issues.” Harold Wilson was very pro-Israel. And, Callaghan said: “I want you to avoid a fight. I don’t want to be locked into a fight with the former prime minister.” So I knew the guidelines: he didn’t want to cross that line.’ Hill, ‘British foreign policy’, 14. In analysing UK policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan, the FAC note that ‘There is also, in the view of one witness, “a skilful and far-reaching Pakistani lobby”, many of whom are wealthy and some of whom constitute an important – perhaps even decisive – political constituency in some marginals’ (FAC, The UK’s Foreign Policy Approach, 20). Telegraph, ‘Libya: Colonel Gaddafi “flees” to Venezuela’. Booth, ‘Libya rescue mission’. Chulov, ‘Libyan rebels free British’. During the military intervention in Kosovo in 1999, NATO policymakers became so concerned at how the operation was being negatively reported in the press that they set up a Coalition Information Centre, supervised by the British government’s director of communications, Alistair Campbell, to provide instant comment on and rebuttal of breaking news stories. For more detail on the Labour Party’s historical attitudes to foreign policy, see Vickers, The Labour Party and the World, vols. 1 and 2; Owen, ‘The internationalist tradition’. For an exploration of how New Labour sought to overcome this, see Phythian, ‘From asset to liability’. See Buller, ‘Conservative statecraft’. See Marsh, ‘David Cameron’s veto’; Parkes, ‘How David Cameron’. See Gaskarth, ‘Discourses and ethics’; Gaskarth, ‘Interpreting ethical foreign policy’. E.g. Wheeler and Dunne, ‘Good international citizenship’; Vickers, ‘Labour’s search’; Dunne and Wheeler, ‘The Blair doctrine’; Abrahamsen and Williams, ‘Ethics and foreign policy’; Williams, ‘Tough on debt’. See also Held and Mepham, Progressive Foreign Policy.

Notes to pp. 31–35

135

136 137

138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145

146

147

148 149 150

151

152 153

154 155 156

Dodds and Elden, ‘Thinking ahead’; Beech, ‘British Conservatism’; Bew, ‘What is a Liberal Conservative’; Honeyman, ‘Liberal Conservatism and foreign policy’; Honeyman, ‘Foreign policy’. Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders. Saferworld provides conflict training to the FCO and other government departments and advises the FCO on the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms. For further information on the activities of Saferworld, see www.saferworld. org.uk. FCO, ‘UK Government launches strategy’; FCO, ‘International Criminal Court’. CAEC, Scrutiny of Arms Export Controls (2011), 6. JCHR, Allegations of UK Complicity, para. 13. Gaskarth, ‘Ethical policies’. Cook, ‘Mission statement’. FCO, Annual Human Rights Report, 2004, 79. Gaskarth, ‘Ethical policies’. ’Jeremy Browne meets NGO directors to discuss human rights’, http:// ukinaustria.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=22459288, accessed 11 October 2012. Data derived from DFID website. Further information on partnership agreements is available at www.dfid.gov.uk/work-with-us/funding-opportunities/ not-for-profit-organisations/ppas. The influence of Lawrence Freedman on the ‘doctrine of international community’ noted above is perhaps one exception. The current situation of detachment contrasts with the interwar period and the immediate postwar period, when scholars such as David Mitrany and E. H. Carr combined service in the Foreign Office with scholarly careers: Wallace, ‘Truth and power’, 318–19. Malcolm Chalmers, an academic expert on defence and special adviser to Jack Straw and Margaret Beckett, was singled out by one FCO official as having particular influence, especially under Beckett’s tenure: FCO official, interview with the author. Bevir, New Labour: A Critique; Parsons, ‘From muddling through’. Wallace, ‘Truth and power’. Margaret Thatcher organized a meeting at Chequers in September 1983 at which a number of Sovietologists were consulted about policy towards the Soviet Union. Out of this meeting is said to have come the push to reach out to the younger generation of Soviet politicians, including the agriculture minister, Mikhail Gorbachev: Wallace, ‘Truth and power’, 320. TTCSP, The Global Go To Think Tanks Report 2011. For rare discussions of the influence of think tanks on British foreign policy, see Parmar, ‘Institutes of international affairs’; Parmar, Think Tanks and Power. Williams, ‘Who’s making UK foreign policy?’, 914. Patten, Not Quite the Diplomat, 278–81; Williams, ‘Who’s making UK foreign policy?’, 914–15. Hague, ‘British foreign policy’. Hague, ‘Britain’s prosperity’. A series of scandals regarding British businesses abroad and their relations with ‘rogue states’ has arisen in the last few decades, from the notorious

193

194

Notes to pp. 35–39

157

158 159 160 161

162

163

164

165

166 167 168

169 170 171 172

173 174 175

176 177 178 179

Matrix Churchill affair, involving the selling of armaments components to Iraq in the late 1980s, to the 2012 extradition to the United States of a British businessman accused of violating sanctions on Iran. For instance, the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 had a significant, albeit short-term, impact on attitudes to the UK in the United States. FAC, The Role of the FCO, 3, 4, 11. Lee, ‘The growing influence of business’, 51. See Lee, ‘The growing influence of business’, 54. The CFSP was established under the Maastricht Treaty (signed in 1992, effective in 2003) and aimed to put the prior efforts at European political cooperation on a more formal institutional footing. A high representative was appointed under the Amsterdam Treaty of 1998, the first being Javier Solana, a former NATO secretary-general. The post has now been combined with that of the EU commissioner for external affairs and has a much higher status. Baroness Ashton is vice-president of the EU Commission, president of the Foreign Affairs Council and European Defence Agency, and head of the European External Action Service, among other roles. Ashton chairs the Foreign Affairs Council made up of foreign ministers from each of the member states of the European Union. For further information, see www.eeas.europa.eu/what_we_do/index_en.htm, accessed 7 October 2012. Information derived from the EEAS website, www.eeas.europa.eu/background/ organisation/index_en.htm, accessed 7 October 2012 For more detail on the workings of the EU’s foreign policy machinery, see Cameron, An Introduction to European Foreign Policy. Response to EU parliamentary question, 26 January 2010: www.europarl. europa.eu/sides/getAllAnswers.do?reference = E-2009–5998&language = EN. Dikstra, ‘The political influence’. Wallace, ‘Europe after the Cold War’, 206. Jonathan Powell argues in The New Machiavelli that ‘Europe is no longer part of foreign policy for any British prime minister . . . because the vast majority of European business nowadays is directly related to domestic matters, leaving Europe in the Foreign Office is an anachronism’ (244–5). Jay, ‘Interview’. Acland, ‘Interview’. Butler, ‘Interview’. Jeremy Greenstock offers the examples of visits to the Great Lakes, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, the Balkans and Afghanistan as indicative of this more active stance: ‘Interview’. Greenstock, ‘Interview’. Howe, interview with the author. The UK’s resistance to sanctions on apartheid South Africa is one possible example. Stewart, ‘Gordon Brown calls’. Jay, ‘Interview’. Brenton, ‘Interview’. Stewart, ‘Gordon Brown calls’.

Notes to pp. 39–49

180

181

Bell and Hindmoor, Rethinking Governance, 10. I am grateful to Peter Lord for bringing this source to my attention. Bell and Hindmoor, Rethinking Governance, 10.

Chapter 3 1 2

3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

How is British foreign policy made?

Allison and Zelikow, Essence of Decision. For a critique of Allison, see Freedman, ‘Logic, politics and foreign policy processes’. Huntington, ‘American ideals versus American institutions’. Allen, ‘The United Kingdom’, 256. E.g. Waever, ‘The language of foreign policy’; Rosenau, The Scientific Study. See Williams, ‘Who’s making UK foreign policy?’; Ziegner, British Diplomacy. As with any generalization, exceptions to this rule do exist. With the election of New Labour in 1997, a number of scholars did seek to translate the idea of a ‘Third Way’ of governing in domestic politics to foreign policy; see Wheeler and Dunne, ‘Good international citizenship’; Vickers, ‘Labour’s search for a third way ‘; Williams, ‘Tough on debt’; Abrahamsen and Williams, ‘Ethics and foreign policy’. E.g. Larsen, Foreign Policy and Discourse. Marsh, ‘The new orthodoxy’, 37. See Gaskarth, ‘Discourses and ethics’. Interview with the author, 2011. Interview with the author, 2011. Interview with the author, 2011. Interview with the author, 2011. Interview with special adviser, 2011. Interview with FCO official, 2011. Interview with FCO official, 2011. Copeland, Guerrilla Diplomacy, 156; Sharp and Wiseman, Diplomatic Corps as an Institution of International Society; Roberts, Satow’s Diplomatic Practice. Bellamy, ‘The Whitehall programme’, 84. Bevir, ‘Democratic governance’, 65. Interview with the author, 2010. Interview with the author, 2011. Interview with the author, 2011. Interview with the author, 2011. Marsh, ‘Understanding British government’, 38. Bevir and Rhodes, ‘The life, death and resurrection’, 65. See Rhodes, ‘The UK Economic’, 124. Bellamy, ‘The Whitehall programme’, 83. Bevir and Rhodes, ‘The life, death and resurrection’ 59. Bevir, ‘A decentred theory’, 5. Bevir, ‘A decentred theory’, 16. Bevir and Rhodes, ‘The life, death and resurrection’, 65. Interview with the author, 2010. Grant, Is Europe Doomed, 10.

195

196

Notes to pp. 49–53

35

36

37

38 39 40 41

42 43 44

45 46 47 48

49 50

51

52 53

54

In the UK domestic context, this move has been dated by Rod Rhodes to 1979 and the incoming Conservative government’s desire to broaden the range of actors engaged in service provision; see Rhodes, ‘The UK Economic’, 123. Bluth, ‘The British road to war’; Kettell, ‘Who’s afraid of Saddam Hussein?’; Holland, ‘Blair’s “war on terror”’. IISS, Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. The British Prime Minister’s Office is said to have described the report as ‘highly significant’; see BBC, ‘UK hails new weapons report’. The report’s author, Gary Samore, was interviewed on the US television channel CNN on 9 September 2002. Although arguing that the report’s intention was ‘not to make a compelling case one way or the other in terms of whether a military attack is justified’, he later asserted that ‘If the U.S. acts now to force inspections or change the regime, the threat will be relatively less. If you wait the threat becomes much greater’; CNN, ‘IISS: the case against Iraq’. This seems to reinforce the UK government’s calls for action prevalent at the time. Marsh and Rhodes, Policy Networks. Brenton, ‘Interview’. Brenton, ‘Interview’. See also Aldrich, ‘Transatlantic intelligence’. The British author Bernard Lewis is said to have had a notable impact on neoconservative attitudes to Middle East policy; see Hirsh, ‘Bernard Lewis revisited’. Richardson, ‘Government, interest’, 1008. Coleman and Perl, ‘Internationalized policy environments’, 703. For instance, Mark Leonard argues in a 2005 pamphlet on public diplomacy that: ‘achieving political change now means developing new coalitions by using a wide range of policy and communications tools’; Leonard et al., British Public Diplomacy, 5. Leonard et al., British Public Diplomacy, 8. Interview with the author, 2003. Marsh, ‘The new orthodoxy’, 38. Interview with the author, 2011. Sir Ivor Roberts also suggested that the impetus came from ‘the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. They never understood that foreign policy is not something that can be measured in the way that productivity of a widget factory can.’ Coles, Making Foreign Policy, 9–10. In an interview with the author, Sir Douglas Hurd argues: ‘It obscures. It certainly does in the business world . . . It caricatures the business world and I think the present fashionable jargon obscures thought, actually.’ In a book review, Brian Barder, a former diplomat, bemoaned the introduction of ‘terminologies borrowed from business and the army, neither of which remotely resembles the FCO or the diplomatic service’; ‘Britain: still looking’, 367. See March and Simon, Organizations, introduction. Allison, Essence of Decision, 307. Allison qualifies this statement in his revised edition: ‘Some readers leaned a bit too hard on a strong definition of the word “depends” to mean “is always determined by”. Instead we mean that where you stand “is substantially affected by” where you sit’; Allison, Essence of Decision, 307. See p. 27.

Notes to pp. 54–59

55 56 57 58

59 60 61

62

63 64 65 66

67 68 69 70 71 72

73

74 75 76

77

Jay, ‘Interview’. Bevir, ‘A decentred theory’, 18; Bevir, ‘Democratic Governance’, 482. Bevir, ‘Democratic governance’, 62. See Bevir and Rhodes, ‘The life, death and resurrection’, 63; Bevir and O’Brien, ‘New Labour and the public sector’. Marsh and Sharman, ‘Policy diffusion’, 273. Marsh and Sharman, ‘Policy diffusion’, 273. Bevir, ‘A decentred theory’, 4–5. A useful guide to the underlying forces contributing to the spread of neoliberal ideas is offered by David Harvey in his A Brief History of Neoliberalism. For critiques of this process, see Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents; Spar, Mortgaging Women’s Lives. A useful review of the literature and the impacts of structural adjustment policies is afforded by Crisp and Kelly, ‘The socioeconomic impact’. Bellamy, ‘The Whitehall programme’, 82. Marsh, ‘Understanding British government’, 257. Marsh, ‘Understanding British government’, 257. Anecdotally, some Muslims, notably of Kurdish origin or from the Gulf states, indicated to the author that they were supportive of this military action; however, the sense from media reporting is that the majority in this community were opposed. Engaging with Young People Working Group, Preventing Extremism Together. Bright, ‘The task force was a sham’, 30. Bright, ‘The task force was a sham’, 31. Bright, ‘The task force was a sham’, 31. See Gaskarth, ‘Identity and New Labour’s strategic’. E.g. Plowden, Report of the Committee; Duncan, Report of the Review Committee; CPRS, Report of Overseas Representation. This description is derived from the UKTI website; see www.ukti.gov.uk/ uktihome/aboutukti.html. See figure 3 in chapter 2. Hague, ‘Britain’s prosperity’. Cameron, ‘Speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet’. Mansion House speeches are an annual forum for prime ministers to set out their foreign policy. Cameron, ‘Speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet’.

Chapter 4 1

Self-identity and British foreign policy

Entering into discussion on British identity throws up a series of dilemmas about how to use this term and what is being described. The UK government’s full title refers to itself as governing ‘the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’. This has led some commentators to perceive Northern Ireland as non-British. However, the island of Ireland, including both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, is subsumed within the geographical entity of the ‘British Isles’. Thus, the British Lions rugby union team was originally called the British Isles, before changing its name to the British Lions. In 2001, the team changed its name to the British and Irish Lions, to reflect the political divisions between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. In his

197

198

Notes to pp. 59–62

2 3 4 5

6 7 8

9

10 11 12 13 14

15 16

17 18

19 20 21 22

volume on English history, A. J. P. Taylor was adamant that the term ‘Britain’ referred only to ‘a Roman province which perished in the fifth century and which included none of Scotland nor, indeed, all of England’. Instead he preferred the term ‘Great Britain’, but argued that ‘It is not, however, synonymous with the United Kingdom’, which he implies relates only to Scotland, England and Wales; Taylor, English History, v. Taylor seems to be very angry with the Scots in his preface and blames them for this conceptual confusion. For ease of use, I reject Taylor’s distinctions and assume Britishness to relate to the political identity shared by many Welsh, English, Scots and Northern Irish (and inhabitants of the overseas territories) linked to the political community encompassed by the state. Sandbrook, ‘Are we about to witness’. Body, England for the English, 17; Heffer, Nor Shall My Sword, 124–6. Croft, Securitizing Islam, 26. For further reading on identity and the self, see Taylor, The Sources of the Self; Williams, Problems of the Self. Hopf, Social Construction, 4–5. Sen, Identity and Difference, xii–xiii. Information dervied from www.thamesvalley.police.uk/aboutus/aboutus-sop/ aboutus-sop-stsea/aboutus-sop-stsea-catg.htm, accessed 6 October 2012. ’Anglosphere’ is a term used to describe English-speaking countries. David Singh, a contributor to the Guardian’s poll on Britishness, notes: ‘My family comes from the Punjab, and I go back there regularly. I speak Punjabi and a bit of Hindi, but in India they just see you as Babuji – Mr Rich – because you come from the UK’; Moss, ‘What does Britishness mean to you?’ Croft, Securitizing Islam, 22. Croft, Securitizing Islam, 42. Croft, Securitizing Islam, 26. Croft, Securitizing Islam, 26. The significance of these performances is in providing an opportunity for acceptance and reinforcement of identity; see Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction. Steele, Ontological Security. Steele’s work is important in reminding us that ‘self-identity needs’ – i.e. those that emerge from an actor’s sense of self – can be a significant motivating factor in political action; Steele, Ontological Security, 2. Coles, Making Foreign Policy, 175–6. For a speech that makes this connection explicit, see Brown, ‘The future of Britishness’. Hansen, Security as Practice, 46. Campbell, Writing Security, 9. Campbell, Writing Security, 73. E.g. Walker, Inside/Outside; Ashley and Walker, ‘Speaking the language’; Ashley and Walker, ‘Reading dissidence’; Doty, ‘Foreign policy as social construction’; Campbell, Writing Security; Hansen, Security as Practice; Der Derian and Shapiro, International/Intertextual Relations; Lapid and Kratochwil, The Return of Culture and Identity; Neumann, ‘Collective identity formation’; Larsen, Foreign Policy and Discourse.

Notes to pp. 62–66

23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39

40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47

48 49

50 51

52 53 54

Hopf, Social Construction, 3–4. See Gaskarth, ‘Discourses and ethics’; Gaskarth, ‘Interpreting ethical foreign policy’. Hall, ‘Cultural identity and diaspora’, 225. Hopf, Social Construction, 1. Houghton, ‘The role of analogical reasoning’. Campbell, Writing Security, 10, italics removed. Hansen, Security as Practice, 50. Walzer, Thick and Thin. Brown, ‘Do great powers’. Colley, Britons, 17. Churchill, ‘British foreign policy’, 484. Bevin, ‘Labour Party’s’, 750. Eden, ‘Principles’, 835. Hansard, ‘HoC Supply: Committee Foreign Office’ 11 July 1927, Sir P. Goff, 1798. Hansard, ‘HoC Foreign Affairs’ 2 July 1963, Heath, E., 215. Blair, ‘Speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet’. Internationalism was identified as a Labour tradition before Blair and Brown came on the scene, and their rhetoric actually seems to hark back to earlier discourses advocating a global reach to British foreign policy; see Owen, Face the Future. Blair, ‘Our nation’s future – defence’. Brown, ‘Speech at the British Council Annual Lecture’. Brown, ‘Speech at the British Council Annual Lecture’. Colley, Britons, 56. Major, ‘Britain in the world’, 5. Hansard, ‘HoC Supply: Committee Foreign Office’ 11 July 1927, Chamberlain, 1786. Hansard, ‘HoC Foreign Affairs’ 14 December 1972, Mr Haslehurst, 739. For instance, ‘what we, an island among the nations of the world, most need . . . is the security of the livelihood and economic position of the people of this country and of the Empire’ (Hansard, ‘HoC Supply: Army Estimates’ 8 March 1932, Mr Pike, 1734); ‘Our stake as a nation in peace is probably greater than that of any other nation in the world’ (Hansard, ‘HoC Supply: Foreign Affairs’ 14 March 1934, Mr Eden, 390). In recent decades, this identity has been reinforced, with Malcolm Rifkind asserting ‘we live by commerce’ and defining Britain as ‘pre-eminently a nation of traders’ (Rifkind, ‘Principles’, 2). Hansard, ‘HoC Foreign Affairs’ 14 December 1972, Mr Julian Amery, 752. Hansard, ‘HoC Foreign Policy (Adjourned Debate)’ 14 December 1911, Baron de Forest, 2590. Hansard, ‘HoC Supply’ 1 August 1907, Sir E. Grey, 1318. Hansard, ‘HoC Supply: Committee Foreign Office’ 30 July 1928, Lieut-Commander Kenworthy, 1832. References to ‘we’ and ‘our’ also reinforce the notion of Britain as a unified community with a unified foreign policy position. Hansen, Security as Practice, 30–1. Churchill, ‘Speech to the Conservative Party’. See Daddow, ‘Dodging the bullet’.

199

200

Notes to pp. 66–72

55 56

57 58 59

60 61

62 63

64

65 66 67

68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

Wheeler and Dunne, ‘Good international citizenship’. Rifkind, ‘Principles’. For discussion on the continuing influence of this idea, see Daddow, ‘Dodging the bullet’; Hill, ‘British foreign policy priorities’. Blair, ‘Lord Mayor’s Banquet speech’. Blair, ‘Speech by the prime minister on foreign affairs’. Blair, ‘PM’s Mansion House speech.’ At this time the Commonwealth and Empire had subsided in the intellectual imagination of policymakers as a possible circle of influence for the UK. See Ralph, ‘After Chilcot’. Miliband, ‘FCO leadership conference’. Blair had evoked the idea of Britain as a hub in 2000 but within a European context, asserting that ‘We believe Britain can become the European hub of the emerging global economy . . . in effect, Europe’s corporate headquarters’; BBC, ‘UK will be “Europe’s” ’. Miliband, ‘FCO leadership conference’. Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet secretary, wrote in a memorandum in 1930 that ‘Great Britain has always been an island . . . British characteristics have developed themselves in partial isolation from the world’, as cited in Mangold, Success and Failure, 60. Hague, ‘Britain’s foreign policy in a networked world’. On the idea of networked governance, see chapter 3 above. Hague, ‘Britain’s foreign policy in a networked world’. Hague, ‘International security’. Wallace argues: ‘I want to emphasize how ideological is this dimension of British foreign policy, in contrast to the pragmatism which is claimed to govern our foreign affairs. Pragmatism is for Europe’ (‘Foreign policy and national identity’, 72). As cited in Mason, ‘EU treaty’. Chatham House and YouGov, British Attitudes, 40. Chatham House and YouGov, British Attitudes, 40. Webber and Smith, Foreign Policy in a Transformed World, 342. Colley, Britons, 11. England and Wales were united in 1536. Colley, Britons, 5. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 6. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 118. Brown, ‘Speech on Britishness’. Brown, ‘The future of Britishness’. Hansard, ‘HoC Supply: Foreign Office’ 22 July 1909, Mr Arthur Ponsonby, 730. Hansard, ‘HoC Foreign Affairs’ 14 December 1972, Mr J. Cordle, 686. See Ferguson, Empire; Ferguson, Civilization. See Curtis, Web of Deceit. As cited in Mangold, Success and Failure, 106. Brown, ‘The future of Britishness’. Brown, ‘The future of Britishness’. Lunn, ‘Reconsidering “Britishness”’, 84. Leonard, Britain TM, 9. Leonard, Britain TM, 15. Leonard, Britain TM, 12. Leonard, Britain TM, 37.

Notes to pp. 73–76

90

91 92 93 94 95

96

97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104

105 106

107 108 109

110

111

112 113 114 115 116 117

This is how Britons represented themselves and is not meant to be taken as a true reflection of religious tolerance in Britain. The Gordon riots in 1780 and the government failure to respond to the Irish famine between 1846 and 1851 are notable examples in which prejudice against Catholicism had deadly effects. Colley, Britons, 18. Croft, Securitizing Islam, 46. Dalrymple, The Last Moghul; Nicoll, The Sword of the Prophet. Churchill, ‘Winston Churchill’s reply to Mousa Kasem El-Hussaini’. Churchill, ‘Their finest hour’; see also, Churchill, ‘Blood, toil, tears, and sweat’; Churchill, ‘We shall fight on the beaches’. Stockwell, The British Empire. On the curiously ambiguous attitude to race in the British Empire, see Cannadine, Ornamentalism, 123–4. Ward, Britishness Since 1870, 25. Powell, ‘Speech to the Conservative Association’. Lunn, ‘Reconsidering “Britishness”’, 84. Brown, ‘The future of Britishness’. For the opposite view, see Body, England for the English, introduction. Guardian, ‘British attitudes’. Guardian, ‘British attitudes’. This information is derived from http://englishdefenceleague.org/about-us, accessed 7 October 2012. http://englishdefenceleague.org/about-us/mission-statement. The EDL is keen to distance itself from the impression that it is racist or bigoted. Its mission statement declares that ‘The EDL is . . . keen to draw its support from people of all races, all faiths, all political persuasions, and all lifestyle choices’; http://englishdefenceleague.org/about-us/mission-statement. Blair, ‘Global alliance for global values’. Lammy, ‘Rediscovering internationalism’. Racial and religious tolerance is also seen as endowing the British government with moral standing in the world. Since the extent to which a government can be seen to command the support of their people is an important criterion in membership of international society, having a high degree of societal harmony has consequences for Britain’s status as an ethical actor; see Frost, ‘Putting the world to rights’. These documents are viewable at www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/ report/2004/muslimext-uk.htm, accessed 7 October 2012. MEPP refers to the Middle East Peace Process. The leaked documents are available at www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/report/2004/muslimext-uk. htm. See www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/report/2004/muslimext-uk.htm. Blair, ‘Mansion House speech’. Blair, ‘Clash about civilisations’. BBC, ‘London bomber’. BBC, ‘Profile: Shehzad Tanweer’. For instance, see the Islamic Awakening forums at http://forums.islamicawakening.com/f20/write-to-forgotten-bpps-britains-guantanamo-bay-170, accessed 7 October 2012.

201

202

Notes to pp. 76–81

118 119 120 121

122 123 124 125

126 127 128 129 130

131

132 133

134 135 136 137 138

IHRC, ‘Submission to the ICJ’, 29. IHRC, ‘Submission to the ICJ’, 64. Altunbas and Thornton, ‘Are homegrown Islamic terrorists different?’ Leonard, ‘Living together after 11 September’, xv. In a 2007 speech on Britishness, Gordon Brown asserted that ‘we are a country united not so much by race or ethnicity but by shared values’ (‘Speech on Britishness’). Dodd, ‘The challenge for New Labour’, 2–6. D’Ancona, ‘Why the right must embrace multiculturalism’. Willis, ‘What defines British values?’, 17–18. E.g. Brown, ‘Speech on Britishness’, asserts that ‘when people are also asked what they admire about Britain, more usually say it is our values’ (sic). Brown, ‘The future of Britishness’. Brown, ‘The future of Britishness’. Brown, ‘The future of Britishness’. Brown, ‘The future of Britishness’. McCourt, ‘Rethinking Britain’s role’. McCourt describes Britain’s role, in analytical terms, as ‘the set of expectations attached to Britain in world politics that policymakers perceive in their actions’ (‘Rethinking Britain’s role’, 161). This is not confined to New Labour speakers; see also Major, ‘Foreign spending’. Bunting, ‘Britain as the “superpower of aid”?’ Swaine, ‘Britain may not’. The IPPR report Shared Responsibilities advocated greater European cooperation and an emphasis on multilateralism to overcome national financial constraints (11–12). Chatham House, 2. Chatham House, 2. Mail on Sunday/MORI, Kosovo poll, 28 March. Mail on Sunday/MORI, Kosovo poll, 2 April. IPSOS/MORI, ‘British public’s attitudes’.

Chapter 5 1

Britain in the world

Neorealism, sometimes rendered as structural realism, is an obvious example of one such approach (Waltz, Theory of International Politics; Keohane, Neorealism and its Critics). Kenneth Waltz, the most influential scholar in this field, sought to locate the analysis of this school at the international system level and rejected the idea that it might be applied to middle-range foreign policy analysis; see Elman, ‘Horses for courses’, and Waltz’s reply, ‘International politics is not foreign policy’. Classical realism too has as its starting point the material structures of world politics but combines these with recognition of the importance of ideas and psychological elements of statecraft; e.g. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations. Marxist scholarship also takes an interest in how material structures can have an underlying effect on the ideas and behaviour of international actors, albeit using a very different set of analytical tools and categories; see Lenin, Imperialism; Hobson, Imperialism; Wallerstein, The Modern World System.

Notes to pp. 81–84

2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18

19

20

21 22

23 24 25

Historical materialist scholarship combines an awareness of underlying economic and material structures with a focus on the influence of social forces; e.g. Gill, Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations. Critical social theorists such as Robert Cox share many of these assumptions; see his famous article ‘Social forces, states and world order’. Constructivist scholarship in this area has achieved the most prominence within the discipline of international relations; see Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics; Onuf, World of Our Making; Onuf, Making Sense, Making Worlds. HMSO, The United Kingdom’s Overseas Representation, 3. Morris, ‘How great is Britain?’, 6. See chapter 8. Feffer, ‘An arms race in northeast Asia?’. Worldbankdata.org, accessed 12 July 2012. Worldbankdata.org, accessed 12 July 2012. Galtung, ‘A structural theory’. Reuveny and Thompson, ‘The North–South divide’. Copeland, Guerrilla Diplomacy, 66. Copeland, Guerrilla Diplomacy, 66. Hope, ‘Wealth gap in Britain’. Kirby, ‘London has the biggest’. For a discussion of elite interests permeating decisionmaking, see Baker, ‘Nébeleuse and the “internationalization of the state” ’. As cited in Freeland, ‘Wealth gap widens’. Freeland, ‘Wealth gap widens’. The US has 132, Japan 68, China 73, France 32 and Germany 32; see CNNMoney, ‘Global 500’, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/ 2012/countries/Australia.html, accessed 7 October 2012; Morris, ‘How great is Britain?’, 8. Harvey, The New Imperialism, 184, 187. The ‘trickle-down’ theory of economics suggests that the growing wealth of the richest groups inevitably spreads to other classes as they spend their wealth. However, the reality seems to be that of an elite accumulating vast sums of capital that are not then passed on through expenditure at home but hoarded or invested abroad. For a discussion of this phenomenon, see Henry, Estimating the Price of Offshore. Andre Gunder Frank’s centre–periphery model posits a global ‘centre’ of developed states and a global ‘periphery’ of states that are marginalized from the wealth and power in the international system; see Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment; Gunder Frank, Sociology of Development; Galtung, ‘A structural theory’. Ball, ‘UK incomes fall’. At current conversion rates as of March 2012; China Financial Daily, ‘2010, urban household’. Cabinet Office, ‘Future policy’, 23. Cabinet Office, ‘Future policy’, 23. Hansard, ‘HoC Debate on the Address: Foreign Policy’ 16 February 1923, Mr Morel, 529; Hansard, ‘HoC Supply: Army Estimates’ 8 March 1932, Mr Parkinson, 1747; Hansard, ‘HoC International Situation’ 23 October 1935, Mr Morrison, 272.

203

204

Notes to pp. 84–90

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

54 55 56 57

58 59 60 61 62 63

Morris, ‘How great is Britain?’; Brown, ‘Do great powers’. Duncan, Report of the Review, 23. Smith, ‘Foreign policy analysis’, 66. Coles, Making Foreign Policy, 179–80. Hannay, ‘Interview’. Malloch-Brown, interview with the author. CPRS, Report of Overseas, 8. FCO, ‘Background to finance and budgets’. FCO, ‘Background to finance and budgets’. Hannay, ‘Interview’. MccGwire, ‘Comfort blanket or weapon of war’. As cited in Morris, ‘How great is Britain?’, 2. How far the UK’s deterrence is genuinely independent of the United States is a matter of debate. However, since the UK is in practice never going to use its deterrence against its closest ally, this aspect is academic. Deterrence remains available as a last resort against other powers such as China and Russia. See Allen, ‘New Labour and nuclear weapons’. Interview with the author. See Daddow, New Labour and the European Union; Daddow, Britain and Europe. Wheeler and Dunne, ‘Good international citizenship’, 869. BBC, ‘Ambassadors’ letter to Blair’. BBC, ‘Ambassadors’ letter to Blair’. Holsti, ‘National role conceptions’, 242. As cited in Holsti, ‘National role conceptions’, 239. McCourt, ‘Rethinking’. Holsti, ‘National role conceptions’, 255. See Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations. Ralph, ‘A difficult relationship’, 129. Cook, ‘Resignation speech’. Blair, ‘Speech to Labour Party conference, Glasgow’. Ralph, ‘A difficult relationship’, 133. Hansard, ‘Consolidated Fund Bill – Foreign Affairs’ 28 March 1950, Lord Dunglass, 299. Hansard, ‘HoC Foreign Affairs’ 4 November 1971, Mrs Hart, 467. Hansard, ‘HoC Foreign Affairs’ 16 December 1964, Mr Jackson, 449. Chatham House, ‘UK and the world’. Comments from Nick Mabey in Chatham House, ‘The UK and the World’, 8. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative was announced in 2002 by Tony Blair and aims to promote transparency about what happens to revenue from resource extraction. Further information is available on their website, http://eiti.org. Kissinger, Years of Renewal, 607. As cited in Coles, Making Foreign Policy, 36. Joshi, ‘India and Britain’. Henderson, ‘David Cameron accuses’. McCourt, ‘Role-playing and identity’. McCourt, ‘Role-playing and identity’, 1600.

Notes to pp. 90–97

64 65 66 67 68 69 70

71 72

73 74 75 76

77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

Holden, ‘Britain accuses’; Watt, ‘Argentina hits back’. As cited in McCourt, ‘Role-playing and identity’, 1610–11. Ned Lebow, The Tragic Vision of Politics, 274. MOD, Future Character of Conflict, 8. Donelan, Honor in Foreign Policy. Blair, ‘Prime minister’s statement’. Richard Nixon used this phrase of the Paris peace accords, bringing an end to the Vietnam War four years after he was elected to office with the aim of bringing the conflict to a conclusion. Hague, ‘Speech on Afghanistan’. Theo Farrell sees enthusiasm for the Afghanistan mission within the British military from 2006 onwards as down to its being seen as ‘an opportunity for Britain to redeem its military reputation, especially with the Americans, following the fiasco in Iraq’ (Farrell, ‘Back from the brink’). Ned Lebow, The Tragic Vision of Politics, 272. MacAskill et al., ‘US may go it alone’. Ned Lebow, A Cultural Theory, 4. See Gaskarth, ‘Discourses and ethics’; Gaskarth, ‘Interpreting ethical foreign policy’. Platt, Finance, Trade, 354. Buzan, ‘China in international society’, 17. Crowe, ‘Memorandum’. Curtis, Web of Deceit, ch. 14. Blair, ‘Speech to the General Assembly’. Blair, ‘Doctrine of international community’. Blair, ‘Speech to the General Assembly’. See also Blair, ‘Global alliance for global values’. Buzan, ‘China in international society’. Buzan, ‘China in international society’. Blair, ‘PM’s foreign policy speech’. Blair, ‘PM’s foreign policy speech’. Cameron, ‘Prime minister’s first speech’. SAFPI, ‘Africa must decide’. Coles, Making Foreign Policy, 180.

Chapter 6 1 2 3 4

5 6

The ethics of British foreign policy

Cook, ‘Mission statement’. Brown, ‘Ethics, interests and foreign policy’. See Brown, ‘Ethics, interests and foreign policy’. The broad thrust of this position is that interacting with states that abuse human rights, practise discrimination against minorities, or refuse to allow popular participation in government might be construed as tolerance of, even complicity in, this negative behaviour. For a fuller exploration of Socratic ethics, see Irwin, Plato’s Ethics, ch. 1. Wolf, ‘Moral saints’.

205

206

Notes to pp. 97–104

7

8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

For this reason, Lefevere suggests that ‘morality is a synonym for responsibility’ (cited in Walden, Ethics and Foreign Policy, 109). At their simplest, Hedley Bull defines these standards as ‘life, truth and property’ (The Anarchical Society, 4–5). DFID, Eliminating Poverty, 5. E.g. Mearsheimer, ‘The gathering storm’. Machiavelli, Discourses, III, 35. Machiavelli, The Prince, 52. E.g. Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince. Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, 51. McSmith, ‘Blair: God will be my judge’. Kant, The Moral Law, 89. Kant quoted in O’Neill, ‘Kantian ethics’. O’Neill, ‘Kantian ethics’, 178–9. Jackson, ‘The situational ethics’, 32. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, 7–8. Leigh and Evans, ‘The Al Yamamah deal’. BBC, ‘Aitken’s avoidable road to ruin’. Lloyd, interview with the author. Cook, ‘Foreign policy and national interest’. Cook, ‘Human rights into a new century’. Guardian, ‘Cook defends Labour’s ethical foreign policy’. Walker, ‘Realpolitik rules’. Norton-Taylor and Gow, ‘The £5bn conflict of interest’. MacAskill and Dodd, ‘Ethical policy ran into armoured attack’. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, 187. Hilary Synnott noted that ‘if the Government decided that a company could not proceed with a sale . . . the Government would be liable to compensate it. So you were talking about hundreds of millions of pounds’ (Synnott, ‘Interview’). Owen, interview with the author. El Salvador in Central America experienced repressive government and political turmoil in the 1970s, which developed into a full civil war in the 1980s that finally ended in 1992. MacAskill, and Dodd, ‘Ethical policy ran into armoured attack’. Wheeler and Dunne, Moral Britannia, 18. Latimer, ‘World must put its hangmen in the dock’. CAAT, Private Gain, Public Pain, 6. CAAT, Private Gain, Public Pain, 6. CAEC, Scrutiny of Arms Export Controls (2011), para. 124. CAEC, Scrutiny of Arms Export Controls (2010), para. 141. See Webb, Bribing for Britain. PA, ‘Fraud office wins appeal over BAE Saudi arms deal’. Webb, Bribing for Britain, 7. Webb, Bribing for Britain, 17. Leigh and Evans, ‘ “National interest” halts arms corruption inquiry’. Fidler, ‘UK becomes largest exporter of arms’. Hain, ‘The government’s response’.

Notes to pp. 104–110

47 48 49 50 51

52

53 54 55 56 57 58 59

60

61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

73 74 75 76 77 78

79 80

Cook, ‘Mission statement’. Wyatt, ‘David Cameron hits out’. Grice, ‘Cameron defends arms’. Booth, ‘Exporting ethics’. Curiously, Cameron offers a third justification for promoting economic activity such as arms exports, declaring ‘it’s also about morals. We understand that enterprise is not just an economic good, it’s a social good too’ (Grice, ‘Cameron defends arms’). In this way, the coalition government advances a capitalist ethic that working hard to make money is a morally worthy goal that has a beneficial effect on one’s community. A consequentialist argument could also be deployed against arms sales, highlighting the negative consequences that flow from supporting dictatorial regimes. UN, ‘Report of the independent inquiry’, 11. UN, ‘Report of the independent inquiry’, 19. UN, ‘Report of the independent inquiry’, 19. UN, ‘Report of the independent inquiry’, 23. Curtis, ‘Britain’s real foreign policy’, 281–2. Farrell, ‘Humanitarian intervention and peace operations’, 290. UN, ‘Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/35’. UN, ‘Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/35’, 18. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, 37. Blair, A Journey, 229. Daddow, ‘ “Tony’s war”?’, 551. See also Williams, British Foreign Policy, 62. Rawnsley, Servants of the People, 260. Blair, ‘Doctrine of international community’. Blair, ‘Doctrine of international community’. Blair, A Journey, 229. Dunne and Wheeler, ‘The Blair doctrine’, 70. See Bartlett, ‘Simply the right thing to do’, 138. Rawnsley, Servants of the People, 260. Telephone interview with the author, 2004. Ralph, ‘A difficult relationship’, 128. See also Roberts, ‘NATO’s “humanitarian war” over Kosovo’. Haines, ‘The influence of Operation Allied Force’, 479. Haines, ‘The influence of Operation Allied Force’, 479. Annan, ‘The secretary-general’. Dunne and Wheeler, ‘The Blair doctrine’, 72. For a defence of the cosmopolitan view, see Caney, Justice Beyond Borders. Chomsky, The New Military Humanism; Acharya, ‘State sovereignty after 9/11’, Ali, ‘America’s selective vigilantism’. For a critique of the view that governments must be consistent, see Brown, ‘On morality’. Blair, A Journey, 229. President Bush did offer Saddam Hussein a final chance to leave prior to military action in March 2003, but this offer was not taken up.

207

208

Notes to pp. 110–115

81 82 83 84 85 86

87 88

89 90 91 92 93 94 95

96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107

108 109 110

111

112

Cameron, ‘Statement on UN resolution’. UNHCR, ‘Statement of Ms Navanethem Pillay: UNHCR’. Cameron, ‘Statement on UN resolution’. Cameron, ‘Statement on UN resolution’. Cameron, ‘Speech to Lord Mayor’s Banquet’. Cobain, ‘Britain helped bring her family to Gaddafi’; Cobain and Chulov, ‘Libyan papers show UK worked with Gaddafi’. Amnesty, ‘Detention abuses’. See the evidence of Craig Murray to the Joint Committee on Human Rights; JCHR, Allegations of UK Complicity, 72–80. For the UK government’s response to the Committee’s report, see Home Office/FCO, ‘The government reply’. HRW, Cruel Britannia: British Complicity. HRW, ‘No Questions Asked’. See Gaskarth, ‘Entangling alliances?’ Chatham House, Intelligence Cooperation, 7. UN, ‘Security Council unanimously adopts’. Jorgensen, The Responsibility of States for International Crimes. For a lengthy example of this, see Curtis, The Ambiguities of Power, roughly half of which is actually looking at US foreign policy for which it is implied that the UK is responsible on the basis of complicity. Liberty, UK Involvement in Extraordinary Rendition. FCO, Annual Human Rights Report 2007, 16. Peel, ‘UK implicated in Libya rendition’. Cobain and Chulov, ‘Libyan papers show UK worked with Gaddafi’. Townsend, ‘Gita Sahgal’s dispute with Amnesty International’. ISC, Rendition, 24. Blair, ‘Global alliance for global values’. Yoo, ‘Memorandum for William J. Haynes II’, 3. Yoo, ‘Memorandum for William J. Haynes II’, 2–3. Waraich and Whitaker, ‘Pakistan: the greatest threat’. Wiseman and Sheikh, ‘Pakistan deal with Taliban emboldens militants’. The website notes difficulties providing exact numbers but suggests that 2,335 leaders and operatives from Taleban, Al Qaeda and allied extremist groups and 138 civilians had been killed in Pakistan from 305 unmanned aerial vehicle strikes, as of 9 July 2012: www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes. php, accessed 1 October 2012. (This link should be typed into a search engine rather than as a web address in the toolbar.) UN, ‘Security Council unanimously adopts’. Morrissey, ‘Aid and international development’, 703. Cross, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 65; Boyce, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 84–5. Synnott, Bad Days in Basra, 10, 136–7. This criticism is raised in Chakrabarti, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 8 December, 56–8. Chakrabarti seems to concede this point here but later rebuts it in his second evidence session (see next note). Chakrabarti, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 22 January, 61–2; Short, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’. Short attributes DFID’s low level of involvement

Notes to pp. 115–120

113

114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129

in the immediate postwar reconstruction phase to the military’s need to take the lead and the paucity of the contingency reserve which DFID had to deal with emergencies – some £90 million in 2003/4 (which also had to cope with other problems in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa); Short, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 13–15. UN, ‘Report of the International Conference’. This pledge was initially made by the international community in a UN General Assembly Resolution in 1970 but only achieved real impetus as part of the UN Millennium Project and the overall package of development measures encompassed in the Millennium Development Goals set out in September 2000: www.unmillenniumproject. org/press/07.htm, accessed 7 October 2012. Morrissey, ‘Aid and international development’, 705. DFID, Annual Report and Accounts, 2010–2011, 15. Oakeshott, ‘Britain to scrap aid’, 16. DFID, Annual Report and Accounts, 2010–2011, 6. Morrissey, ‘Aid and international development’, 710. Morrissey, ‘Aid and international development’, 710. Elliott, ‘UK terminates development aid’; Doughty, ‘It’s nuts!’ New Internationalist, ‘World development’. Martin, ‘At last, Britain axes aid’. Doane, ‘Aid for trade policy’. Doane, ‘Aid for trade policy’. Hare, ‘Judicial review and the Pergau Dam’, 227. Hare, ‘Judicial review and the Pergau Dam’, 227. TNS, Public Attitudes Towards Development, 2. TNS, Public Attitudes Towards Development, 2. Oakeshott, ‘Britain to scrap aid’, 16.

Chapter 7 1

2

3 4 5 6

7

Defence and British foreign policy

Mueller, ‘The obsolescence of major war’; Coker, ‘Post-modernity and the end of the Cold War’. There is a view that foreign and defence policy should be kept as discrete fields of inquiry. However, at least since the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, with its extensive foreign policy component, policymakers have generally rejected this review. The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review was roundly criticized for failing to undertake as thorough a foreign policy discussion as its 1998 predecessor; Cavanagh, ‘Missed opportunity’; Jenkin, ‘Written evidence’. Clausewitz, On War, 119. Howard, Clausewitz, 34–5. Väyrynen, The Waning of Major War. Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature. For an excellent exploration of how war will continue to be a factor in international relations in the future, see Gray, Another Bloody Century. Schelling, Arms and Influence, 2. Raymond Aron defines diplomacy as ‘the art of convincing without using force (con-vaincre)’ and strategy ‘the art of vanquishing at the least cost (vaincre)’ (Peace and War, 24).

209

210

Notes to pp. 120–123

8

9 10

11 12

13 14

15 16 17

18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29

30

See Schelling, Arms and Influence, 1–35; Jervis, Perception and Misperception, 58–111. Aron, Peace and War, 27. For discussions on the differences between compellence and deterrence, see Schelling, Arms and Influence, 69–86; Sperandei, ‘Bridging deterrence and compellence’; Art, ‘To what ends military power?’ Jervis has argued that deterrence is easier than compellence as actors usually ‘place a greater value on keeping what they have than on making further gains’ (‘Deterrence theory revisited’, 318). Deciding what does and doesn’t count as deterrence has been the subject of some debate, e.g. Ned Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘Rational deterrence theory’, and Huth and Russett, ‘Testing deterrence theory’. Aron, Peace and War, 27. Classic statements on deterrence include: Russett, ‘The calculus of deterrence’; Jervis, ‘Deterrence theory revisited’; George and Smoke, ‘Deterrence and foreign policy’; Huth and Russett, ‘What makes deterrence work?’ More recent updates include: Kenyon and Simpson, Deterrence and the New Global Security; Manwaring, Deterrence in the 21st Century. Franks, The Franks Report, 41, 84. State Department, ‘Gulf War’. This account has been questioned by Roberts, Satow’s Diplomatic Practice, 622. Heath, ‘Realism in British foreign policy’, 49. Associated Press, ‘UK warns Iran over oil passageway threat’. For a discussion of deterrence in the context of Iran, see Parasiliti, ‘Iran: diplomacy and deterrence’. Kingston, ‘Gunboat Liberalism’. Salisbury, Essays: Foreign Politics, 151–83. As cited in Salisbury, Essays: Foreign Politics, 180–1. Chalmers, ‘Keeping our powder dry?’; Cameron, ‘Speech to Lord Mayor’s Banquet’. Rifkind, telephone interview with the author. Bull, The Anarchical Society, 201. SIPRI, Yearbook 2012, 9. Salisbury, Essays: Foreign Politics, 182. Kagan, Of Paradise and Power; BBC, ‘NATO chief urges’. Evidence of Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles in FAC, The UK’s Foreign Policy Approach. Britain’s defence planners have geared force postures to this end. For instance, the MOD makes the assumption that ‘the most complex large scale operations will only be conducted as part of a US-led coalition. Our primary goal is to maximise our ability to influence at all levels the planning, execution and management of the operation and its aftermath, in support of our wider security policy objectives. Our force structure at large scale should therefore focus on those capabilities which add real weight to the campaign and hence the UK’s ability to influence its outcome’ (MOD, Delivering Security in a Changing World: Future Capabilities, 3). Howard, ‘The transformation of strategy’, 12. Bassford, ‘The primacy of policy’; Bassford, ‘The strange persistence of trinitarian warfare’. Fergusson, ‘Overstretched and over there’.

Notes to pp. 124–127

31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58

59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66

Smith, The Utility of Force. Weber, ‘Politics as a vocation’, 33, emphasis in the original. Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order. Tilly, ‘Reflections’, 42. Farrell, ‘Transnational norms’. Croft, Securitizing Islam. MOD, Strategic Defence Review; HM Government, Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty. Chalmers, ‘Keeping our powder dry?’, 25. Strachan, ‘The strategic gap’, 56–7. As cited in Staerck and Staerck, ‘The realities: Britain’s global’, 36. Taylor, ‘What’s new? UK defence policy’, 10. HM Government, Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty, 13. For an extended discussion of how the UK managed these aspirations and reformed its defence postures according to its declining power in the post1945 era, see Croft et al., Britain and Defence. Telegraph, ‘Admiral’. Richards, ‘What are we fighting for?’ Goodhart, ‘Why are we British such eager’. For an interesting essay on the reasons Britain has used force in recent interventions, see Brummer, ‘Decisionmaking on the use of force’. MOD, Strategic Defence Review, 23. As cited in Turner, An International History, 1. Hill, ‘British foreign policy priorities’, 12. Hill, ‘British foreign policy priorities’, 12. Kirkup, ‘Liam Fox assures US’. HM Government, Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty, 3. Farrell, ‘The dynamics of British military’, 780–1. HM Government, Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty, 9; Cavanagh, ‘Missed opportunity’, 9. Farrell, ‘The dynamics of British military’, 798. Rees, ‘Britain and the wider’, 34. Fox, ‘Speech to First Defence’. For an examination of how the UK government sought to maintain support for the Kosovo operation, see Vickers, ‘Blair’s Kosovo campaign’. HM Government, ‘Iraq’s weapons’, 4; Coates and Krieger, Blair’s War. Butler, Review of Intelligence, 126. FAC, The UK’s Foreign Policy Approach, 83. FAC, The UK’s Foreign Policy Approach, 83. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this point. For information on these operations, see Dorman, Blair’s Successful War; MOD Oracle, ‘Royal Navy and RAF spearhead British evacuation effort’; FAC, British Foreign Policy and the ‘Arab Spring’, 27–30. Little, ‘The brigadier who saved’. Little, ‘The brigadier who saved’. MOD, ‘British troops from’. However, concerns were raised in 2002 and 2003 that the withdrawal of British forces from Kosovo to support operations in Iraq might lead to instability in the province, and so critics might see this as the

211

212

Notes to pp. 127–131

67

68

69 70 71 72 73

74

75

76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

91 92

93 94 95

96

product of British neglect; Barnett and Xharra, ‘Serbs lament’; Jennings and Smith, ‘Britain to pull’. Information derived from www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2012/ june12_1.pdf. The Sierra Leone mission in 2000, Operation Palliser, was conducted independently, albeit at times in support of the UN operation there. NATO activities in Afghanistan, to which Britain contributes, have a peacekeeping function. But British involvement began as self-defence and continues to be justified on that basis. Wohlforth, ‘Realism and the end’. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 116–19, especially 117. Pollack, ‘Introduction’, 3–4; Jung, ‘Unrest in the Arab world’. Dover, ‘Britain, Europe and defense’, 22. See Strachan, ‘The British way in warfare’; Strachan, ‘The British way in warfare revisited’; Strachan, Big Wars and Small Wars: The British Army; Thornton, ‘The British Army’; McInnes, Hot War, Cold War. Britain’s military control of India was achieved with a comparatively small force. In 1869, the Indian army was comprised of 64,800 European troops and 120,000 Indian, with policymakers resisting the increase of Indian troops for fear of mutiny; French, The British Way in Warfare, 144. Egnell, ‘Explaining US and British performance’, 1064–5; Betz and Cormack, ‘Hot war, cold comfort’, 28. Strachan, ‘The strategic gap’, 59. Kennedy, ‘Why did the British Empire last so long?’, 199. Turner, An International History, 20. Turner, An International History, 30. MOD, Strategic Defence Review, 9. Page, ‘Wasted warships’. MOD, Strategic Defence Review, 138. MOD, Strategic Defence Review, 23. MOD, Strategic Defence Review, 31. MOD, Strategic Defence Review, 138. Strachan, ‘The strategic gap’, 63. MOD, Strategic Defence Review. MOD, Strategic Defence Review, 137. MOD, Strategic Defence Review, 32. MOD, Delivering Security in a Changing World: Defence White Paper; MOD, Delivering Security in a Changing World: Future Capabilities; MOD, Strategic Defence Review: A New Chapter. Dyson, ‘Defence policy’, 208. Torpy, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 59; Dannatt, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 84. Grey, ‘Retreat from Basra’. Shirreff, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 4; Chin, ‘British defense policy’, 70. Dutton, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 29; Shirreff, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 7. Jackson, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 68.

Notes to pp. 132–134

97 98

99 100

101 102 103

104 105 106 107

108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116

117 118 119 120

121

122 123

Jenkins, ‘Lovely new aircraft carrier’. Dannatt, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 82–3. Both Torpy and Dutton in their oral evidence to the inquiry seem to dispute this; however, they clearly define the ‘mission’ as ensuring a swift transition to Iraqi control rather than providing a secure environment for the Iraqi population per se. The evidence that insufficient troop numbers were in place to impose order is overwhelming. Shirreff, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 11. Torpy, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 35. General Mike Jackson notes that there may have been some political sensitivity about deploying this capability to Iraq due to political differences over the operation in Iraq within NATO; Jackson, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 48. Fulton, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 109–10. Dannatt, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 85–6. The problem might have been even worse given that General Jackson apparently indicated that a brigade-sized force could have been deployed to Darfur if requested; Williams, British Foreign Policy, n. 226. Hastings Dunn, ‘UK–US relations’, 9. Hartley, ‘The economics’, 8; Dorman, ‘Making 2 + 2 = 5’, 81. Harding, ‘Defence review’. Cavanagh, ‘Missed opportunity’, 11. UK troop numbers were listed as 9,500 on the International Security Assistance Force website on 9 July 2012: www.isaf. nato.int, accessed 8 October 2012. BBC, ‘British Army’. HM Government, Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty, 11. Wintour, ‘Anglo-French defence’. HM Government, Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty, 5. Taylor, ‘What’s new? UK defence policy’, 10. King, ‘Having brigades will never deliver’. Bradford, ‘Ties that bind’. Buzan, People, States and Fear, 243. Indeed, John Mueller asserts that American industrial capacity had a deterrent effect on Soviet policy in the post-1945 era, citing a member of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff who argued in 1949 that ‘if there is any single factor today which would deter a nation seeking world domination, it would be the great industrial capacity of this country rather than its armed strength’ (Mueller, ‘The essential irrelevance’, 62). As cited in Cornish and Dorman, ‘Dr Fox and the philosopher’s stone’, 346. Richards, ‘What are we fighting for?’ Schweizer, ‘Who broke the evil’; Wohlforth, ‘Realism and the end’. Lennard, ‘Is our debt to China’; Buckley, ‘China PLA officers urge economic punch’. The American Revolution was sparked when the British government, quite reasonably, asked the American colonists to bear the cost of the seven-year war that was prosecuted for their defence; see Anderson, Crucible of War. Fox, ‘The need for defence reform’. Cavanagh, ‘Missed opportunity’, 9.

213

214

Notes to pp. 134–139

124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131

132 133

134 135

136 137 138 139

140 141 142

143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160

HM Treasury, Spending Review, 17, 81; BBC, ‘Spending Review 2010’. Dorman, ‘Making 2 + 2 = 5’, 81. Fergusson, ‘Overstretched and over there’. Robbins, The Eclipse of a Great Power; Hastings Dunn, ‘UK–US relations’. Sandys, ‘British White Paper’, 223. Sandys, ‘British White Paper’, 223. As cited in Turner, An International History, 2. One could tentatively suggest that the development of norms encouraging the use of force to promote humanitarian aims and counter more diffuse threats was only possible due to the unprecedented years of economic growth in the 1990s and 2000s. Sandys, ‘British White Paper’, 223 For instance, MOD, Strategic Defence Review; King, ‘Entente militaire’; Cabinet Office, ‘Future policy’, 10. Turner An International History, 203–4. Watt, ‘Hillary Clinton “worried” ’; Shanker and Erlanger, ‘Blunt U.S. warning reveals’. Hartley, ‘The economics’, 5. Hartley, ‘The economics’, 5. Dalrymple, ‘The ghosts of Gandamak’. Kean, 9/11 Commission Report, 63–71. For an excellent journalistic account of the background to the 9/11 attacks, see Wright, The Looming Tower. Buckley, ‘Invoking Article 5’. CNN, ‘Bush delivers ultimatum’. Smith and Thorp, ‘The legal basis’, 3. Although no specific legal authorization was given by the UN Security Council, this is not required under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The extensive diplomatic support for the counter-terrorism resolutions listed and lack of dissent among the great powers indicates that the legal justifications for military action were accepted. MOD, ‘Operations in Afghanistan’. MOD, ‘Operations in Afghanistan’. Economist, ‘Losing their way’. Jackson, ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’, 53. King, ‘Understanding the Helmand campaign’, 314. Betz and Cormack, ‘Iraq, Afghanistan and British strategy’, 326. Farrell, ‘Improving in war’, 575. Farrell, ‘Improving in war’, 574. King, ‘Understanding the Helmand campaign’, 314. Fergusson, ‘Overstretched and over there’. Farrell and Gordon, ‘COIN machine’, 20. Economist, ‘Losing their way’. Egnell, ‘Lessons from Helmand’, 303. Farrell, ‘Improving in war’, 576. Farrell, ‘Improving in war’, 576. Farrell, ‘Improving in war’, 577. Farrell, ‘Improving in war’, 578. Egnell, ‘Lessons from Helmand’, 305.

Notes to pp. 140–143

161 162 163 164 165

166

167 168 169

170

171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178

179 180 181 182 183

Farrell, ‘Improving in war’, 583. Farrell, ‘Improving in war’, 581. Oliver, ‘Why has the UK been in Afghanistan?’ Farrell, ‘Improving in war’, 588. As a rule of thumb, counter-insurgency doctrine advocates having a ratio of one soldier to every ten or fifteen civilians in order to provide sufficient concentration of force to impose security; however, this is obviously dependent on the particular situation at hand. For a discussion of force numbers and military doctrine, see Friedman, ‘Manpower and counterinsurgency’; Chin, ‘British defense’, 70–1. King, ‘Understanding the Helmand campaign’, 318. The example King offers is Robert Thompson’s analysis of Britain’s successful counter-insurgency campaign against communist forces in Malaya. For further discussion of British counter-insurgency experience, see Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency; Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife; Mockaitis, British Counter-Insurgency; Newsinger, British Counterinsurgency; Mumford, the Counter-Insurgency Myth; Jackson, ‘British counterinsurgency in history’. An influential thinker in this area, particularly on US doctrine, has been David Kilcullen; see his Counterinsurgency. Official British Army counter-insurgency policy is set out in British Army, Countering Insurgency. King, ‘Understanding the Helmand campaign’, 314. King, ‘Understanding the Helmand campaign’, 317. For instance, Anthony King attributes the problems in the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns to ‘the absence of a clear vision of the national and military strategic purpose of their mission’ (‘Military command in the last decade’, 380–1). Farrell, ‘Improving in war’, 583. Farrell does qualify this assertion by noting: ‘The MOD’s lessons management system does generate “lessons” and requires a response from the relevant defence “stakeholders”. But this is a mechanical process that encourages a tick-box approach and fails to distinguish and prioritise big operational lessons from small technical lessons’ (‘Improving in war’, 583). King, ‘Military command in the last decade’, 380. Grey, ‘Cracking on in Helmand’. Grey, ‘Cracking on in Helmand’. Farrell, ‘Improving in war’, 584. Reid, ‘Afghanistan’, col. 1529. Reid, ‘Afghanistan’, col. 1533. Reid, ‘Afghanistan’, col. 1531. Although the deployment was intended to include cooperation between the FCO, DFID and army, the hostile security situation they encountered meant that this would not be realized for years. FAC, The UK’s Foreign Policy, 83. Watt, ‘Cameron: “Britain and US’. Watt, ‘Cameron: “Britain and US’. Farrell, ‘Review essay’, 64. BBC, ‘David Miliband warns Afghanistan’.

215

216

Notes to pp. 145–149

Chapter 8 1

2

3 4

5

6 7

8

9 10 11 12

13 14

15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Economics and British foreign policy

Two rare examples in the immediate post-Cold war era were Hutton, ‘Britain in a cold climate’; Currie and Vines, ‘A global economic policy’. Jensen, Nation-States and the Multinational Corporation, 23–40; Held et al., Global Transformations, chapter 5. For a defence of the record of MNCs in promoting good governance, see Meyer, ‘Human rights and MNCs’, and Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations, chapter 6. As cited in Jenkins, Transnational Corporations, 165. See Tugendhat and Wallace, Options for British Foreign Policy, 43. In response to Western support for Israel in the Arab–Israeli war of 1973, OPEC imposed restrictions on oil exports. The result was that oil prices quadrupled. Britain had to introduce restrictions on energy use to ensure that supplies did not run out. For a good explanation of the origins of the financial crisis, see Shiller, The Subprime Solution. Strange, The Retreat of the State, 46. As Krasner puts it: ‘The structure of international trade changes in fits and starts; it does not flow smoothly with the redistribution of potential state power. Nevertheless, it is the power and policies of states that create order where there would otherwise be chaos or at best a Lockian state of nature’ (‘State power’, 343). See Strange, The Retreat of the State, 73–80. The others (monopoly over the use of violence and funding of security forces) are dealt with in chapter 7 above. Strange, The Retreat of the State, 74. Strange, The Retreat of the State. Buzan, People, States and Fear, 243. Under the Maastricht Treaty, the UK government is not allowed to print money to finance its public deficits – hence the Bank of England bought bonds from financial institutions rather than straight from the government; see BBC, ‘Q&A: quantitative easing’. BBC, ‘Northern Rock to be nationalised’. For a 2011 report into UK government interference in business, see BISC, Government Assistance to Industry. For further discussion on the economics of defence, see Hartley, The Economics of Defence Policy; Sandler and Hartley, The Economics of Defense; Buzan and Herring, The Arms Dynamic. See p. 213, n. 120. Smith, ‘The political economy of Britain’s external relations’, 110. PA, ‘Sir Richard Branson calls on EU’. Beard, ‘EU backs AMR, BA merger’. Cameron, ‘Foreign policy in the national interest’. Cameron, ‘Speech to Lord Mayor’s Banquet’. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 133–5. Pym, ‘British foreign policy’, 2. Similarly, Gladstone once posited ‘just legislation and economy at home’ as the first of his six principles of foreign policy; Gladstone, ‘Right principles’, 213.

Notes to pp. 149–150

24

25 26

27

28

29

30 31

32

More nuanced analyses will also take into account the country’s purchasing power parity (PPP) as a guide to the real prosperity and hence welfare of a state’s citizens. PPP is calculated according to how much a given selection of goods actually costs in a particular country compared to an international mean (usually the dollar price in the United States). Lower prices in developing countries may mean that their money buys more locally than their exchange rate with the dollar might suggest. Obversely, people in developed countries where prices are higher may not be as rich in terms of the goods they can purchase as their high incomes might suggest. See Krasner, ‘State power’, especially 319–23. As cited in Smith, ‘The political economy of Britain’s external relations’, 103. This view is particularly associated with Richard Cobden and John Bright of the ‘Manchester School’. It was famously articulated in 1910 in The Great Illusion by Norman Angell, who suggested war would not take place between the European powers as their economic interdependence meant that the costs would be too high. Angell’s mistake was in perhaps assuming that statespeople made rational decisions based on economic interest. The argument has arisen again as part of debates over liberal democratic peace theory, with some seeing the disinclination of liberal democracies to fight each other as partly influenced by mutual trading interests; see Gartzke, ‘The capitalist peace’; Mousseau, ‘Market prosperity’. See also Copeland, ‘Economic interdependence’. See Baldwin, Economic Statecraft; Mastanduno, ‘Economic statecraft’; Hill, The Changing Politics, 148–52. The label ‘most favoured nation’ (MFN) refers to a mechanism whereby any agreement to lower tariffs between state A and a third party will automatically be available also to those other states to which state A has granted MFN status. It has been used by the UK and US in the past to signal thawed relations with China. BBC, ‘Bush ditches steel import duties’. Despite the ubiquity of sanctions as a policy tool in international relations, there is an ongoing academic debate over when and how they are effective. For overviews, see Baldwin, ‘The sanctions debate’; Cortright and Lopez, The Sanctions Decade; Cortright and Lopez, Smart Sanctions; Martin, Cooercive Cooperation; Doxey, International Sanctions. For sympathetic accounts, see Barber, ‘Economic sanctions as a policy instrument’; Hufbauer et al., Economic Sanctions Reconsidered; Elliott, ‘The sanctions glass’; Rowe, ‘Economic sanctions do work’; Lopez and Cortright, ‘Containing Iraq’. For the opposing view, see Pape, ‘Why economic sanctions do not work’; Pape, ‘Why economic sanctions still do not work’. Key points of debate are over the humanitarian costs (see Gordon, ‘Smart sanctions revisited’), and how far sanctions have an independent effect or need to combine with other policy instruments – making it difficult to assess their relative importance; see Vines, ‘The effectiveness of UN and EU sanctions’. For a discussion on defining sanctions, see Baldwin, ‘Evaluating economic sanctions’ 189–91.

217

218

Notes to pp. 151–156

33

34

35 36

37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45

46 47

48

Herring, ‘Between Iraq and a hard place’; Mueller and Mueller, ‘Sanctions of mass destruction’. In response to Iran’s development of a nuclear programme, the UK has used its position in the UN Security Council and membership of the European Union to promote sanctions on the regime designed to restrict Iran’s access to the world economy and impose a financial penalty for this policy. Yet countries such as Turkey and Brazil have separately offered to supply material which the Security Council is seeking to restrict. The emphasis that Saddam Hussein placed on undermining and removing the sanctions regime is indicative of its impact on Iraq’s ability to pursue WMD programmes; see Iraq Survey Group, Comprehensive Report, 34–5. See also Lopez and Cortright, ‘Containing Iraq’. Gordon, ‘Smart sanctions revisited’, 315. Traynor, ‘Brown loses fight to bar Mugabe from summit’; Burkeman, ‘Mugabe beats US travel ban’. Johnson, ‘Optimum tariffs and retaliation’. See Dincecco, ‘The political economy of fiscal prudence’. Strange, States and Markets, 99. Two other factors highlighted by Strange were the separation of domestic and international banking systems and the fact that much of the financing of investments in the nineteenth century took the form of trade bills, not bonds. The investment risk was largely taken on by the individual investor, not the bank that sold the bill, and since the bills were tied to a real exchange of goods rather than monetary value they could not as easily be misused by governments for other purposes; Strange, States and Markets, 100–1. Strange, States and Markets, 99. Robbins, The Eclipse of a Great Power, 140. Smith, ‘The political economy of Britain’s external relations’, 122. See Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations, 130. Cain and Hopkins, ‘The political economy’; Gallagher and Robinson, ‘The imperialism of free trade’. As cited in Dobson, The Politics of the Anglo-American, 23. The UK negotiated a loan of US$3.75 billion from the US to sustain UK military activities abroad. Yet tacked onto this agreement was the requirement that sterling become fully convertible to the dollar within one year; i.e. that investors would be able to convert their holdings of sterling into dollars. To prevent currency speculation and a run on the pound, the wartime government had restricted the amount that could be converted. The United States wanted this lifted to make it easier for investors to move their capital from Britain to the US. The more Britain paid investors in dollars, the more its dollar reserves dwindled. Since the dollar had a higher value than sterling, this meant that the value of Britain’s reserves was being reduced; and the more sterling was sold, the more it declined in real value, leaving Britain with less wealth to intervene in the market. In the event, dollar convertibility was implemented in July 1947, and the result was a run on sterling that was only halted when full convertibility was suspended. The loan itself was eaten up by attempts to prop up the value of sterling during this crisis. Barnett, ‘The wasting of Britain’s’.

Notes to pp. 157–161

49 50

51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65

66 67

68

69 70 71 72

Dobson, The Politics of the Anglo-American, 170. This narrative of US economic pressure leading to withdrawal is a commonplace of the literature (e.g. Dobson, The Politics of the Anglo-American, 170); however, it has been critiqued by Robert Pape, who argues that it was the risks of the operation as well as Britain’s balance of trade that were more significant; Pape, ‘Why economic sanctions do not work’, 116–17. For an evaluation of the decisionmaking process in Britain at the time, see Verbeek, Decision-Making. Gamble, Britain in Decline, 21. Dobson, The Politics of the Anglo-American, 164. Martin, ‘20 years of “Black Wednesday” ’. Information derived from Bank of England website, www.bankofengland. co.uk/monetarypolicy/Pages/framework/framework.aspx, accessed 8 October 2012. Hague, ‘Britain’s foreign policy in a networked world’. Economist, ‘The company that ruled the waves’, 189–211. Smith, The Wealth of Nations, book V, chapter 1, 220. Platt, Finance, Trade, and Politics, xv. Wallace and Wallace, ‘Strong state or weak state’, 83–4. Gamble, Britain in Decline, 131. Gamble, Britain in Decline, 52–3. Platt, Finance, Trade, and Politics, 85. As with any generalization there are exceptions. Temperley and Penson note that in Latin America, ‘Palmerston had bullied several countries a good deal in private in the interests of British bondholders’ (A Century of Diplomatic Blue Books, 103). Demands for equal access to markets had a downside for the nation being opened to trade as it meant its ability to regulate trade and vary duties would be restricted, since the nation was supposed to offer the same terms to all trading partners (Platt, Finance, Trade, and Politics, 90). Platt, Finance, Trade, and Politics, 101. Platt cites Harold Nicolson’s theory to explain why this might be the case: ‘it was a reaction from the old Venetian type of trading diplomacy . . . Once it was established, in the first decades of the nineteenth century, that diplomatists represented only their national governments, British officials were so anxious to break with the trading tradition . . . that they reacted violently against commerce’ (Platt, Finance, Trade, and Politics, xxv). Platt, Finance, Trade, and Politics, xxi. By 1913, the UK’s global share of manufacturing goods stood at 29.9 per cent, but Germany’s total was catching up at 26.5 per cent, as was that of the United States at 12.6 per cent; Robbins, The Eclipse of a Great Power, 137. Vansittart, The Mist Procession, 167. Lord Robert Vansittart was a Foreign Office diplomat during the First World War and would later rise to become PUS from 1930 to 1938. Neilson and Kennedy, The British Way in Warfare, 273–4. Meyer, International Trade Policy, 132. Dobson, The Politics of the Anglo-American, 34–5. Dobson, The Politics of the Anglo-American, 35.

219

220

Notes to pp. 162–169

73 74

75 76

77

78 79 80

81

82

83 84 85 86 87 88

89 90 91 92 93

94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

Robbins, The Eclipse of a Great Power, 139. Some provisions were retained when the UK entered the EC, e.g. favourable trading terms for New Zealand butter. Livingstone, Britain and the World Economy, 53. Information derived from www.uktradeinfo.com/Pages/Home.aspx, accessed 8 October 2012. Hague, ‘Britain’s foreign policy in a networked world’. A similar point was made by David Cameron in his Mansion House speech of 2010: ‘Today we trade more with the Netherlands than with Brazil, Russia, India, China and Turkey combined’ (Cameron, ‘Speech to Lord Mayor’s Banquet’). BIS/DFID, The UK and the Single Market. Wallace, ‘British foreign policy after the Cold War’. Since 1995, the tariff harmonization and reduction arrangements of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) have been organized under the auspices of the WTO. As noted in chapter 5 above, the EU negotiates on the UK’s behalf and the UK is bound by the agreements reached. Three of the last seven EU trade commissioners have been British, and the UK has been a strong advocate in European and global circles for lowering international tariff barriers – for the self-interested reason that its economy relies heavily on international trade. Data available at http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD, accessed 8 October 2012. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD, accessed 8 October 2012. Robbins, The Eclipse of a Great Power, 49–50. Supple, ‘British economic decline since 1945’, 320. Supple, ‘British economic decline since 1945’, 320. Feinstein, ‘Success and failure: British economic growth since 1948’, 122. Economist, ‘Some safe haven’. Hawksworth, ‘The world in 2050’; Lea, ‘The New Year: time for a long-term look’. Gamble, ‘Theories and explanations’, 2. Gamble, Britain in Decline, 17–18. Mellows-Facer and Maer, ‘International comparisons’, 2. BIS, UK Trade Performance. BIS, UK Trade Performance, 8; WTO, ‘Table I.10 Leading exporters and importers in world trade’. ONS, ‘International comparisons of productivity, 2010’. Cabinet Office, ‘British monetary policy’, 1–2. Barnett, ‘The wasting of Britain’s’. Coker and Blackstone, ‘British foreign policy choices’. Gamble, Britain in Decline, 16. BIS, UK Trade Performance, 82. BIS, UK Trade Performance, 82. BIS, UK Trade Performance, 11. BIS, UK Trade Performance, ix. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BG.GSR.NFSV.GD.ZS/countries?page=2&di splay=default, accessed 8 October 2012.

Notes to pp. 169–179

104 105 106 107 108

109 110 111 112 113 114

115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122

BIS, UK Trade Performance, x. Aldrick, ‘Strong UK trade data’. BIS, UK Trade Performance, ix. BIS, UK Trade Performance, ix. Darling, Back from the Brink, 209. As prime minister, Brown had been calling for these measures some months before and been negotiating with the Gulf states and China for them to increase their support for the IMF in the autumn of 2008; see Watt and Chrisafis, ‘Brown looks to China’. Darling, Back from the Brink, 212. Darling, Back from the Brink, 210. Kendall, ‘Surprise consensus’. Mandelson, The Third Man, 459. Porter et al., ‘G20 Summit: Gordon Brown announces’. G20, ‘The global plan for recovery and reform’, 1. ‘SDR’ here refers to IMF special drawing rights, funds which IMF members can borrow in times of hardship (not to be confused with the strategic defence review discussed in chapter 7 above). G20, ‘The global plan for recovery and reform’. Porter et al., ‘G20 Summit: Gordon Brown announces’. Wintour and Elliott, ‘G20: Gordon Brown brokers’. Darling, Back from the Brink, 216. Mandelson, The Third Man, 460. Darling, Back from the Brink, 211. China Daily, ‘China urges IMF’. Lanchester, ‘How we were all misled’.

Conclusion: future challenges 1 2 3

4 5

6 7 8 9

10

11 12

BBC, ‘Tunisian crisis “took France by surprise” ’. For an extended treatment on future conflict, see Gray, Another Bloody Century. A 2011 Guardian poll indicated that devolved powers might lead to stronger feelings of Britishness; Guardian, ‘How British are the British?’ ONS, ‘UK population projected’. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer of my original book proposal for suggesting I use the NIC’s report in this chapter. NIC, Global Trends, 2025, 1. NIC, Global Trends, 2025, 1. NIC, Global Trends, 2025, 84. For a fuller explanation of the settled norms of international society, see Frost, Ethics in International Relations. For the statements of these countries, and the full text of UN Security Council Resolution 1970, see http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10187.doc. htm, accessed 8 October 2012. NIC, Global Trends, 2025, x. The UK did resist formulating common fiscal rules within EU institutions in December 2011, but it then relented on the use of EU buildings and organizations. Policymakers recognize the importance of the survival of the Eurozone to the British economy and have expressed willingness to provide further

221

222

Notes to pp. 179–183

13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

funds, via the IMF, as long as they perceive that the European Central Bank is also offering support and reform; Wintour, ‘UK faces request’. NIC, Global Trends, 2025, 1. NIC, Global Trends, 2025, 88. Alexander Litvinenko was a former KGB officer who became a prominent critic of the Russian government, alleging criminal activity on the part of the Russian security services. He was apparently poisoned with radioactive material in 2006. Harding, Mafia State; Lucas, Deception. Chatham House, ‘A British agenda for Europe’, 10. NIC, Global Trends, 2025, x. NIC, Global Trends, 2025, 81. The key official texts and legal documents are hosted on the NATO website at www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/71679.htm, accessed 8 October 2012. Watt, ‘David Cameron to urge’. In the House of Commons debate following the start of military action, Cameron emphasized that ‘it was legal because, as we have just discussed, it had the backing of the UN Security Council’ and argued: ‘it was the Arab League that asked us to come in and provide the no-fly zone’ (Hansard, ‘House of Commons, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973’, 21 March 2011, cols:700–6, www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110321/debtext/110321-0001.htm#1103219000001. Harris et al., ‘Syria resolution vetoed’. MOD, Future Character of Conflict, 4–5. MOD, Future Character of Conflict, 5. MOD, Future Character of Conflict, 5. MOD, Future Character of Conflict, 25. MOD, Future Character of Conflict, 31. MOD, Future Character of Conflict, 32. MOD, Future Character of Conflict, 4. MOD, Future Character of Conflict, 4. MOD, Future Character of Conflict, 31. MOD, Future Character of Conflict, 6. MOD, Future Character of Conflict, A-3. Dadush and Stancil, The World Order in 2050. Dadush and Stancil, The World Order in 2050, 4. Dadush and Stancil, The World Order in 2050, 8. Dadush and Stancil, The World Order in 2050, 10. Dadush and Stancil, The World Order in 2050, 11–12. Dadush and Stancil, The World Order in 2050, 11. Dadush and Stancil, The World Order in 2050, 17. Dadush and Stancil, The World Order in 2050, 17. Dadush and Stancil, The World Order in 2050, 7. Dadush and Stancil, The World Order in 2050, 5. Dadush and Stancil, The World Order in 2050, 1.

Bibliography

Abrahamsen, R. and Williams, P. (2001) ‘Ethics and foreign policy: the antinomies of New Labour’s “Third Way” in Sub-Saharan Africa’ Political Studies, 49,2, 249–64. Abrams, F. (1999) ‘Mandarin slated in Sandline affair’ Independent, 10 February. Acharya, A. (2007) ‘State sovereignty after 9/11: disorganised hypocrisy’ Political Studies, 55,2, 274–96. Acland, A. (2001) ‘Interview’ www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP/#g. Aggestam, L. (2012) European Foreign Policy and the Quest for a Global Role: Britain, France and Germany (London: Routledge). Alden, C. and Aran, A. (2012) Foreign Policy Analysis: New Approaches (Abingdon: Routledge). Aldrich, R. J. (2004) ‘Transatlantic intelligence and security cooperation’ International Affairs, 80,4, 731–53. Aldrick, P. (2011) ‘Strong UK trade data lifts hopes for an export-led recovery’ Telegraph, 10 March, www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8371855/StrongUK-trade-data-lifts-hopes-for-an-export-led-recovery.html. Ali, T. (2011) ‘America’s selective vigilantism will make as many enemies as friends’ Guardian, 6 September, www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/ 2011/sep/06/america-enemies-humanitarianism-washington. Allen, D. (2003) ‘The United Kingdom: adapting to the European Union within a transformed world’ in Hocking, B. and Spence, D. (eds.) Foreign Ministries in the European Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave), 250–72. Allen, D. (2011) ‘New Labour and nuclear weapons’ in Daddow, O. and Gaskarth, J. (2011) (eds.) British Foreign Policy: The New Labour Years (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), 139–54. Allison, G. and Zelikow, P. (1999) Essence of Decision (Harlow: Longman). Alt, J. E. (1979) The Politics of Economic Decline (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Altunbas, Y. and Thornton, J. (2011) ‘Are homegrown Islamic terrorists different? Some UK evidence’ Southern Economic Journal, 78,2, 262–72. Amnesty (2011) ‘Detention abuses staining the new Libya’, 13 October, www. amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE19/036/2011. Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities (London: Verso). Anderson, F. (2001) Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (London: Vintage). Angell, N. (1910) The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power in Nations to Their Economic and Social Advantage (London: Heinemann). 223

224

British Foreign Policy

Annan, K. (2005) ‘The secretary-general: statement to the General Assembly’ New York, 21 March, www.un.org/largerfreedom/sg-statement.html. Aristotle (1976) Ethics [The Nichomachean Ethics] (London: Penguin). Arnold, A. J. and McCartney, S. (2010) ‘Can macro-economic sources be used to define UK business performance, 1855–1914?’ Business History, 52,4, 564–89. Aron, R. (2003) Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (London: Transaction). Art, R. J. (1980) ‘To what ends military power?’ International Security, 4,4, 3–35. Ashdown, P. (2007) Swords and Ploughshares: Bringing Peace to the 21st Century (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Ashley, R. K. and Walker, R. B. J. (1990) ‘Reading dissidence/writing the discipline: crisis and the question of sovereignty in international studies’ International Studies Quarterly, 34, 367–416. Ashley, R. K. and Walker, R. B. J. (1990) ‘Speaking the language of exile: dissident thought in international studies’ International Studies Quarterly, 34, 259–68. Associated Press. (2012) ‘UK warns Iran over oil passageway threat’ 6 January, www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hgR1-0ekg4cmwxX5AlhaNaLN QNsg?docId=5940f463eeb048228e282b1b4bd8979d. Avery, P. C., Desch, M. C., Maliniak, D., Long, J. D., Peterson, S. and Tierney, M. J. (2012) ‘The beltway vs. the ivory tower’ Foreign Policy, January/February, www. foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/03/the_beltway_vs_the_ivory_tower. Axelrod, R. (ed.) (1976) Structure of Decision: The Cognitive Maps of Political Elites (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Badie, D. (2010) ‘Groupthink, Iraq, and the war on terror: explaining US policy shift toward Iraq’ Foreign Policy Analysis, 6,4, 277–96. Baker, A. (1999) ‘Nébuleuse and the “internationalization of the state” in the UK? The case of HM Treasury and the Bank of England’ Review of International Political Economy, 6,1, 79–100. Baldwin, D. (1985) Economic Statecraft (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Baldwin, D. (1998) ‘Evaluating economic sanctions’ International Security, 23,2, 189–98. Baldwin, D. (1999) ‘The sanctions debate and the logic of choice’ International Security, 24, 80–107. Ball, J. (2011) ‘UK incomes fall 3.5% in real terms, ONS reveals’ Guardian, 23 November, www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/nov/23/uk-household-earnings-fall. Barber, J. (1979) ‘Economic sanctions as a policy instrument’ International Affairs 55,3, 367–84. Barder, B. (2001) ‘Britain: still looking for that role?’ Political Quarterly, 72,3, 366–74. Barnett, C. (2000) ‘Interview’ in English, R. and Kenny, M. (eds.) Rethinking British Decline (New York: Macmillan), 37–49. Barnett, C. (2011) ‘The wasting of Britain’s Marshall Aid’ www.bbc.co.uk/history/ british/modern/marshall_01.shtml. Barnett, N. and Xharra, J. (2003) ‘Serbs lament British withdrawal as killing returns to Kosovo’ Daily Telegraph, 21 September, www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/1442081/Serbs-lament-British-withdrawal-as-killing-returns-to-Kosovo. html.

Bibliography

Bartlett, W. (2000) ‘ “Simply the right thing to do”: Labour goes to war’ in Little, R. and Wickham-Jones, M. (eds.) New Labour’s Foreign Policy: A New Moral Crusade? (Manchester: Manchester University Press), 131–46. Bassford, C. (2007) ‘The primacy of policy and the “trinity” in Clausewitz’s mature thought’ in Strachan, H. and Herberg-Rothe, A. (eds.) Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 74–90. Bassford, C. (2011) ‘The strange persistence of trinitarian warfare’ in Rotte, R. and Schwarz, C. (eds.) War and Strategy (New York: Nova Science), 45–54. Bayne, N. and Woolcock, S. (2003) The New Economic Diplomacy: Decision-Making and Negotiation in International Economic Relations (Aldershot: Ashgate). BBC (1999) ‘Aitken’s avoidable road to ruin’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/363478. stm. BBC (2000) ‘UK will be “Europe’s corporate HQ” ’ 22 June, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/ hi/uk_politics/801658.stm. BBC (2002) ‘UK hails new weapons report’ 9 September, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/ hi/uk_politics/2245505.stm. BBC (2002) ‘What is Britishness anyway?’ 10 September, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/ hi/uk/1701843.stm. BBC (2003) ‘Mackinlay defends Kelly grilling’ 26 August, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/ hi/uk_politics/3180805.stm. BBC (2003) ‘Bush ditches steel import duties’ 4 December, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/ hi/business/3291537.stm. BBC (2004) ‘Ambassadors’ letter to Blair’ 29 April, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_ politics/3660837.stm. BBC (2005) ‘London bomber: text in full’ 1 September, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ uk/4206800.stm. BBC (2006) ‘Profile: Shehzad Tanweer’ 6 July, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4762313. stm. BBC (2008) ‘Northern Rock to be nationalised’ 17 February, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/ hi/business/7249575.stm. BBC (2010) ‘Spending Review 2010: George Osborne wields the axe’ 20 October, www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11579979. BBC (2011) ‘Tunisian crisis “took France by surprise” – minister’ 18 January, www. bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12214746. BBC (2011) ‘David Miliband warns Afghanistan is “forgotten war”’ 13 April, http:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13058758. BBC (2011) ‘NATO chief urges Europeans to boost defence spending’ 15 June, www. bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13785056. BBC (2011) ‘British Army “faces thousands more job losses” ’ 24 July, www.bbc. co.uk/news/uk-14271202. BBC (2011) ‘Q&A: quantitative easing’ 6 October, www.bbc.co.uk/news/business15198789. Beach, D. (2012) Analyzing Foreign Policy (Basingstoke: Palgrave). Beard, S. (2010) ‘EU backs AMR, BA merger’ Marketplace, 14 July, www.marketplace. org/topics/business/eu-backs-amr-ba-merger. Beck, P. J. (2006) Using History, Making British Policy (Basingstoke: Palgrave).

225

226

British Foreign Policy

Beech, M. (2011) ‘British Conservatism and foreign policy: traditions and ideas shaping Cameron’s global view’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13,3, 348–63. Bell, S. and Hindmoor, A. (2009) Rethinking Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Bellamy, C. (2011) ‘The Whitehall programme and after: researching government in the time of governance’ Public Administration, 89,1, 78–92. Benitz, M. (2011) ‘A conspiracy of optimism’ New Statesman, 10 November, www. newstatesman.com/asia/2011/11/british-helmand-afghanistan. Berger, P. and Luckman, T. (1967) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Penguin). Berridge, G. R. (2002) Diplomacy: Theory and Practice (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), 2nd edn. Betz, D. and Cormack, A. (2009) ‘Hot war, cold comfort’ RUSI Journal, 154,4, 26–9. Betz, D. and Cormack, A. (2009) ‘Iraq, Afghanistan and British strategy’ Orbis, Spring, 319–36. Bevin, E. (1945) ‘Labour Party’s foreign policy’ speech delivered in House of Commons, London, 20 August. Bevir, M. (2003) ‘A decentred theory of governance’ in Bang, H. (ed.) Governance as Social and Political Communication (Manchester: Manchester University Press), 200–21. Bevir, M. (2005) New Labour: A Critique (London: Routledge). Bevir, M. (ed.) (2010) Interpretive Political Science (London: Sage), 4 vols. Bevir, M. (2011) ‘Democratic governance: a response to commentaries’ Administrative Theory & Praxis 33,3, 478–85. Bevir, M. and O’Brien, D. (2001) ‘New Labour and the public sector in Britain’ Public Administration Review 61,5, 535–47. Bevir, M. and Rhodes, R. (2003) Interpreting British Governance (London: Routledge). Bevir, M. and Rhodes, R. (2006) ‘The life, death and resurrection of British governance’ Australian Journal of Public Administration, 65,2, 59–69. Bevir, M and Rhodes, R. (2009) ‘Decentring policy networks: lessons and prospects’ Public Administration 87,1, 132–41. Bew, J. (2008) ‘What is a Liberal Conservative foreign policy?’ Standpoint, http:// standpointmag.co.uk/what-is-a-liberal-conservative-foreign-policy. BIS (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) (2010) UK Trade Performance: Patterns in UK and Global Trade Growth, BIS Economics Paper 8, www.bis.gov.uk/ assets/biscore/economics-and-statistics/docs/u/10-803-uk-trade-performance-growthpatterns. BIS/DFID (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills/Department for International Development) (2011) The UK and the Single Market, Trade and Investment Analytical Papers 4, www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/internationaltrade-investment-and-development/docs/u/11-719-uk-and-single-market. BISC (Business, Innovation and Skills Committee) (2011) Government Assistance to Industry, Third Report, 10 February, www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ cm201011/cmselect/cmbis/561/56102.htm. Blair, T. (1997) ‘Lord Mayor’s Banquet speech’ 10 November, www.pm.gov.uk/ output/Page1070.asp.

Bibliography

Blair, T. (1998) ‘Speech by the prime minister on foreign affairs’ 15 December, www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page1168.asp. Blair, T. (1999) ‘Doctrine of international community’ speech at the Economics Club, Chicago, 24 April, www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page1297.asp. Blair, T. (2000) ‘PM’s Mansion House speech’ 13 November www.pm.gov.uk/output/ Page1535.asp. Blair, T. (2002) ‘Mansion House speech’ 11 November, www.guardian.co.uk/ politics/2002/nov/11/labour.iraq?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487. Blair, T. (2003) ‘Prime minister’s statement opening Iraq debate’ 18 March, www. pm.gov.uk/output/Page3294.asp. Blair, T. (2003) ‘Speech to Labour Party conference, Glasgow’ 15 February. Extracts are available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2765763.stm. Blair, T. (2004) ‘Speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet’ 15 November, www.guardian. co.uk/politics/2004/nov/16/foreignpolicy.uk. Blair, T. (2005) ‘Speech to the General Assembly at the 2005 UN World Summit’ 15 September, www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page8195.asp. Blair, T. (2006) ‘Clash about civilisations’ speech in London, 21 March, www. pm.gov.uk/output/Page9224.asp. Blair, T. (2006) ‘Global alliance for global values’ speech in Australia, 27 March, http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.number10.gov.uk/ Page9224. Blair, T. (2006) ‘PM’s foreign policy speech’ 26 May, www.pm.gov.uk/output/ Page9549.asp. Blair, T. (2007) ‘Our nation’s future – defence’ 12 January, http://ukingermany.fco. gov.uk/en/news/?view=Speech&id=4616100. Blair, T. (2010) A Journey (London: Hutchinson). Blair, T. (2010) ‘Rt. Hon. Tony Blair’ Iraq Inquiry, 29 January, www.iraqinquiry. org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/100129.aspx. Blair, T. (2011) ‘Evidence of the Rt. Hon. Tony Blair’ Iraq Inquiry, 21 January, www. iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/50865/20110121-Blair.pdf. Bluth, C. (2004) ‘The British road to war: Blair, Bush and the decision to invade Iraq’ International Affairs, 80, 871–92. Boardman, R. and Groom, A. J. R. (1973) The Management of Britain’s External Relations (Basingstoke: Macmillan). Body, R. (2001) England for the English (London: New European Publications). Booth, K. (1997) ‘Exporting ethics in place of arms’ Times Higher Education Supplement, 7 November. Booth, R. (2011) ‘Libya rescue mission criticized by trapped Britons’ Guardian, 23 February, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/23/libya-rescue-missioncriticised-by-britons. Boyce, Admiral the Lord (2011) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 27 January, www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/110127.aspx. Bradford, J. (2011) ‘Ties that bind: US perspectives on the UK’s SDSR’ RUSI Defence Systems, Summer, 14–15. Brenton, A. (2010) ‘Interview’ www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP/#g. Bright, M. (2006) ‘The task force was a sham’ New Statesman, 3 July, www. newstatesman.com/node/153562.

227

228

British Foreign Policy

British Army (2009) Countering Insurgency, British Army Field Manual, 1,10, Army Code 71876, October, www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/16_11_09_ army_manual.pdf. Brown, C. (2001) ‘Ethics, interests and foreign policy’ in Smith, Karen E. and Light, M. (eds.) Ethics and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 15–32. Brown, C. (2001) ‘Moral agency and international society’ Ethics and International Affairs, 15,2, 87–98. Brown, C. (2002) ‘On morality, self-interest and foreign policy’ Government and Opposition 37,2, 173–89. Brown, C. (2002) Sovereignty, Rights and Justice (Cambridge: Polity). Brown, C. (2004) ‘Do great powers have great responsibilities? Great powers and moral agency’ Global Society, 18,1, 21–42. Brown, G. (2004) ‘Speech at the British Council Annual Lecture’ 7 July, www. guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/jul/08/uk.labour1. Brown, G. (2006) ‘The future of Britishness’ 14 January, www.fabians.org.uk/ events/speeches/the-future-of-britishness. Brown, G. (2007) ‘Speech on Britishness’ seminar at the Commonwealth Club, London, 27 February, www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/feb/27/ immigrationpolicy.race. Brummer, K. (2012) ‘Decision-making on the use of force in the United Kingdom: lessons to be learned from history?’ in Oppermann, K. (ed.) British Foreign and Security Policy: Historical Legacies and Current Challenges (Augsburg: Wißner), 170–89. Bryant, C. (2010) Interview with the author. Bryson, A. (2009) ‘Ambassadors going out with a bang’ BBC, 16 October, http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8307273.stm. Buckley, C. (2010) ‘China PLA officers urge economic punch against U.S.’ Reuters, 9 February, www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/09/us-china-usa-plaidUSTRE6183KG20100209. Buckley, E. (2006) ‘Invoking Article 5’ NATO Review, Summer, www.nato.int/docu/ review/2006/issue2/english/art2.html. Bull, H. (1966) ‘The case for a classical approach’ World Politics, 18,3, 361–77. Bull, H. (2002) The Anarchical Society (Basingstoke: Palgrave), 3rd edn. Buller, J. (2012) ‘Conservative statecraft and European integration in historical perspective’ in Oppermann, K. (ed.) British Foreign and Security Policy: Historical Legacies and Current Challenges (Augsburg: Wißner), 70–93. Bulley, D. (2009) Ethics as Foreign Policy: Britain, the EU and the Other (London: Routledge). Bulmer, S. and Burch, M. (1998) ‘Organizing for Europe: Whitehall, the British state and European Union’ Public Administration, 76, 601–28. Bunting, M. (2011) ‘Britain as the “superpower of aid”? Beware the delusions that may bring’ Guardian, 12 June, www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/12/ uk-generous-aid-beware-power-politics. Burall, S. Donnelly, B. and Weir, S. (2006) Not in Our Name: Democracy and Foreign Policy in the UK (London: Politico’s). Burchill, S. (2005) ‘Liberalism’ in Burchill, S., Linklater, A., Devetak, R. et al. Theories of International Relations (Basingstoke: Palgrave), 55–83. Burkeman, O. (2002) ‘Mugabe beats US travel ban’ Guardian, 9 May, www.guardian. co.uk/world/2002/may/09/zimbabwe.oliverburkeman.

Bibliography

Butler, J. (2012) The Golden Revolution: How to Prepare for the Coming Global Gold Standard (London: Wiley). Butler, M. (1997) ‘Interview’ www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP/#g. Butler, R. (2004) Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, HC898, 14 July (London: Stationery Office). Buzan, B. (1991) People, States and Fear (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf). Buzan, B. (2010) ‘China in international society: is peaceful rise possible?’ Chinese Journal of International Politics, 3,1, 5–36. Buzan, B. and Herring, E. (1998) The Arms Dynamic in World Politics (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner). CAAT (Campaign Against Arms Trade) (2010) Private Gain, Public Pain (London: CAAT). Cabinet Office (1925) ‘British monetary policy’ 9 November, National Archives Ref: CAB/24/175. Cabinet Office (1931) ‘Sterling and the gold standard’ memorandum circulated by Maurice Hankey, Cabinet Secretary, 3 September, National Archives Ref: CAB/24/223. Cabinet Office (1960) ‘Future policy study: 1960–1970’, 24 February, CAB 129/100. CAEC (Committee on Arms Export Controls) (2010) Scrutiny of Arms Export Controls (2010), First Report, 16 March (London: Stationery Office). CAEC (Committee on Arms Export Controls) (2011) Scrutiny of Arms Export Controls (2011), UK Strategic Export Controls Annual Report 2009, Quarterly Reports for 2010, Licensing Policy and Review of Export Control Legislation, HC686, 22 March (London: Stationery Office). Cain, P. J. and Hopkins, A. G. (1980) ‘The political economy of British expansion overseas, 1750–1914’ Economic History Review, 33,4, 463–90. Cairncross, A. (1994) ‘Economic policy and performance, 1964–1990’ in Floud, R. and McCloskey, D. (eds.) The Economic History of Britain Since 1970. Vol. 3: 1939–1992 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 67–94. Cameron, D. (2010) ‘Speech to Lord Mayor’s Banquet’ 15 November, www. number10.gov.uk/news/speech-to-lord-mayors-banquet. Cameron, D. (2011) ‘Statement on UN resolution’ 18 March, www.bbc.co.uk/news/ uk-politics-12786225. Cameron, D. (2011) ‘Prime minister’s first speech to the UN General Assembly’ 22 September, www.number10.gov.uk/news/pm-speech-to-unga. Cameron, D. (2011) ‘Foreign policy in the national interest’ Lord Mayor’s Banquet, 14 November, www.number10.gov.uk/news/lord-mayors-banquet. Cameron, F. (2012) An Introduction to European Foreign Policy (London: Routledge). Camilleri, J. A. and Falk, J. (1992) The End of Sovereignty? (Aldershot: Edward Elgar). Campbell, A. (2007) The Blair Years (London: Hutchinson). Campbell, D. (1992) Writing Security (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Caney, S. (2006) Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Cannadine, D. (2001) Ornamentalism: How the British Saw their Empire (New York: Oxford University Press). Carr, E. H. (2008) What Is History? (London: Penguin). Carstairs, C. and Ware, R. (1991) Parliament and International Relations (Milton Keynes: Open University Press).

229

230

British Foreign Policy

Carter, Lord (2005) Public Diplomacy Review, December, www.britishcouncil.org/ home-carter-report. Cavanagh, M. (2011) ‘Missed opportunity’, RUSI Journal, 156,5, 6–13. Cerny, P. G. (2000) ‘Political agency in a globalizing world: towards a structurational approach’ European Journal of International Relations, 6,4, 435–63. Chakrabarti, S. (2009) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 8 December, www. iraqinquiry.org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/091208.aspx#am. Chakrabarti, S. (2010) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 22 January, www. iraqinquiry.org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/100122.aspx#am. Chalmers, M. (2011) ‘Keeping our powder dry?’, RUSI Journal, 156,1, 20–8. Chamberlain, A. (1927) ‘HoC supply: Committee Foreign Office’ 11 July, 1786. Chandler, D. (2003) ‘Rhetoric without responsibility: the attraction of “ethical” foreign policy’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 5,3, 295–316. Chatham House (2008) ‘A British agenda for Europe’ www.chathamhouse.org/ publications/papers/view/108883. Chatham House (2010) Intelligence Cooperation and Torture, www.chathamhouse.org. uk/files/17096_il0507 10summary.pdf. Chatham House (2010) ‘UK and the world: governing in an age of uncertainty’, www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Meetings/Meeting%20Transcr ipts/09062010alexevansetal.pdf. Chatham House and YouGov (2010) British Attitudes Towards the UK’s International Priorities, Chatham House-YouGov Survey, www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/ files/public/Research/Europe/0710ch_yougov_survey.pdf. Chin, W. (2011) ‘British defense policy and the war in Iraq 2003–2009’, Defense & Security Analysis, 27,1, 65–76. China Daily (2009) ‘China urges IMF quota share adjustments’ 5 October, www. chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-10/05/content_8764189.htm. China Financial Daily (2011) ‘2010, urban household average income of 21,033 yuan, with total growth of 11.5%’ 19 January, www.chinafinancialdaily.com/ financial/news/2011/01/19/13656/2010-urban-household-average-income-of21033-yuan-with-total-growth-of-11-5.html. China Post (2011) ‘China fund official slams Europe’s “sloth-inducing” labor laws’ 8 November, www.chinapost.com.tw/business/asia-china/2011/11/08/322247/ China-fund.htm. Chomsky, N. (1999) The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo (London: Pluto Press). Chulov, M. (2011) ‘Libyan rebels free British MI6 officers and SAS soldiers’ Irish Times, 7 March, www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0307/ 1224291483706.html. Churchill, W. (1921) ‘Winston Churchill’s reply to Mousa Kasem El-Hussaini’ http://cojs.org/cojswiki/Winston_Churchill’s_Reply_to_Mousa_Kasem_ El-Hussaini_,_1921. Churchill, W. (1940) ‘Blood, toil, tears, and sweat’ speech, House of Commons, 13 May, www.churchill-society-london.org.uk. Churchill, W. (1940) ‘We shall fight on the beaches’ speech, House of Commons, 4 June, www.churchill-society-london.org.uk. Churchill, W. (1940) ‘Their finest hour’ speech, House of Commons, 18 June, www. churchill-society-london.org.uk.

Bibliography

Churchill, W. (1944) ‘British foreign policy: problems of present; hopes of future’ speech, House of Commons, 24 May, repr. in Vital Speeches of the Day, 10, 482– 90. Churchill, W. (1948) ‘Speech to the Conservative Party Conference’, 9 October, repr. in Churchill, R. (ed) (1950) Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 and 1948 by Winston S. Churchill (London: Cassell), 409–24. Clarke, M. (1992) British External Policy-Making in the 1990s (Basingstoke: Macmillan). Clausewitz, C. V. (1968) On War, ed. Rapoport, A. (Harmondsworth: Penguin). CNN (2001) ‘Bush delivers ultimatum’ 20 September, http://articles.cnn.com/200109-20/world/ret.afghan.bush_1_senior-taliban-official-terrorist-ringleaderosama-bin-mullah-mohammed-omar?_s=PM:asiapcf. CNN (2002) ‘IISS: the case against Iraq’ 9 September, http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ WORLD/europe/09/09/iiss.samore.rodgers.cnna/index.html?related. Coates, D. and Hay, C. (2001) ‘The internal and external face of New Labour’s political economy’ Government and Opposition, 36,4, 447–71. Coates, D. and Krieger, J. (2004) Blair’s War (Cambridge: Polity). Cobain, I. (2011) ‘Britain helped bring her family to Gaddafi, now she is asking why’ Guardian, 24 October, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/24/britainfamily-gaddafi-legal?newsfeed=true. Cobain, I. and Chulov, M. (2011) ‘Libyan papers show UK worked with Gaddafi in rendition operation’ Guardian, 4 September, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ sep/04/libyan-papers-show-uk-rendition. Coker, C. (1992) ‘Post-modernity and the end of the Cold War: has war been disinvented?’ Review of International Studies, 18,3, 189–98. Coker, C. and Blackstone, T. (1989) ‘British foreign policy choices’ International Affairs, 65,2, 305–9. Coleman, W. D. and Perl, A. (1999) ‘Internationalized policy environments and policy network analysis’ Political Studies, XLVII, 691–709. Coles, J. (2000) Making Foreign Policy (London: John Murray). Coles, J. (2002) Interview with the author. Colley, L. (1994) Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (London: Pimlico). Cook, R. (1997) ‘Mission statement for the FCO’ speech to FCO, Locarno Suite, 12 May, London. Cook, R. (1997) ‘Human rights into a new century’ speech, 17 July, London. Cook, R. (2000) ‘Foreign policy and national interest’ speech, 28 January, London. Cook, R. (2003) ‘Resignation speech’ speech to the House of Commons, 18 March. Cook, R. (2004) The Point of Departure (London: Simon & Schuster). Cooper, R. (2000) The Postmodern State and the World Order (London: Demos). Copeland, D. (1996) ‘Economic interdependence and war: a theory of trade expectations’ International Security, 20,4, 5–41. Copeland, D. (2009) Guerrilla Diplomacy (London: Lynne Rienner). Cornish, P. and Dorman, A. M (2009) ‘National defence in the age of austerity’ International Affairs, 85,4, 733–53. Cornish, P. and Dorman, A. M. (2010) ‘Breaking the mould: the United Kingdom Strategic Defence Review 2010’ International Affairs, 86,2, 395–410. Cornish, P. and Dorman, A. M (2011) ‘Dr Fox and the philosopher’s stone: the alchemy of national defence in the age of austerity’ International Affairs, 87,2, 335–53.

231

232

British Foreign Policy

Cortright, D. and Lopez, G. (2000) (eds.) The Sanctions Decade: Assessing UN Strategies in the 1990s (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner). Cortright, D. and Lopez, G. (2002) Smart Sanctions: Targeting Economic Statecraft (New York: Rowman and Littlefield). Cox, R. (1981) ‘Social forces, states and world order: beyond international relations theory’ Millennium, 10, 126–55. CPRS (Central Policy Review Staff ) (1977) Report of Overseas Representation: Report by the Central Policy Review Staff (London: HMSO). Crisp, B. F. and Kelly, M. J. (1999) ‘The socioeconomic impacts of structural adjustment’ International Studies Quarterly, 43,3, 533–52. Croft, S. (2012) Securitizing Islam: A Study of Britishness and Ontological Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Croft, S., Dorman, A., Rees, W. and Uttley, M. (2001) Britain and Defence, 1945–2000 (Harlow: Longman). Cross, T. (2009) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 7 December, www.iraqinquiry. org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/091207.aspx#pm. Crowe, E. (1907) ‘Memorandum on the present state of British relations with France and Germany’ 1 January, http://tmh.floonet.net/pdf/eyre_crowe_memo. pdf. Currie, D. and Vines, D. (1992) ‘A global economic policy agenda for the 1990s: is there a special British role?’ International Affairs, 68,4, 585–602. Curtis, M. (1995) The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy Since 1945 (London: Zed Books). Curtis, M. (2003) Web of Deceit (London: Vintage). Curtis, M. (2004) ‘Britain’s real foreign policy and the failure of British academia’ International Relations, 18,3, 275–87. D’Ancona, M. (2002) ‘Why the right must embrace multiculturalism’ in Griffith, P. and Leonard, M. (eds.) Reclaiming Britishness (London: Foreign Policy Centre), 7–13. Daddow, O. (2004) Britain and Europe Since 1945: Historiographical Perspectives on Integration (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Daddow, O. (2009) ‘ “Tony’s war”? Blair, Kosovo and the interventionist impulse in British foreign policy’ International Affairs, 85,3, 547–60. Daddow, O. (2010) ‘Dodging the bullet and ducking the question: British defence policy and its post-imperial world role’ www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ ref:C4C6D0795721B3. Daddow, O. (2011) New Labour and the European Union: Blair and Brown’s Logic of History (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Daddow, O. and Gaskarth, J. (2011) (eds.) British Foreign Policy: The New Labour Years (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Dadush, U. and Stancil, B. (2010) The World Order in 2050, Carnegie Endowment Policy Outlook, www.carnegieendowment.org/files/World_Order_in_2050. pdf. Dalrymple, W. (2009) The Last Moghul: The Fall of Delhi, 1857 (London: Bloomsbury). Dalrymple, W. (2010) ‘The ghosts of Gandamak’ 8 May, www.nytimes. com/2010/05/09/opinion/09dalrymple.html?pagewanted=all. Dannatt, R. (2010) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 28 July, www.iraqinquiry. org.uk/media/53218/Dannatt%202010-07-28%20s1.pdf.

Bibliography

Darling, A. (2011) Back from the Brink: 1,000 Days at Number 11 (London: Atlantic Books). Davies, C. (2012) ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner? Anger over queen’s jubilee bash guest list’ Guardian, 17 May, www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/17/dinneranger-queen-jubilee-bash. Deighton, A. (2000) ‘British foreign policy-making: the Macmillan years’ in Kaiser, W. and Staerck, G. (eds.) British Foreign Policy, 1955–64 (New York: Macmillan), 3–18. Der Derian, J. (1995) International Theory: Critical Investigations (Basingstoke: Macmillan). Der Derian, J. and Shapiro, M. J. (1989) International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books). DFID (Department for International Development) (2006) Eliminating Poverty: Making Governance Work for the Poor (London: Stationery Office). DFID (Department for International Development) (2011) Annual Report and Accounts, 2010–2011, HC989-1, 7 July, 2 vols. (London: Stationery Office). DFID (Department for International Development) (2012) Annual Report and Accounts, 2011–2012, HC33, 25 June (London: Stationery Office). Dickie, J. (2004) The New Mandarins: How British Foreign Policy Works (London: I. B. Tauris). Dijsktra, H. (2011) ‘The political influence of the EU Council Secretariat in security and defence policy’ unpublished paper prepared for ISA, 20 February, http:// euce.org/eusa/2011/papers/3k_dijkstra.pdf. Dincecco, M. (2010) ‘The political economy of fiscal prudence in historical perspective’ Economics and Politics, 22, 1–36. Disasters Emergency Committee (2012) ‘Tsunami earthquake appeal’ www.dec. org.uk/appeals/tsunami-earthquake-appeal. Doane, D. (2012) ‘Aid for trade policy rears its ugly head’ Guardian, 6 February, www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/feb/06/ old-british-aid-policy-rears-head. Dobson, A. P. (1988) The Politics of the Anglo-American Economic Special Relationship (New York: St Martin’s Press). Dodd, P. (2002) ‘The challenge for New Labour’ in Griffith, P. and Leonard, M. (eds.) Reclaiming Britishness (London: Foreign Policy Centre), 2–6. Dodds, K. and Elden, S. (2008) ‘Thinking ahead: David Cameron, the Henry Jackson Society and the British neoconservatives’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 10,3, 347–63. Dolowitz, D. P. and Marsh, D. (2000) ‘Learning from abroad: the role of policy transfer in contemporary policy-making’ Governance 13,1, 5–24. Donelan, M. (2007) Honor in Foreign Policy (Basingstoke: Palgrave). Donnelly, J. (2005) ‘Realism’ in Burchill, S., Linklater, A., Devetak, R. et al. Theories of International Relations (Basingstoke: Palgrave), 29–54. Dorey, P. (2005) Policy Making in Britain: An Introduction (London: Sage). Dorman, A. (2009) Blair’s Successful War: British Military Intervention in Sierra Leone (Aldershot: Ashgate). Dorman, A. M. (2011) ‘Making 2 + 2 = 5: The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review’ Defense & Security Analysis, 27,1, 77–87. Doty, R. L. (1993) ‘Foreign policy as social construction: a post-positivist analysis of U.S. counterinsurgency policy in the Philippines’ International Studies Quarterly, 37, 297–320.

233

234

British Foreign Policy

Doughty, S. (2011) ‘It’s nuts! Britain is STILL giving aid to Brazil – even though it’s richer than we are’ Daily Mail, 29 December, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article2079628/Britain-STILL-giving-foreign-aid-Brazil–richer-are.html. Dover, R. (2011) ‘Britain, Europe and defense in the post-industrial age’ Defense & Security Analysis, 27,1, 19–30. Doxey, M. (1996) International Sanctions in Contemporary Perspective (London: Macmillan), 2nd edn. Dudley Edwards, R. (1994) True Brits (London: BBC Books). Duncan, V. (1969) Report of the Review Committee on Overseas Representation 1968–1969, Misc No. 24 (London: HMSO). Dunne, M., Hall-Matthews, D. and Lightfoot, S. (2011) ‘Our aid: UK international development policy under the coalition’ Political Insight, 2,1, 29–31. Dunne, T. (2008) ‘Liberalism’ in Baylis, J., Smith, S. and Owens, P. The Globalization of World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 108–23. Dunne, T. and Wheeler, N. J. (2000) ‘The Blair doctrine: advancing the Third Way in the world’ in Little, R. and Wickham-Jones, M. (eds.) New Labour’s Foreign Policy: A New Moral Crusade? (Manchester: Manchester University Press), 61–76. Dutton, J. (2005) Force Level Review, declassified document, 21 August, www. iraqinquiry.org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/110118.aspx. Dutton, J. (2010) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 12 July, www.iraqinquiry.org. uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/100712.aspx Dyson, S. B. (2009) The Blair Identity: Leadership and Foreign Policy (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Dyson, T. (2011) ‘Defence policy under the Labour government: operational dynamism and strategic inertia’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13,2, 206–29. Economist (2009) ‘Losing their way’ 31 January, www.economist.com/node/ 13022177. Economist (2011) ‘Some safe haven’ 30 July, www.economist.com/node/21524933. Economist (2011) ‘The great mismatch’ The Economist, 9 October, special section, 3–5. Economist (2011) ‘The company that ruled the waves’ The Economist, 17–30 December, 189–211. Eden, A. (1954) ‘Principles of British foreign policy’ speech delivered at Conservative Party conference, Blackpool, 7 October, repr. in Vital Speeches of the Day, 21, 834–6. Edmunds, T. (2010) ‘The defence dilemma in Britain’ International Affairs, 86,2, 377–94. Egnell, R. (2006) ‘Explaining US and British performance in complex expeditionary operations: the civil–military dimension’ Journal of Strategic Studies, 29,6, 1041–75. Egnell, R. (2011) ‘Lessons from Helmand, Afghanistan: what now for British counterinsurgency?’ International Affairs, 87,2, 297–315. Eichengreen, B. (1996) Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Eichengreen, B. (2011) Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Bibliography

Elliott, K.A. (1998) ‘The sanctions glass: half full or completely empty?’ International Security, 23,1, 50–65. Elliott, L. (2010) ‘UK terminates development aid to China and Russia’ Guardian, 16 March, www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jun/16/development-aid-uk-chinarussia. Elman, C. (1996) ‘Horses for courses: why not neorealist theories of foreign policy?’ Security Studies, 6,2, 7–53. Engaging with Young People Working Group (2005) Preventing Extremism Together, Working Group Report August–October, www.communities.gov.uk/archived/ publications/communities/preventingextremismtogether. Epstein, C. (2011) ‘Who speaks? Discourse, the subject and the study of identity in international politics’, European Journal of International Relations, 17,2, 327–50. Erasmus (2007) The Education of a Christian Prince, ed. Jardine, L. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Evans, A. and Steven, D. (2010) Organizing for Influence: UK Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty, Chatham House Report, www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/ public/Research/Europe/r0610_stevens_evans.pdf. Evans, R. (2002) Telling Lies About Hitler: The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial (London: Verso). Evans-Pritchard, A. (2011) ‘Return of the gold standard as world order unravels’ Telegraph, 14 July, www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_ pritchard/8638644/Return-of-the-Gold-Standard-as-world-order-unravels.html. FAC (Foreign Affairs Committee) (2009) Report on FCO Annual Report, 2007–8, 2nd Report, Session 2008–9, www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/ cmselect/cmfaff/195/19502.htm. FAC (Foreign Affairs Committee) (2009) Second Report, Session 2008–9, HC195 8 February (London: Stationery Office). FAC (Foreign Affairs Committee) (2011) The UK’s Foreign Policy Approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Cmd HC514, 2 March (London: Stationery Office). FAC (Foreign Affairs Committee) (2011) The Role of the FCO in UK Government, HC 665, 27 April (London: Stationery Office). FAC (Foreign Affairs Committee) (2012) British Foreign Policy and the ‘Arab Spring’, HC80, Second Report, 3 July (London: Stationery Office). Falk, R. (2005) ‘On the political relevance of global civil society’ in Dunning, J. (ed.) Making Globalization Good: The Moral Challenges of Global Capitalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 280–300. Farrell, T. (2001) ‘Transnational norms and military development: constructing Ireland’s professional army’ European Journal of International Relations, 7,1, 63–102. Farrell, T. (2004) ‘Humanitarian intervention and peace operations’ in Baylis, J., Wirtz, J. J. and Gray, C. S. (eds.) Strategy in the Contemporary World (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Farrell, T. (2008) ‘The dynamics of British military transformation’ International Affairs, 84,4, 777–807. Farrell, T. (2010) ‘Improving in war: military adaptation and the British in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2006–2009’ Journal of Strategic Studies, 33,4, 567–94. Farrell, T. (2011) ‘Review essay’, RUSI Journal, 156,5, 60–5.

235

236

British Foreign Policy

Farrell, T. (forthcoming) ‘Back from the brink: British military adaptation and the struggle for Helmand, 2006–2011’ in Farrell, T., Osinga, F. and Russell, J. (eds.) Military Adaptation in the Afghanistan War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press). Farrell, T. and Gordon, S. (2009) ‘COIN machine’ RUSI Journal, 154,3, 18–25. Farrell, T. and Rynning, S. (2010) ‘NATO’s transformation gaps: transatlantic differences and the war in Afghanistan’ Journal of Strategic Studies, 33,5, 673–99. FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (2004) Annual Human Rights Report, 2004 (London: Stationery Office). FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (2008) Annual Human Rights Report 2007, Cm7340 (London: Stationery Office). FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (2008) Annual Report, 2007–8, Cm7398, May (London: Stationery Office). FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (2009) Departmental Report and Accounts, 2008–9, HC460-I (London: Stationery Office). FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (2010) ‘International Criminal Court assembly of states parties takes place in New York’ 7 December, www.fco.gov. uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=PressS&id=322864682. FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (2011) Annual Report and Accounts, 2010–11, HC974, 30 June (London: Stationery Office). FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (2011) ‘UK government launches strategy for global abolition of the death penalty’ www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/ news/21480373/october/dp-strategy-launch-111010. FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (2012) ‘Background to finance and budgets’ http://ukun.fco.gov.uk/en/uk-at-un/thematic-issues/managementreform/mgt-reform-finance/finance-budgets-background. Feffer, J. (2009) ‘An arms race in northeast Asia?’ Asian Perspective, 33,4, 5–15. Feinstein, C. (1994) ‘Success and failure: British economic growth since 1948’ in Floud, R. and McCloskey, D. (eds.) The Economic History of Britain Since 1970. Vol. 3: 1939–1992 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 95–122. Ferguson, N. (2004) Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (London: Penguin). Ferguson, N. (2005) ‘Sinking globalization’ Foreign Affairs, March/April, 64–77. Ferguson, N. (2011) Civilization (London: Allen Lane). Ferguson, Y. H. and Mansbach, R. (1996) ‘The past as prelude to the future? Identities and loyalties in global politics’ in Lapid, Y. and Kratochwil, F. (eds.) The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory (London: Lynne Rienner), 21–44. Fergusson, J. (2008) ‘Overstretched and over there’ Prospect, 25 September. Fidler, S. (2008) ‘UK becomes largest exporter of arms’ Financial Times, 18 June. Foley, R., Griffin, S. and McCartney, H. (2011) ‘Transformation in contact: learning the lessons of modern war’ International Affairs, 87,2, 253–70. Fox, L. (2006) ‘Speech to First Defence’ 21 March, http://conservativehome.blogs. com/torydiary/files/liam_fox_speech.pdf. Fox, L. (2010) ‘The need for defence reform’ speech, 13 August, www.mod.uk/ DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/People/Speeches/SofS/20100813TheNeedForDef enceReform.htm. Franks, O. (1983) The Franks Report: Falkland Islands Review, Cmd 8787 (London: Pimlico).

Bibliography

Freedman, L. (1976) ‘Logic, politics and foreign policy processes: a critique of the bureaucratic politics model’ International Affairs, 52,3, 434–49. Freeland, C. (2011) ‘Wealth gap widens between super rich and rest’ BBC, 2 February, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9382745.stm. French, D. (1990) The British Way in Warfare, 1688–2000 (London: Unwin Hyman). Friedman, J. A. (2011) ‘Manpower and counterinsurgency: empirical foundations for theory and doctrine’ Security Studies, 20,4, 556–91. Frost, M. (1996) Ethics in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Frost, M. (1999) ‘Putting the world to rights’ Cambridge Review of International Affairs, XII,2, 80–9. Fukuyama, F. (2011) The Origins of Political Order (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Fulton, R. (2010) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 27 July, www.iraqinquiry.org. uk/media/49817/20100727-figgures-fulton-final.pdf. G20 (2009) ‘The global plan for recovery and reform’, G20 Summit leaders’ statement, 2 April, http://g20.org/images/stories/canalfinan/docs/uk/ 07finalcomu.pdf. Gadamer, H-G. (1996) Truth and Method (London: Sheed and Ward). Gallagher, J. and Robinson, R. (1953) ‘The imperialism of free trade’ Economic History Review, 6,6, 1–15. Galtung, J. (1971) ‘A structural theory of imperialism’ Journal of Peace Research, 8,2, 81–117. Gamble, A. (1994) Britain in Decline (Basingstoke: St Martin’s Press), 4th edn. Gamble, A. (2000) ‘Theories and explanations of British decline’ in English, R. and Kenny, M. (eds.) Rethinking British Decline (New York: Macmillan), 1–22. Gamble, A. (2012) ‘Economic policy’ in Heppell, T. and Seawright, D. (eds.) Cameron and the Conservatives: The Transition to Coalition Government (Basingstoke: Palgrave), 59–73. Gartzke, E. (2007) ‘The capitalist peace’ American Journal of Political Science, 51,1, 166–91. Gaskarth, J. (2006) ‘Discourses and ethics: the social construction of British foreign policy’ Foreign Policy Analysis, 2,4, 325–41. Gaskarth, J. (2006) ‘Ethical policies or empty promises? New Labour and human rights in British foreign policymaking’ International Journal of Human Rights, 10,1, 45–60. Gaskarth, J. (2011) ‘Entangling alliances? The UK’s complicity in torture in the global war on terrorism’ International Affairs, 87,4, 945–64. Gaskarth, J. (2011) ‘Identity and New Labour’s strategic foreign policy thinking’ in Daddow, O. and Gaskarth, J. (eds.) British Foreign Policy: The New Labour Years (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), 84–99. Gaskarth, J. (2011) ‘Where would we be without rules? A virtue ethics approach to foreign policy analysis’ Review of International Studies, 37,1, 393–415. Gaskarth, J. (forthcoming) ‘Interpreting ethical foreign policy: traditions and dilemmas for policymakers’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations. George, A. L. and Smoke, R. (1989) ‘Deterrence and foreign policy’ World Politics, 41,2, 170–82.

237

238

British Foreign Policy

George, J. (1989) ‘International relations and the search for thinking space’ International Studies Quarterly, 33,3, 269–79. George, J. and Campbell, D. (1990) ‘Patterns of dissent and the celebration of difference: critical social theory and international relations’ International Studies Quarterly, 34,3, 269–93. Gill, S. (ed.) (1993) Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Gilpin, R. (1987) The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Gilpin, R. (2001) Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Gladstone, W. (1879) ‘Right principles of foreign policy’ address in West Caldor, 27 November, in Jones, E. (ed.) Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy, 1738–1914 (Milton Keynes: Kessinger), 212–23. Goodhart, D. (2009) ‘Why are we British such eager interveners all over the world?’ Prospect, 23 July. Gordon, J. (2011) ‘Smart sanctions revisited’ Ethics & International Affairs, 25,3, 315–35. Grant, C. (2009) Is Europe Doomed to FAIL as a Power? CER Essay, July (London: Centre for European Reform). Grant, W. (2002) Economic Policy in Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave). Gray, C. (2005) Another Bloody Century (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Gray, J. (2011) ‘Delusions of peace’ Prospect, 22 September. Greenstock, J. (2004) ‘Interview’ www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDO HP/#g. Grey, S. (2009) ‘Cracking on in Helmand’ Prospect, 27 August. Grey, S. (2009) ‘Retreat from Basra – learning the lessons’ 20 September, www. stephengrey.com/2009/09/retreat-from-basra-learning-the-lessons. Grice, A. (2011) ‘Cameron defends arms sales in push for growth’ Independent, 7 March, www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cameron-defends-arms-salesin-push-for-growth-2234241.html. Griffith, P. and Leonard, M. (eds.) (2002) Reclaiming Britishness (London: Foreign Policy Centre). Gross Stein, J. (2012) ‘Foreign policy decision-making: rational, psychological, and neurological models’ in Smith, S., Hadfield, A. and Dunne, T. (eds.) Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2nd edn, 130–46. Guardian (1999) ‘Cook defends Labour’s ethical foreign policy’ Guardian, 28 September. Guardian (2011) ‘How British are the British?’ 6 October, www.guardian.co.uk/ news/datablog/2011/oct/06/survey-uk-identity. Guardian (2012) ‘British attitudes poll results’ 7 January, www.guardian.co.uk/uk/ gallery/2012/jan/07/british-attitudes-poll-results?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487#/?pi cture=384118039&index=3. Guéhenno, J-M. (1995) The End of the Nation State (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Gunder Frank, A. (1969) Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (Harmondsworth: Penguin).

Bibliography

Gunder Frank, A. (1971) Sociology of Development and Underdevelopment of Sociology (London: Pluto Press). Guzzini, S. (1994) Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy: The Continuing Story of a Death Foretold (London: Routledge). Hadfield, A. (2010) British Foreign Policy, National Identity, and Neoclassical Realism (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield). Hague, W. (2009) ‘The future of British foreign policy’ speech, 21 July, www. conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/07/William_Hague_The_Future_of_ British_Foreign_Policy.aspx. Hague, W. (2010) ‘Britain’s foreign policy in a networked world’ speech at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1 July, www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/ latest-news/?view=Speech&id=22472881. Hague, W. (2010) ‘Britain’s prosperity in a networked world’ 15 July, www.fco.gov. uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=Speech&id=22540543. Hague, W. (2010) ‘Britain’s values in a networked world’ speech at Lincoln’s Inn, 15 September, www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=News&id=22868136. Hague, W. (2010) ‘International security in a networked world’ 17 November, www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=Speech&id=105960682. Hague, W. (2011) ‘Speech on Afghanistan’ NATO parliamentary assembly, 21 November, www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=Speech&id=695047382. Hain, P. (2000) ‘The government’s response to world-wide human rights issues’ speech to Amnesty conference, London, 17 March. Hain, P. (2001) The End of Foreign Policy? British Interests, Global Linkages and Natural Limits (Plymouth: Fabian Society). Haines, S. (2009) ‘The influence of Operation Allied Force on the development of the jus ad bellum’ International Affairs, 85,3, 477–90. Hall, S. (1990) ‘Cultural identity and diaspora’ in Rutherford, J. (ed.) Identity: Community, Culture, Difference (London: Lawrence and Wishart), 222–37. Halperin, M. (1974) Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution). Hamilton, K. and Langhorne, R. (2011) The Practice of Diplomacy: Its Theory, Evolution and Administration (London: Routledge), 2nd edn. Hannay, D. (1999) ‘Interview’ www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP/#g. Hansen, L. (2007) Security as Practice (London: Routledge). Harding, L. (2011) Mafia State (London: Guardian Books). Harding, T. (2010) ‘Defence review: Royal Navy has greatest job losses and cuts’ Telegraph, 20 October, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/8074631/ Defence-review-Royal-Navy-has-greatest-job-losses-and-cuts.html. Hare, I. (1995) ‘Judicial review and the Pergau Dam’ Cambridge Law Journal, 54,2, 227–30. Harris, P., Chulov, M., Batty, D. and Pearse, D. (2012) ‘Syria resolution vetoed by Russia and China at United Nations’ 4 February, www.guardian.co.uk/ world/2012/feb/04/assad-obama-resign-un-resolution. Hartley, K. (2010) The Economics of Defence Policy: A New Perspective (London: Routledge). Hartley, K. (2010) ‘The economics of the Defence Review’, RUSI Journal, 155,6, 4–8. Harvey, D. (2005) The New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Harvey, D. (2007) A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

239

240

British Foreign Policy

Hastings Dunn, D. (2011) ‘UK–US relations after the three Bs – Blair, Brown and Bush’ Defense & Security Analysis, 27,1, 5–18. Hawksworth, J. (2006) ‘The world in 2050’ report for PricewaterhouseCoopers, March, www.pwc.com/gx/en/world-2050/pdf/world2050emergingeconomies.pdf. Heath, E. (1969) ‘Realism in British foreign policy’ Foreign Affairs, 48,1, 39–50. Heffer, S. (1999) Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinvention of England (London: Orion Books). Held, D. and Mepham, D. (2007) Progressive Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Polity). Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D. and Perraton, J. (1999) Global Transformations (Cambridge: Polity). Henderson, B. (2012) ‘David Cameron accuses Argentina of “colonialism” over Falklands Islands’ 18 January, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ southamerica/falklandislands/9022752/David-Cameron-accuses-Argentina-ofcolonialism-over-Falklands-Islands.html. Henderson, N. (2001) The Private Office Revisited (London: Profile Books). Hennessey, P. (2001) The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders Since 1945 (Harmondsworth: Penguin). Hennessey, P. (2010) ‘John Garrett Memorial Lecture’ University of East Anglia, 18 March, www.nickanstead.com/blog/?p=1860. Henry, J. (2012) Estimating the Price of Offshore, report for the Tax Justice Network, 22 July, www.taxjustice.net/cms/front_content.php?idcat=148. Herman, E. S. and Chomsky, N. (2002) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books). Hernon, I. (2006) Britain’s Forgotten Wars: Colonial Campaigns of the 19th Century (Stroud: Sutton). Herring, E. (2002) ‘Between Iraq and a hard place: a critique of the British government’s case for UN economic sanctions’ Review of International Studies, 28,1, 39–56. Herrmann, R. K., Voss, J. F., Schooler, T. Y. E. and Ciarrochi, J. (1997) ‘Images in international relations: an experimental test of cognitive schemata’ International Studies Quarterly, 41,3, 403–33. Hill, C. (2003) The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Hill, C. (2010) ‘British foreign policy priorities: tough choices’ World Today, April, 11–14. Hill, C. and Oliver, T. (2007) ‘Afterword: New Labour’s foreign policy’ in Ziegner, G. (ed.) British Diplomacy: Foreign Secretaries Reflect (London: Politico’s), 113–36. Hilsman, R. (1987) The Politics of Policy Making in Defense and Foreign Affairs (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall). Hirsh, M. (2004) ‘Bernard Lewis revisited’ Washington Monthly, November, www. washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0411.hirsh.html. Hirst, P. Q. and Thompson, G. (2009) Globalization in Question (Cambridge: Polity). HM Government (2002) ‘Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction: the assessment of the British government’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/02/ uk_dossier_on_iraq/html/full_dossier.stm. HM Government (2011) Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The Strategic Defence and Security Review, Cmd 7948, October (London: Stationery Office). HMSO (Her Majesty’s Stationery Office) (1978) The United Kingdom’s Overseas Representation (UKOR), Misc No. 22, Cmd 7308 (London: HMSO).

Bibliography

HM Treasury (2010) Spending Review 2010, Cmd 7942 (London: Stationery Office). Hobson, J. A. (1965) Imperialism: A Study (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press). Hocking, B. (2002) ‘Introduction: gatekeepers and boundary-spanners – thinking about foreign ministries in the European Union’ in Hocking, B. and Spence, D. (eds.) Foreign Ministries in the European Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave), 1–17. Hoffmann, S. (1981) Duties Beyond Borders: On the Limits and Possibilities of Ethical International Politics (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press). Holden, M. (2012) ‘Britain accuses Argentina of “colonialism” over Falklands’ Reuters, 18 January, www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/18/us-britain-falklandsidUSTRE80H2EG20120118. Holland, J. (2012) ‘Blair’s “war on terror” selling intervention to middle England’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 14,1, 74–95. Hollis, M. and Smith, S. (1986) ‘Roles and reasons in foreign policy decisionmaking’ British Journal of Political Science, 16,3, 269–286. Hollis, M. and Smith, S. (1990) Explaining and Understanding International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Holsti, K. (1970) ‘National role conceptions in the study of foreign policy’ International Studies Quarterly, 14,3, 233–309. Holt, D. (2003) ‘Army institute to be shut down: critics hit loss of training center for peacekeeping’ Chicago Tribune, 15 April, www.chicagotribune.com/news/ nationworld/chi-0304150249apr15,0,3402046.story. Home Office/FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (2009) ‘The government reply to the twenty-third report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights Session 2008–09’, HL Paper 152, HC 230, CM 7714, www.official-documents.gov. uk/document/cm77/7714/7714.pdf. Honeyman, V. (2012) ‘Foreign policy’ in Heppell, T. and Seawright, D. (eds.) Cameron and the Conservatives: The Transition to Coalition Government (Basingstoke: Palgrave), 121–35. Honeyman, V. (2012) ‘Liberal Conservatism and foreign policy’ in Oppermann, K. (ed.) British Foreign and Security Policy: Historical Legacies and Current Challenges (Augsburg: Wißner), 130–46. Hope, C. (2010) ‘Wealth gap in Britain is wider than ever’ Telegraph, 27 January, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7080374/Wealth-gap-in-Britain-is-widerthan-ever.html. Hopf, T. (2002) Social Construction of International Politics (London: Cornell University Press). Hough, P. (2008) Understanding Global Security (Abingdon: Routledge), 2nd edn. Houghton, D. P. (1996) ‘The role of analogical reasoning in novel foreign-policy situations’ British Journal of Political Science, 26,4, 523–52. House of Lords (2004) A (FC) and others (FC) (Appellants) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent), Session 2004–05, 16 December, www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/ld200405/ldjudgmt/jd041216/a&oth-1.htm. Howard, M. (1983) Clausewitz (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Howard, M. (1995) ‘1945–1995: reflections on half a century of British security policy’ International Affairs, 71,4, 705–15. Howard, M. (2011) ‘The transformation of strategy’ RUSI Journal, 156,4, 12–16. Howe, G. (2006) Interview with the author.

241

242

British Foreign Policy

HRW (Human Rights Watch) (2009) Cruel Britannia: British Complicity in the Torture and Ill-Treatment of Terror Suspects in Pakistan (London: HRW). HRW (Human Rights Watch) (2010) ‘No Questions Asked’: Intelligence Cooperation with Countries that Torture (London: HRW). Hudson, V. (2007) Foreign Policy Analysis (Plymouth: Rowman and Littlefield). Hufbauer, G. C. , Schott, J. J. and Elliott, K. A. (1990) Economic Sanctions Reconsidered (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics). Huntington, S. (1996) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (London: Simon & Schuster). Huntington, S. (2005) ‘American ideals versus American institutions’ in Ikenberry, G. J. (ed.) American Foreign Policy: Theoretical Essays (London: Pearson), 214–47. Hurd, D. (2003) Interview with the author. Huth, P. and Russett, B. M. (1984) ‘What makes deterrence work? Cases from 1900 to 1980’ World Politics, 36,4, 496–526. Huth, P. and Russett, B. M. (1990) ‘Testing deterrence theory: rigor makes a difference’ World Politics, 42,4, 466–501. Hutton, Lord (2004) Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly C.M.G., HC 247 (London: Stationery Office). Hutton, W. (1992) ‘Britain in a cold climate: the economic aims of foreign policy in the 1990s’ International Affairs, 68,4, 619–32. ICISS (International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty) (2001) The Responsibility to Protect (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre). IHRC (Islamic Human Rights Commission) (2006) ‘Submission to the ICJ Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights’ April, http:// ejp.icj.org/IMG/UKIHRC1.pdf. IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies) (2002) Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Net Assessment, IISS Strategic Dossier, 9 September. London: IISS. IMF (2012) A Guide to Committees, Groups and Clubs, www.imf.org/external/np/exr/ facts/groups.htm, accessed 28 September 2012. IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) (2009) Shared Responsibilities: A National Security Strategy for the UK (London: IPPR). IPSOS/MORI (1998) ‘British public’s attitudes to the Iraq Bombings and the internment of General Pinochet’ 18 December, www.ipsos-mori.com/ researchpublications/researcharchive/2052/British-Publics-Attitudes-to-the-IraqBombings-and-the-Internment-of-General-Pinochet.aspx. Iraq Survey Group (2004) Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD. Vol. I, September, https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/ iraq_wmd_2004/index.html. Irwin, T. (1995) Plato’s Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press). ISC (Intelligence and Security Committee) (2007) Rendition, CM7171, July (London: Stationery Office). Jackson, A. (2006) ‘British counterinsurgency in history: a useful precedent?’ British Army Review, 139, 16. Jackson, M. (2009) ‘British counter-insurgency’ Journal of Strategic Studies, 32,3, 347–51. Jackson, M. (2010) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 28 July, www.iraqinquiry. org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/100728.aspx. Jackson, R. (1995) ‘The situational ethics of statecraft’ in Nolan, C. (ed.) Ethics and Statecraft (London: Praeger), 21–38.

Bibliography

Jackson, R. (2000) The Global Covenant (Oxford: Oxford University Press). James, P. and Zhang, E. (2005) ‘Chinese choices: a poliheuristic analysis of foreign policy crises, 1950–1996’ Foreign Policy Analysis, 1, 31–54. Janis, I. (1982) Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Foreign Policy Decisions and Fiascoes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin), 2nd edn. Jay, M. (2007) ‘Interview’, www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP/#g. JCHR (Joint Committee on Human Rights) (2009) Allegations of UK Complicity in Torture, twenty-third report of session 2008–9, 21 July, HC 230, www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/jt200809/jtselect/jtrights/152/152.pdf. JCNS (Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy) (2012) ‘The National Security Strategy Second Review’, 26 March, available at www. parliament.uk/documents/joint-committees/national-security-strategy/ collatedevidence2ndrev.pdf. Jenkin, B. (2011) ‘Written evidence from Bernard Jenkin, MP’ Defence Committee, Strategic Defence and Security Review and the National Security Strategy: Defence Committee, 3 August, www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/ cmdfence/761/761vw35.htm. Jenkins, R. (1987) Transnational Corporations and Uneven Development (London: Routledge). Jenkins, S. (2008) ‘Lovely new aircraft carrier, sir, but we’re fighting in the desert’ The Times, 24 February. Jennings, C. and Smith, M. (2002) ‘Britain to pull 1000 troops out of Kosovo’ Daily Telegraph, 19 September, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1407702/Britainto-pull-1000-troops-out-of-Kosovo.html. Jensen, N. M. (2008) Nation-States and the Multinational Corporation: A Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Jervis, R. (1970) The Logic of Images in International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Jervis, R. (1976) Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Jervis, R. (1979) ‘Deterrence theory revisited’ World Politics, 31,2, 289–324. Johnson, H. (1967) ‘Optimum tariffs and retaliation’ in Johnson, H. International Trade and Economic Growth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Jorgensen, N. H. B. (2000) The Responsibility of States for International Crimes (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Joshi, S. (2010) ‘India and Britain: the new special relationship?’ www.rusi.org/ analysis/commentary/ref:C4BFD483EA7611. Josselin, D. and Wallace, W. (eds.) (2002) Non-State Actors in World Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Jung, D. (2011) ‘Unrest in the Arab world: four questions’ Insight Turkey, 13,3, 1–10. Kagan, R. (2003) Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (London: Atlantic Books). Kaldor, M., Moore, H. L. and Selchow, S. (2012) Global Civil Society 2012: Ten Years of Critical Reflection (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Kampfner, J. (2003) Blair’s Wars (London: Free Press). Kant, I. (2008) The Moral Law (Abingdon: Routledge). Kavanagh, D. (2005) The Blair Effect, 2001–2005 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

243

244

British Foreign Policy

Kavanagh, D. and Seldon, A. (2000) The Powers Behind the Prime Minister (London: HarperCollins). Kean, T. H. (Chair, 9/11 Commission) (2004) The 9/11 Commission Report, 22 July (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office). Keck, M. E. and Sikkink, K. (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Kendall, B. (2009) ‘Surprise consensus at G20 Summit’ BBC, 3 April, http://news. bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7980513.stm. Kennedy, P. (1983) ‘The tradition of appeasement in British foreign policy, 1865– 1939’ in Kennedy, P. Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870–1945 (London: Allen & Unwin), 13–40. Kennedy, P. (1983) ‘Why did the British Empire last so long?’ in Kennedy, P. Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870–1945 (London: Allen & Unwin), 197–220. Kenyon, I. and Simpson, J. (2006) Deterrence and the New Global Security Environment (London: Routledge). Keohane, R. (1984) After Hegemony (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Keohane, R. (ed.) (1986) Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press). Keohane, R. O. (1989) International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder, CO: Westview). Keohane, R. O. and Martin, L. (1995) ‘The promise of liberal institutionalist theory’ International Security, 20,1, 39–51. Keohane, R. O. and Nye, J. S. (1977) Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown). Kerr, Lord. (2004) ‘Interview’ www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP/#g. Kettell, S. (2008) ‘Who’s afraid of Saddam Hussein? Re-examining the “September dossier” affair’ Contemporary British History, 22,3, 407–26. Keylor, W. R. (2006) The Twentieth-Century World and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Kilcullen, D. (2010) Counterinsurgency (London: C. Hurst). Kindleberger, C. (ed.) (1970) The International Corporation: A Symposium (London: MIT Press). King, A. (2010) ‘Understanding the Helmand campaign: British military operations in Afghanistan’ International Affairs, 86,2, 311–32. King, A. (2011) ‘Entente militaire’ Parliamentary Brief Online, 12 July, www. parliamentarybrief.com/2011/07/entente-militaire. King, A. (2011) ‘Having brigades will never deliver the same punch as a division’ Parliamentary Brief Online, 27 October, www.parliamentarybrief.com/2011/10/ having-brigades-will-never-deliver-the-same-punch-as-a. King, A. (2011) ‘Military command in the last decade’ International Affairs, 87,2, 377–96. King, G., Keohane, R. O. and Verba, S. (1994) Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Kingston, K. (1997) ‘Gunboat Liberalism: Palmerston, Europe and 1848’ History Today, 47,2, 37–43. Kirby, J. (2010) ‘London has the biggest wealth divide: poor now “slaves” to London’s rich’ Evening Standard, 21 April, www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/londonhas-the-biggest-wealth-divide-poor-now-slaves-to-londons-rich-6461435.html.

Bibliography

Kirkup, J. (2010) ‘Liam Fox assures US of Britain’s commitment to NATO’ Telegraph, 15 October, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/8065583/Liam-Foxassures-US-of-Britains-commitment-to-Nato.html. Kissinger, H. (1999) Years of Renewal (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Koinova, M. (forthcoming) ‘Four types of diaspora mobilization: Albanian diaspora activism for Kosovo independence in the US and the UK’ Foreign Policy Analysis. Krasner, S. (1976) ‘State power and the structure of international trade’ World Politics, 28,3, 317–47. Krasner, S. (2001) ‘Think again: sovereignty’ Foreign Policy, 1 January, www. foreignpolicy.com/articles/2001/01/01/think_again_sovereignty. Krasner, S. (2009) Power, the State and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations (Abingdon: Routledge). Kumar, K. (2007) ‘Global civil society’ European Journal of Sociology, 48,4, 413–34. Kurki, M. and Wight, C. (2012) ‘International relations and social science’ in Smith, S., Hadfield, A. and Dunne, T. (eds.) Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2nd edn, 14–35. Lammy, D. (2002) ‘Rediscovering internationalism’ in Griffith, P. and Leonard, M. (eds.) Reclaiming Britishness (London: Foreign Policy Centre), 36–43. Lanchester, J. (2011) ‘How we were all misled’ New York Review of Books, 10 November, www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/dec/08/how-we-were-all-misled/ ?pagination=false. Lapid, Y. and Kratochwil, F. (1996) The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory (London: Lynne Rienner). Larsen, H. (1997) Foreign Policy and Discourse Analysis: France, Britain and Europe (London: Routledge). Latimer, M. (2000) ‘World must put its hangmen in the dock’ Observer, 24 October. Lea, R. (2012) ‘The New Year: time for a long-term look’ Perspectives: Arbuthnot Banking Group plc, 9 January, www.arbuthnotgroup.com/uploads/9.1.12.pdf. Ledwidge, F. (2011) Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan (London: Yale University Press). Lee, D. (2004) ‘The growing influence of business in U.K. diplomacy’ International Studies Perspectives, 5,1, 50–4. Leigh, D. and Evans, R. (2006) ‘ “National interest” halts arms corruption inquiry’ Guardian, 15 December. Leigh, D. and Evans, R. (2007) ‘The Al Yamamah deal’ Guardian, 7 June. Lenin, V. I. U. (1996) Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism; A Popular Outline (London: Pluto Press). Lennard, M. (2011) ‘Is our debt to China a national security risk?’ 10 May, www. salon.com/2011/05/10/china_debt_national_security. Leonard, M. (1997) Britain TM (London: Demos). Leonard, M. (2002) ‘Living together after 11 September and the rise of the right’ in Griffith, P. and Leonard, M. (eds.) Reclaiming Britishness (London: Foreign Policy Centre), x–xx. Leonard, M., Small, A. and Rose, M. (2005) British Public Diplomacy in the ‘Age of Schisms’ (London: Foreign Policy Centre). Lewis Gaddis, J. (2007) The Cold War: A New History (London: Penguin).

245

246

British Foreign Policy

Liberty (2005) UK Involvement in Extraordinary Rendition Liberty and Justice Supplementary Submission to the Joint Committee on Human Rights (London: Liberty). Little, A. (2010) ‘The brigadier who saved Sierra Leone’ 15 May, http://news.bbc. co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8682505.stm. Livingstone, J. M. (1966) Britain and the World Economy (London: Penguin). Lloyd, T. (2004) Interview with the author. Lopez, G. A. and Cortright, D. (2004) ‘Containing Iraq: sanctions worked’ Foreign Affairs, 83,4, 90–103. LSE GV314 Group (2012) ‘New life at the top: special advisers in British government’ Parliamentary Affairs, 14 May. Lucas, E. (2012) Deception: Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the West (London: Bloomsbury). Lunn, K. (1996) ‘Reconsidering “Britishness”: the construction of and significance of national identity in twentieth century Britain’ in Jenkins, B. and Sofos, S. (eds.) Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe (London: Routledge), 83–100. MacAskill, E. and Dodd, V. (2000) ‘Ethical policy ran into armoured attack’ Guardian, 4 September. MacAskill, E., Norton-Taylor, R. and Borger, J. (2003) ‘US may go it alone as Blair is caught in diplomatic deadlock’ Guardian, 12 March, www.guardian.co.uk/ uk/2003/mar/12/politics.iraq. Macdonald, D. B., Robert, G., Patman, R. G. and Mason-Parker, B. (2007) The Ethics of Foreign Policy (Aldershot: Ashgate). Machiavelli, N. (1983) The Discourses (London: Penguin). Machiavelli, N. (1998) The Prince (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Mail on Sunday/MORI (1999) Kosovo poll, 28 March, www.ipsos-mori.com/ researchpublications/researcharchive/1859/Mail-on-Sunday-Kosovo-Poll.aspx. Mail on Sunday/MORI (1999) Kosovo poll, 2 April, www.ipsos-mori.com/ researchpublications/researcharchive/1860/Mail-on-Sunday-Kosovo-Poll.aspx. Major, J. (1995) ‘Britain in the world’, speech at Britain in the World conference, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, Business Source Premier, 4,3, May/ June. Major, J. (2011) ‘Foreign spending isn’t just right, it should make us proud’ Daily Telegraph, 4 June, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/8556639/SirJohn-Major-foreign-spending-isnt-just-right-it-should-make-us-proud.html. Malloch-Brown, M. (2010) Interview with the author. Mandelson, P. (2011) The Third Man (London: Harper Press). Mangold, P. (2001) Success and Failure in British Foreign Policy: Evaluating the Record, 1900–2000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave). Manwaring, M. G. (2001) Deterrence in the 21st Century (London: Frank Cass). March, J. G. and Simon, H. A. (1993) Organizations (Oxford: Blackwell). Marsh, D. (2008) ‘Understanding British government: analysing competing models’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 10,2, 251–68. Marsh, D. (2011) ‘The new orthodoxy: the differentiated polity model’ Public Administration, 89,1, 32–48. Marsh, D. and Rhodes, R. A. W. (1992) (eds.) Policy Networks in British Government (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Marsh, D. and Sharman, J. C. (2009) ‘Policy diffusion and policy transfer’ Policy Studies, 30,3, 269–88.

Bibliography

Marsh, S. (2011) ‘David Cameron’s veto has solidified Britain’s place at the fringes of the European Parliament’ Huffington Post, 20 December, www.huffingtonpost. co.uk/2011/12/19/camerons-veto-eu-parliament_n_1158114.html. Martin, D. (2012) ‘At last, Britain axes aid to India’ 18 March, www.dailymail. co.uk/news/article-2116862/At-Britain-axes-aid-India-country-rich-spaceprogramme-STILL-1-6bn-handout.html. Martin, L. (1993) Coercive Cooperation: Explaining Multilateral Economic Sanctions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Martin, N. (2012) ‘20 years of “Black Wednesday”: how George Soros toppled the Bank of England’, www.deutsche-welle.com/dw/article/0,,16243427,00.html. Mason, R. (2011) ‘EU treaty: Nick Clegg reveals coalition split over “bad” Europe deal’ Daily Telegraph, 11 December, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8949036/ EU-treaty-Nick-Clegg-reveals-Coalition-split-over-bad-Europe-deal.html. Mastanduno, M. (2012) ‘Economic statecraft’ in Smith, S., Hadfield, A. and Dunne, T. (eds.) Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2nd edn, 204–23. Mayall, J. (1990) Nationalism and International Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). MccGwire, M. (2006) ‘Comfort blanket or weapon of war: what is Trident for?’ International Affairs, 82,4, 639–50. McCourt, D. (2011) ‘Rethinking Britain’s role in the world for a new decade: the limits of discursive therapy and the promise of field theory’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13,2, 145–64. McCourt, D. (2011) ‘Role-playing and identity affirmation in international politics: Britain’s reinvasion of the Falklands, 1982’ Review of International Studies, 37,4, 1599–621. McInnes, C. (1996) Hot War, Cold War: The British Army’s Way in Warfare 1945–95 (London: Brassey’s). McSmith, A. (2006) ‘Blair: God will be my judge on Iraq’ Independent, 24 March, www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blair-god-will-be-my-judge-oniraq-468512.html. Mearsheimer, J. (2003) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton). Mearsheimer, J. (2010) ‘The gathering storm’ Chinese Journal of International Politics, 3, 381–96. Mellows-Facer, A. and Maer, L. (2012) ‘International comparisons of manufacturing output’ 27 January, House of Commons Library Briefing Note: SN/EP/5809, www. parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN05809.pdf. Meyer, C. (2005) DC Confidential (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Meyer, C. (2010) Getting Our Way (London: Phoenix). Meyer, F. V. (1978) International Trade Policy (London: Croom Helm). Meyer, W. H. (1996) ‘Human rights and MNCs’, Human Rights Quarterly, 18,2, 368–97. Miliband, D. (2008) ‘FCO leadership conference: foreign secretary speech’ 4 March, http://ukingermany.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=Speech&id=4616832. Mintz, A. (2005) ‘Applied decision analysis: utilizing poliheuristic theory to explain and predict foreign policy and national security decisions’ International Studies Perspectives, 6,1, 94–8. Mockaitis, T. R. (1995) British Counter-Insurgency in the Post-Imperial Era (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

247

248

British Foreign Policy

MOD (Ministry of Defence) (1998) Strategic Defence Review (London: Stationery Office). MOD (Ministry of Defence) (2002) The Strategic Defence Review: A New Chapter, CM5566, July (London: Stationery Office). MOD (Ministry of Defence) (2003) Delivering Security in a Changing World: Defence White Paper, Cmd 6041 (London: Stationery Office). MOD (Ministry of Defence) (2004) ‘British troops from the Spearhead Land Element deployed to Kosovo as the Operational Readiness Force in March 2004’ 29 March, http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.operations. mod.uk/orf/index.htm. MOD (Ministry of Defence) (2004) Delivering Security in a Changing World: Future Capabilities, Cm6269 (London: Stationery Office). MOD (Ministry of Defence) (2010) Future Character of Conflict, www.mod.uk/ DefenceInternet/MicroSite/DCDC/OurPublications/Concepts/FutureCharacter OfConflict.htm. MOD (Ministry of Defence) (2011) ‘Operations in Afghanistan: background briefing’ www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FactSheets/OperationsFactsheets/Operations InAfghanistanBackgroundBriefing.htm. MOD Oracle (2006) ‘Royal Navy and RAF spearhead British evacuation effort from Lebanon’ 19 July, www.modoracle.com/news/Royal-Navy-And-RAF-SpearheadBritish-Evacuation-Effort-From-Lebanon_11225.html?category=3. Molloy, S. (2006) The Hidden History of Realism: A Genealogy of Power Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave). Moran, M. (2011) Politics and Governance in the UK (Basingstoke: Palgrave). Moravcsik, A. (2008) ‘The new liberalism’ in Reus-Smit, C. and Snidal, D. (eds.) Oxford Handbook of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 234–54. Morgenthau, H. (1985) Politics Among Nations (Boston: McGraw-Hill). Morris, J. (2011) ‘How great is Britain? Power, responsibility and Britain’s future global role’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13,3, 326–47. Morrissey, O. (2011) ‘Aid and international development’ in Flinders, M., Gamble, A., Hay, C. and Kenny, M. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of British Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 699–718. Moss, S. (2012) ‘What does Britishness mean to you?’ Guardian, 5 February, www. guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/05/what-does-britishness-mean. Mousseau, M. (2000) ‘Market prosperity, democratic consolidation, and democratic peace’ Journal of Conflict Resolution, 44,4, 472–507. Mueller, J. (1988) ‘The essential irrelevance of nuclear weapons: stability in the postwar world’ International Security, 13,2, 55–79. Mueller, J. (1990) ‘The obsolescence of major war’ Security Dialogue, 21,3, 321–8. Mueller, J. and Mueller, K. (1999) ‘Sanctions of mass destruction’ Foreign Affairs, 78,3, 43–53. Mulligan, W. and Simms, B. (eds.) (2010) The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660–2000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave). Mumford, A. (2011) The Counter-Insurgency Myth: The British Experience of Irregular Warfare (London: Routledge). Nagl, J. A. (2005) Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

Bibliography

Ned Lebow, R. (2003) The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Ned Lebow, R. (2009) A Cultural Theory of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Ned Lebow, R. and Gross Stein, J. (1989) ‘Rational deterrence theory: I think, therefore I deter’ World Politics, 41,2, 209–24. Neilson, K. and Kennedy, G. (2010) The British Way in Warfare: Power and the International System, 1856–1956 (Farnham: Ashgate). Nesadurai, H. (2004) ‘Introduction: economic security, globalization and governance’, Pacific Review, 17,4, 459–84. Neumann, I. B. (1996) ‘Collective identity formation: self and other in international relations’ European Journal of International Relations, 2,2, 139–74. New Internationalist (2012) ‘World development book case study: does India need aid?’, www.newint.org/books/reference/world-development/case-studies/ india-need-foreign-development-aid, accessed 7 October 2012. Newsinger, J (2001) British Counterinsurgency: From Palestine to Northern Ireland (Basingstoke: Palgrave). NIC (National Intelligence Council) (2008) Global Trends, 2025: A Transformed World, www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html. Nicoll, F. (2004) The Sword of the Prophet: The Mahdi of Sudan and the Death of General Gordon (London: History Press). Nicolson, H. G. (1960) Diplomacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Nolan, C. J. (ed.) (2004) Ethics and Statecraft (London: Praeger). Norton-Taylor, R. and Gow, D. (2000) ‘The £5bn conflict of interest’ Guardian, 20 January. Oakeshott, I. (2012) ‘Britain to scrap aid for India’ Sunday Times, 18 March. Ohmae, K. (1999) The Borderless World: Power and Strategy in the Interlinked Economy (New York: HarperCollins), rev. edn. Ohmae, K. (1995) The End of the Nation State (New York: Free Press). Oliver, T. (2012) ‘Why has the UK been in Afghanistan?’ in Oppermann, K. (ed.) British Foreign and Security Policy: Historical Legacies and Current Challenges (Augsburg: Wißner), 147–69. O’Neill, O. (1991) ‘Kantian ethics’ in Singer, P. (ed.) A Companion to Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell), 175–85. ONS (Office for National Statistics) (2011) ‘International comparisons of productivity, 2010: first estimates’ 20 September, www.ons.gov.uk/ons/ publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-224531. ONS (Office for National Statistics) (2011) ‘UK population projected to hit 70m by 2027’ 26 October, www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/mro/news-release/nationalpopulation-projections—2010-based–uk-population-projected-to-hit-70m-by2027/national-population-projections—2010-based.html. ONS (Office for National Statistics) (2012) UK Trade December 2011, 9 February, www. ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/uktrade/uk-trade/december-2011/stb-uk-tradedecember-2011.html, accessed 8 October 2012. Onuf, N. (2012) Making Sense, Making Worlds: Constructivism in Social Theory and International Relations (London: Routledge). Onuf, N. (2012) World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations (London: Routledge).

249

250

British Foreign Policy

Oppermann, K. (forthcoming) ‘Delineating the scope conditions of the poliheuristic theory of foreign policy decision making: the noncompensatory principle and the domestic salience of foreign policy’ Foreign Policy Analysis. Ovendale, R. (1999) ‘The end of empire’ in English, R. and Kenny, M. (eds.) Rethinking British Decline (New York: Macmillan), 257–78. Owen, D. (1981) Face the Future (London: Jonathan Cape). Owen, D. (1981) ‘The internationalist tradition’ in Owen, D. Face the Future (London: Jonathan Cape), pt 5, ch. 18. Owen, D. (2003) Interview with the author. Owen, D. (2007) ‘The ever growing dominance of No.10 in British diplomacy since 5 April 1982’ in Ziegner, G. (ed.) British Diplomacy: Foreign Secretaries Reflect (London: Politico’s), 19–44. PA (Press Association) (2008) ‘Fraud office wins appeal over BAE Saudi arms deal’ Independent, 30 July. PA (Press Association) (2010) ‘Sir Richard Branson calls on EU to block BA’s transatlantic alliance’ Guardian, 12 April, www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/ apr/12/branson-virgin-airlines-ba. PAC (Public Administration Committee) (2010) Who Does UK National Strategy?, HC435, 18 October (London: Stationery Office). Page, L. (2004) ‘Wasted warships’ Prospect, 22 January. Pape, R. A. (1997) ‘Why economic sanctions do not work’, International Security, 22,2, 90–136. Pape, R. A. (1998) ‘Why economic sanctions still do not work’ International Security, 23,1, 66–77. Parasiliti, A. (2010) ‘Iran: diplomacy and deterrence’ Survival, 51,4, 5–13. Parkes, R. (2012) ‘How David Cameron fooled the EU: the Conservative–Liberal coalition’s first year in Europe’ in Oppermann, K. (ed.) British Foreign and Security Policy: Historical Legacies and Current Challenges (Augsburg: Wißner), 94–108. Parmar, I. S. (2004) ‘Institutes of international affairs’ in Stone, D., Denham, A. and Garnett, M (eds.) Thinktanks Across Nations: Policy Research and the Politics of Ideas (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Parmar, I. S. (2004) Think Tanks and Power in Foreign Policy: A Comparative Study of the Role and Influence of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1939–1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Parris, M. (2011) Parting Shots (London: Viking). Parsons, W. (2002) ‘From muddling through to muddling up: evidence based policy-making and the modernisation of British government’ Public Policy and Administration, 17,3, 43–60. Pathirana, S. (2009) ‘Tamil diaspora united in anger’ 10 February, http://news.bbc. co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7872814.stm. Patten, C. (2005) Not Quite the Diplomat (London: Penguin). Pattison, J. (2012) Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Who Should Intervene? (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Peel, M. (2011) ‘UK implicated in Libya rendition plot’ Financial Times, 4 September, www.ft.com/cms/s/0/86fdd90a-d65c-11e0-9c1d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1 XMF0S2Mu. Phythian, M. (2000) The Politics of British Arms Sales Since 1964 (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

Bibliography

Phythian, M. (2011) ‘From asset to liability: Blair, Brown and the “special relationship” ’ in Daddow, O. and Gaskarth, J. (2011) (eds.) British Foreign Policy: The New Labour Years (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), 188–204. Pinker, S. (2011) The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and its Causes (London: Penguin). Platt, D. C. M. (1968) Finance, Trade, and Politics in British Foreign Policy, 1815–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Plowden, Lord (1964) Report of the Committee on Representational Services Overseas, Misc No. 5 (London: HMSO). Pollack, F. (2011) ‘Introduction: understanding the Arab Awakening’ www. brookings.edu/ ∼/media/Files/Press/Books/2011/thearabawakening/ thearabawakening_chapter.pdf. Porter, A., Winnett, R. and Harnden, T. (2009) ‘G20 Summit: Gordon Brown announces “new world order” ’ Telegraph, 3 April, www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ g20-summit/5097195/G20-summit-Gordon-Brown-announces-new-world-order. html. Powell, C. (2000) ‘Interview’ www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP/#g. Powell, E. (1968) ‘Speech to the Conservative Association in Birmingham’ 20 April, www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643826/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech. html. Powell, J. (2010) The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World (London: Vintage). Putnam, R. D (1988) ‘Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games’ International Organization, 42, 427–60. Pym, F. (1983) ‘British foreign policy: constraints and opportunities’ International Affairs, 83,1, 1–6. Ralph, J. (2011) ‘A difficult relationship: Britain’s “doctrine of international community” and America’s “war on terror” ’ in Daddow, O. and Gaskarth, J. (eds.) British Foreign Policy: The New Labour Years (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), 123–38. Ralph, J. (2011) ‘After Chilcot: the doctrine of “international community” and the UK decision to invade Iraq’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13,3, 304–25. Rangwala, G. (2009) ‘Counter-insurgency amid fragmentation: the British in Southern Iraq’ Journal of Strategic Studies, 32,3, 495–513. Rawnsley, A. (2001) Servants of the People (London: Penguin). Rees, W. (2011) ‘Britain and the wider world’ Defense & Security Analysis, 27,1, 31–41. Reid, J. (2006) ‘Afghanistan’ statement in the House of Commons, 26 January, www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060126/ debtext/60126-10.htm. Reis, B. C. (2011) ‘The myth of British minimum force in counterinsurgency campaigns during decolonisation (1945–1970)’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 34,2, 245–79. Reuveny, R. and Thompson, W. (2007) ‘The North–South divide and international studies: a symposium’ International Studies Review, 9,4, 556–64. Rhodes, R. (2000) ‘The UK Economic and Social Research Council’s “Whitehall Program” and the governance narrative’ Australian Journal of Public Administration, 59,2, 123–7.

251

252

British Foreign Policy

Richards, D. (2010) ‘What are we fighting for? Roundtable’ Prospect, 24 June. Richardson, J. (2000) ‘Government, interest groups and policy change’ Political Studies, 48,5, 1006–25. Rifkind, M. (1995) ‘Principles and practice of British foreign policy’ speech delivered at RIIA, Chatham House, London, 21 September. Rifkind, M. (2004) Telephone interview with the author. Risse, T., Ropp, S. C. and Sikkink, K. (eds.) (1999) The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Robbins, K. (1983) The Eclipse of a Great Power: Modern Britain, 1870–1975 (Longman: Harlow). Roberts, A. (1999) ‘NATO’s “humanitarian war” over Kosovo’, Survival, 41,3, 102–33. Roberts, I. (2011) Interview with the author. Roberts, I. (2011) Satow’s Diplomatic Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 6th edn. Robinson, M. J. (1976) ‘Public affairs television and the growth of political malaise: the case of “the selling of the Pentagon” ’ American Political Science Review, 70, 409–32. Rosenau, J. (1980) The Scientific Study of Foreign Policy (New York: Nichols). Rosenau, J. and Czempiel, E-O. (eds.) (1992) Governance Without Government: Order and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Rowe, D. (1999) ‘Economic sanctions do work: economic statecraft and the oil embargo of Rhodesia’ Security Studies, 9,1–2, 254–87. Russett, B. M. (1963) ‘The calculus of deterrence’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 7, 97–109. SAFPI (South Africa Foreign Policy Initiative) (2012) ‘Africa must decide, says UK’s Hague’ 15 February, www.safpi.org/news/article/2012/africa-must-decide-saysuks-hague. Salisbury, Marquess of (1905) Essays: Foreign Politics (London: John Murray). Sampson, A. (2005) Who Runs This Place? The Anatomy of Britain in the 21st Century (London: John Murray). Sandbrook, D. (2012) ‘Are we about to witness the end of Britain?’ Mail Online, 29 January, www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2092925/Scottish-independencedebate-Is-end-Britain.html. Sanders, D. (1990) Losing an Empire, Finding a Role: British Foreign Policy Since 1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave). Sandler, T. and Hartley, K. (1995) The Economics of Defense (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Sandys, D. (1957) ‘British White Paper on defense’ Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 13,6, 223, 232. Schelling, T. C. (1966) Arms and Influence (London: Yale University Press). Scheufele, D. A. and Tewksbury, D. (2007) ‘Framing, agenda setting, and priming: the evolution of three media effects models’ Journal of Communication, 57,1, 9–20. Schweizer, P. (1994) ‘Who broke the evil empire?’ National Review, 30 May. Seldon, A. (2005) Blair (London: Free Press). Self, R. (2010) British Foreign and Defence Policy Since 1945 (New York: Macmillan). Sen, A. (2006) Identity and Difference (London: Penguin).

Bibliography

Shane, S. (2012) ‘The moral case for drones’ New York Times, 14 July, www.nytimes. com/2012/07/15/sunday-review/the-moral-case-for-drones.html?_r=1. Shanker, T. and Erlanger, S. (2011) ‘Blunt U.S. warning reveals deep strains in NATO’ 10 June, www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/world/europe/11nato.html? pagewanted=all. Sharp, P. and Wiseman, G. (eds.) (2007) Diplomatic Corps as an Institution of International Society (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Sher, R. B. (1989) ‘Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson and the problem of national defense’ Journal of Modern History, 61,2, 240–68. Shiller, R. J. (2008) The Subprime Solution: How Today’s Global Financial Crisis Happened and What to Do About It (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). Shirreff, R. (2010) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 11 January, www.iraqinquiry. org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/100111.aspx. Shorr, D. and Wright, T. (2010) ‘Forum: the G20 and global governance: an exchange’, Survival, 52,2, 181–98. Short, C. (2005) An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq, and the Misuse of Power (London: Free Press). Short, C. (2010) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 2 February, www.iraqinquiry. org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/100202.aspx. Sidaway, J. (2010) ‘ “One island, one team, one mission”: geopolitics, sovereignty, “race” and rendition’ Geopolitics, 15,4, 667–83. Simms, B. (2001) Unfinest Hour: How Britain Helped to Destroy Bosnia (Harmondsworth: Penguin). Singer, J. D. (1961) ‘The level of analysis problem in international relations’ in Knorr, K. and Verba, S. (eds.) The International System: Theoretical Essays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 77–92. SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) (2012) Yearbook 2012: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Stockholm: SIPRI). Smith, A. (1938) The Wealth of Nations (London: J. M. Dent & Sons). Smith, A. D. (1998) Nationalism and Modernism (London: Routledge). Smith, B. and Thorp, A. (2010) ‘The legal basis for the invasion of Afghanistan’ Briefing Note, House of Commons Library, SN/IA/5340, www.sawa-australia.org/ background/snia-05340.pdf. Smith, K. and Light, M. (2001) (eds.) Ethics and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Smith, R. (1991) ‘The political economy of Britain’s external relations’ in Freedman, L. and Clarke, M. (eds.) Britain in the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 97–142. Smith, R. (2005) The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (London: Allen Lane). Smith, S. (1985) ‘Groupthink and the hostage rescue mission’ British Journal of Political Studies, 15,1, 117–23. Smith, S. (1991) ‘Foreign policy analysis and the study of British foreign policy’ in Freedman, L. and Clarke, M. (eds.) Britain in the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 42–73. Smith, S. (2000) ‘Positivism and beyond’ in Linklater, A. (ed.) International Relations: Critical Concepts in Political Science. Vol. III (London: Routledge).

253

254

British Foreign Policy

Smith, S. (2000) ‘The discipline of international relations: still an American social science?’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2,3, 374–402. Smith, S., Hadfield, A. and Dunne, T. (eds.) Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2nd edn. Spar, P. (1994) (ed.) Mortgaging Women’s Lives: Feminist Critiques of Structural Adjustment (London: Zed Books). Sperandei, M. (2006) ‘Bridging deterrence and compellence: an alternative approach to the study of coercive diplomacy’ International Studies Review, 8,2, 253–80. Staerck, C. and Staerck, G. (2000) ‘The realities: Britain’s global defence strategy’ in Kaiser, W. and Staerck, G. (eds.) British Foreign Policy, 1955–64 (New York: Macmillan), 33–60. State Department (1990) ‘Gulf War: US Embassy Baghdad to Washington (Saddam’s message of friendship to George Bush) [declassified 1998]’ www.margaretthatcher. org/document/110705. Steele, B. (2008) Ontological Security in International Relations: Self-Identity and the IR State (Abingdon: Routledge). Stewart, H. (2010) ‘Gordon Brown calls on developed world to honour Gleneagles aid pledges’ Guardian, 17 February, www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/17/ gordon-brown-aid-g8-gleneagles. Stewart, H. (2011) ‘IMF boss calls for global currency’ Guardian, 10 February, www. guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/10/imf-boss-calls-for-world-currency. Stiglitz, J. (2003) Globalization and its Discontents (London: Penguin). Stockwell, S. (2008) The British Empire: Themes and Perspectives (Oxford: Blackwell). Strachan, H. (1983) ‘The British way in warfare revisited’ Historical Journal, 26, 447–61. Strachan, H. (2003) ‘The British way in warfare’ in Chandler, D. and Beckett, I. (eds.) The Oxford History of the British Army (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 417–34. Strachan, H. (2006) Big Wars and Small Wars: The British Army and the Lessons of War in the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge). Strachan, H. (2009) ‘The strategic gap in British defence policy’ Survival, 51,4, 49–70. Strange, S. (1994) States and Markets (London; Pinter), 2nd edn. Strange, S. (1996) The Retreat of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Straw, J. (2010) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 21 January, www.iraqinquiry. org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/100121.aspx. Straw, J. (2010) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 8 February, www.iraqinquiry. org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/100121.aspx. Straw, J. (2010) ‘Written memorandum to the Iraq Inquiry’ www.iraqinquiry.org. uk/media/43119/jackstraw-memorandum.pdf. Supple, B. (1994) ‘British economic decline since 1945’, in Floud, R. and McCloskey, D. (eds.) The Economic History of Britain Since 1970. Vol. 3: 1939–1992 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 318–46. Swaine, J. (2012) ‘Britain may not be able to afford “special relationship” with the US, General Sir David Richards warns’ Telegraph, 23 May, www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/uknews/defence/9286432/Britain-may-not-be-able-to-afford-specialrelationship-with-US-General-Sir-David-Richards-warns.html.

Bibliography

Synnott, H. (2008) Bad Days in Basra (London: I. B. Tauris). Synnott, H. (2008) ‘Interview’ www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP/#g. Taylor, A. J. P. (1992) English History 1914–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Taylor, C. (1992) The Sources of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Taylor, T. (2010) ‘What’s new? UK defence policy before and after the SDSR’ RUSI Journal, 155,6, 10–14. Telegraph (2010) ‘Britain will remain military power of “first rank”, says William Hague’ 15 October, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/8066161/Britainwill-remain-military-power-of-first-rank-says-William-Hague.html. Telegraph (2011) ‘Libya: Colonel Gaddafi “flees” to Venezuela’ 21 February, www. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8338948/LibyaColonel-Gaddafi-flees-to-Venezuela-as-cities-fall-to-protesters.html. Telegraph (2011) ‘A call to arms over waste at the MoD’ 22 February, www. telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/8341778/A-call-to-arms-over-waste-atthe-MoD.html. Telegraph (2011) ‘Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Leach: obituary’ 26 April, www. telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/naval-obituaries/8474861/ Admiral-of-the-Fleet-Sir-Henry-Leach.html. Temperley, H. and Penson, L. M. (1938) A Century of Diplomatic Blue Books, 1814–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). t’Hart, P., Stern, E. K. and Sundelius, B. (eds.) (1997) Beyond Groupthink: Political Group Dynamics and Foreign Policy-Making (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press). Theakston, K. (ed.) (2004) British Foreign Secretaries Since 1974 (London: Frank Cass). Thies, C. G. (2009) ‘Role theory and foreign policy’ ISA Compendium Project, review essay, May, http://myweb.uiowa.edu/bhlai/workshop/role.pdf. Thompson, R. (1966) Defeating Communist Insurgency: The Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (New York: Praeger). Thornton, R. (2004) ‘The British Army and the origins of its minimum force philosophy’ Small Wars and Insurgencies, 15,1, 83–106. Tilly, C. (1975) ‘Reflections on the history of European state-making’ in Tilly, C. (ed.) The Formation of National States in Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 3–82. TNS (2010) Public Attitudes Towards Development, report prepared for COI on behalf of DFID, April, www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications1/public-attitudesapril10.pdf. Tomlinson, J. (1994) ‘British economic policy since 1945’ in Floud, R. and McCloskey, D. (eds.) The Economic History of Britain Since 1970. Vol. 3: 1939–1992 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 255–83. Torpy, Sir G. (2011) ‘Oral evidence to the Iraq Inquiry’ 18 January, www.iraqinquiry. org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/110118.aspx. Townsend, M. (2010) ‘Gita Sahgal’s dispute with Amnesty International puts human rights group in the dock’ Guardian, 25 April. Traynor, I. (2007) ‘Brown loses fight to bar Mugabe from summit’ Guardian, 3 October, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/oct/03/zimbabwe.international?INTC MP=ILCNETTXT3487. TTCSP (Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program) (2012) The Global Go To Think Tanks Report 2011 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania).

255

256

British Foreign Policy

Tugendhat, C. and Wallace, W. (1988) Options for British Foreign Policy in the 1990s (London: Routledge). Turner, M. J. (2010) An International History of British Power 1957–1970 (NY: Teneo Press). Turner, M. J. (2010) Britain and the World in the Twentieth Century (London: Continuum). UKTI (UK Trade and Investment) (2012) ‘Economic rationale’ www.ukti.gov.uk/ uktihome/aboutukti/aimsobjectives/economicrationale.html. UN (United Nations) (1999) ‘Report of the independent inquiry into the actions of the United Nations during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda’ 15 December, http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N99/395/47/IMG/N99395 47.pdf?OpenElement. UN (United Nations) (1999) ‘Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/35: the fall of Srebrenica’, www.un.org/peace/ srebrenica.pdf. UN (United Nations) (2001) ‘UN Security Council unanimously adopts wideranging anti-terrorism resolution; calls for suppressing financing, improving international cooperation’ press release SC/7158, 28 September, www.un.org/ News/Press/docs/2001/sc7158.doc.htm. UN (United Nations) (2002) ‘Report of the International Conference on Financing for Development’ Monterrey, Mexico, 18–22 March, www.unmillenniumproject. org/documents/07_aconf198-11.pdf. UN (United Nations) (2012) ‘UN Millennium Project’ www.unmillenniumproject. org/press/07.htm. UNHCR (United Nations Refugee Agency) (2011), ‘Statement of Ms Navanethem Pillay: UNHCR’ http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/navi%20pillay.pdf. Vansittart, Lord (1958) The Mist Procession: The Autobiography of Lord Vansittart (London: Hutchinson). Väyrynen, R. (2005) The Waning of Major War (London: Routledge). Verbeek, B. (2003) Decision-Making in Great Britain During the Suez Crisis (Aldershot: Ashgate). Vickers, R. (2000) ‘Blair’s Kosovo campaign: political communications, the battle for public opinion and foreign policy’ Civil Wars, 3,1, 55–70. Vickers, R. (2000) ‘Labour’s search for a third way in foreign policy’ in Little, R. and Wickham Jones, M. (eds.) New Labour’s Foreign Policy: A New Moral Crusade? (Manchester: Manchester University Press), 33–48. Vickers, R. (2003) The Labour Party and the World. Vol. 1 (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Vickers, R. (2011) The Labour Party and the World. Vol. 2 (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Vincent, R. J. (1986) Foreign Policy and Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Vines, A. (2012) ‘The effectiveness of UN and EU sanctions: lessons for the twentyfirst century’ International Affairs, 88,4, 867–77. Waever, O. (1990) ‘The language of foreign policy’ Journal of Peace Research, 27,3, 335–43. Waever, O. (1994) ‘Resisting the temptation of post foreign policy analysis’ in Carlsnaes, W. and Smith, S. (eds.) European Foreign Policy: The EC and Changing Foreign Policy Perspectives in Europe (London: Sage).

Bibliography

Walden, G. (1988) Ethics and Foreign Policy (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Walker, D. (2000) ‘Realpolitik rules’ 11 December, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/ dec/11/eu.ethicalforeignpolicy. Walker, R. B. J. (1993) Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Walker, S. G. and Watson, G. L. (1989) ‘Groupthink and integrative complexity in British foreign policy-making: the Munich case’ Cooperation and Conflict, XXIV, 199–212. Wallace, W. (1975) The Foreign Policy Process in Britain (London: RIIA). Wallace, W. (1991) ‘Foreign policy and national identity in the United Kingdom’ International Affairs, 67,1, 65–80. Wallace, W. (1992) ‘British foreign policy after the Cold War’ International Affairs, 68,3, 423–42. Wallace, W. (1996) ‘Truth and power, monks and technocrats: theory and practice in international relations’ Review of International Studies, 22,3, 301– 21. Wallace, W. (1999) ‘Europe after the Cold War: interstate order or post-sovereign regional system?’ Review of International Studies, 25, 201–23. Wallace, W. (2005) ‘The collapse of British foreign policy’, International Affairs, 81,1, 53–68. Wallace, W. (2007) ‘Introduction: foreign secretaries and foreign policy’ in Ziegner, G. (ed.) British Diplomacy: Foreign Secretaries Reflect (London: Politico’s), 1–18. Wallace, W. and Phillips, C. (2009) ‘Reassessing the special relationship’ International Affairs, 85,2, 263–84. Wallace, W. and Wallace, H. (1990) ‘Strong state or weak state in foreign policy? The contradictions of Conservative liberalism, 1979–1987’ Public Administration, 68, 83–101. Wallerstein, I. (1974, 1980, 1989) The Modern World System (London: Academic Press), 3 vols. Walt, S. M. (1991) ‘The renaissance of security studies’, International Studies Quarterly, 35,2, 211–39. Walt, S. (1998) ‘International relations: one world, many theories’ Foreign Policy, 110, 29–46. Waltz, K. (1979) Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill). Waltz, K. (1996) ‘International politics is not foreign policy’ Security Studies, 6,1, 54–7. Walzer, M. (1973) ‘Political action: the problem of dirty hands’ Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2,2, 160–80. Walzer, M. (1977) Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books). Walzer, M. (2001) Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press). Wanta, W., Golan, G. and Lee, C. (2004) ‘Agenda setting and international news: media influence on public perceptions of foreign nations’ Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 81,2, 364–77. Waraich, O. and Whitaker, R. (2009) ‘Pakistan: the greatest threat’ Independent, 8 March. Ward, P. (2004) Britishness Since 1870 (London: Routledge).

257

258

British Foreign Policy

Watson, M. (2002) ‘Sand in the wheels, or oiling the wheels, of international finance? New Labour’s appeal to a “new Bretton Woods” ’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 4,2, 193–221. Watt, N. (2010) ‘Hillary Clinton “worried” by UK defence cuts’ 15 October, www. guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/14/hillary-clinton-uk-defence-cuts. Watt, N. (2011) ‘David Cameron to urge world leaders to protect civilians’ Guardian, 22 September, www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/22/david-cameron-worldleaders-civilians. Watt, N. (2012) ‘Argentina hits back at David Cameron over colonialism jibe’ Guardian, 19 January, www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/19/argentina-davidcameron-colonialism. Watt, N. (2012) ‘Cameron: “Britain and US will leave Afghans without a perfect democracy” ’ Guardian, 13 March, www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/13/ cameron-afghanistan-without-perfect-democracy. Watt, N. and Chrisafis, A. (2008) ‘Brown looks to China to strengthen IMF’s hand’ Guardian, 29 October, www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/29/gordon-brownchina-imf. Webb, T. (2007) Bribing for Britain: Government Collusion in Arms Sales Corruption (London: CAAT). Webber, M. and Smith, M. (2002) Foreign Policy in a Transformed World (London: Pearson). Weber, M. (2004) ‘Politics as a vocation’ in Weber, M. The Vocation Lectures, eds. Owen, D. and Strong, T. B. (Indianapolis: Hackett), 32–94. Wendt, A. (1992) ‘Anarchy is what states make of it’ International Organization, 46,2, 391–425. Wendt, A. (1994) ‘Collective identity formation and the international state’ American Political Science Review, 88,2, 384–96. Wendt, A. (1999) Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Wetherell, M., Taylor, S. and Yates, S. J. (2001) Discourse Theory as Data: A Guide for Analysis (London: Sage). Wetherell, M., Taylor, S. and Yates, S. J. (2002) Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader (London: Sage). Wheeler, N. J. (2000) Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Wheeler, N. J. and Dunne, T. (1998) ‘Good international citizenship: a third way for British foreign policy’ International Affairs, 74,4, 847–70. Wheeler, N. J. and Dunne, T. (2004) Moral Britannia (London: Foreign Policy Centre). White, N. D. (2009) Democracy Goes to War: British Military Deployments Under International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Whitman, J. (2003) ‘Global dynamics and the limits of global governance’ Global Society, 17,3, 253–72. Wiggin, A. (2011) ‘China nudges world closer to gold standard’ Forbes, 30 March, www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/03/30/china-nudges-world-closerto-new-gold-standard. Wight, M. (1996) International Theory: The Three Traditions, eds. Wight, G. and Porter, B. (London: Leicester University Press).

Bibliography

Williams, B. (1973) Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Williams, P. (2001) ‘Tough on debt, tough on the causes of debt? New Labour’s Third Way foreign policy’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 3,2, 150–72. Williams, P. (2004) ‘Who’s making UK foreign policy?’ International Affairs, 80,5, 909–29. Williams, P. (2006) British Foreign Policy Under New Labour, 1997–2005 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Willis, M. (2002) ‘What defines British values?’ in Griffith, P. and Leonard, M. (eds.) Reclaiming Britishness (London: Foreign Policy Centre), 14–19. Wintour, P. (2010) ‘Anglo-French defence agreement hailed by leaders’ Guardian, 2 November, www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/02/anglo-french-defenceagreement. Wintour, P. (2012) ‘UK faces request for £19bn as IMF boosts bailout fund to $1tn’ Guardian, 18 January, www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/18/uk-facesrequest-for-19bn. Wintour, P. and Elliott, L. (2009) ‘G20: Gordon Brown brokers massive financial aid deal for global economy’ Guardian, 3 April, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ apr/03/g20-gordon-brown-global-economy. Wiseman, P. and Sheikh, Z. M. (2009) ‘Pakistan deal with Taliban emboldens militants’ USA Today, 23 April. Witchell, N. (2011) ‘Ireland “will remember Queen’s symbolic visit” ’ BBC News, 20 May, www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13473379. Wohlforth, W. (1994), ‘Realism and the end of the Cold War’ International Security, 19,3, 91–129. Wolf, S. (1982) ‘Moral saints’ Journal of Philosophy, 79,8, 419–39. Wolfers, A. (1979) Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (London: Johns Hopkins University Press). Wright, L. (2006) The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf). WTO (World Trade Organization) (2012) ‘Table I.8 Leading exporters and importers in world merchandise trade, 2010’ www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/ its2011_e/its11_world_trade_dev_e.htm. WTO (World Trade Organization) (2012) ‘Table I.10 Leading exporters and importers in world trade in commercial services, 2010’ www.wto.org/english/ res_e/statis_e/its2011_e/its11_world_trade_dev_e.htm. Wyatt, N. (2011) ‘David Cameron hits out at critics of Britain’s arms trade’ Guardian, 22 February, www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/22/david-cameron-britainarms-trade. Yetiv, S. A. (2003) Groupthink and the Gulf crisis’ British Journal of Political Science, 33,3, 419–42. Yoo, J. (2003) ‘Memorandum for William J. Haynes II, General Counsel for the Department of Defense, US Dept of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, March 14, Re: Military interrogation of alien unlawful combatants held outside the United States’, www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/yoo_army_torture_memo.pdf. Ziegner, G. (ed.) (2007) British Diplomacy: Foreign Secretaries Reflect (London: Politico’s).

259

260

British Foreign Policy

Key websites These are the primary sites of record used. British Prime Minister’s Office: www.number10.gov.uk DFID: www.dfid.gov.uk European External Action Service: www.eeas.europa.eu/index_en.htm FCO: www.fco.gov.uk/en Hansard: www.parliament.uk/business/publications/hansard IMF: www.imf.org MOD: www.mod.uk NATO: www.nato.int UK Parliament Website: www.parliament.uk UKTI: www.ukti.gov.uk UN: www.un.org/en UN Millennium Project: www.unmillenniumproject.org World Bank: http://data.worldbank.org

Index

Acheson, Dean 89 Acland, Anthony 38 Afghanistan 23, 27, 91, 115, 122, 123, 127, 131, 132, 136–43, 181, 212n68 Al Qaeda 127, 137–8 British historic relations with 136 British troop deployments 128 British withdrawal from 18, 142–3 counter-terrorism 114, 131 insurgency 91, 131 political settlement 91 Aitken, Jonathan 102 Akhunzada, Sher Mohammed 138 Al-Khalifa, Hamad 13 Al Qaeda 111, 114, 127, 137–8 Amnesty International 32, 51, 103 Annan, Kofi 106, 109 Arab–Israeli crisis 88, 192n123 Arab League 180 Arab Spring 33, 129, 175 Ashton, Baroness 36, 194n161 Asian tsunami 7 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) 147 Attlee, Clement 14, 161 Australia 68, 69, 85 BAE Systems 35 Bahrain 13, 25 BBC World Service 22 Beckett, Margaret 16–17 Belhaj, Abdul Hakim 113 Benn, Tony 18 Berrill, Sir Kenneth 86 Bevin, Ernest 156 Bhownagree, Sir Macherjee Merwanjee 74 Bill of Rights (1689) 71, 79

Black Wednesday 157 Blair, Tony 1, 15 advocacy of military action 15, 108 at Iraq Inquiry 189n25 Atlanticism 31 Britain’s role in world 65, 67 British identity 76 British values 76 Chicago speech 15–16, 93, 108 Iraq War 16, 91, 99, 126–7 new foreign policy 67, 93 on arms sales 104 on British interests 109 on British society 75–6 on ethics 104, 108 on Euro 20 on Europe 20, 67, 200n61 on humanitarian intervention 92–3 on internationalism 15–16, 65, 108, 199n39 on international society 93–4 on responsibility to protect 93 on special relationship 31, 67, 88 pivotal power 79 policy alignment with US 88 presidentialism 15–16, 19, 44 relationship with foreign secretaries 16 Saudi Arabian arms deal 104 special advisers 16, 34, 43 special envoys 17, 36 Bosnia humanitarian intervention 29, 106–7, 122, 129 military intervention 6 role of media 29 sanctions 152 Srebrenica 107 BP 35, 194n157 261

262

Index

Brazil economic development 82, 86, 116, 166, 170, 177, 183 regional power 94 relations with Britain 85 rising power 1, 68, 178 role in UN Security Council 218n33 Brenton, Anthony 39, 49 Brown, Gordon economic leadership 1, 171, 172, 173, 221n108 leadership style 17 on bilateral agreements 171 on boom and bust 175 on British identity 71, 72, 77, 202n121 on climate change 17 on development 17 on internationalism 65, 199n39 policy change 44 racism in British society 74 relations with foreign secretary 17 response to financial crisis beginning in 2007–8 1, 17 role and influence whilst chancellor 19 Browne, Jeremy 22, 23 use of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 32 Bryant, Chris on arms control policy 44 on Europe 25 Burma sanctions 29, 152 Bush, George W. 16 administration 91 protectionism 151 relationship with Blair 189n25 Butler, Brigadier 139 Butler Inquiry 143 Butler, Lord 16 Butler, Sir Michael 38 Cabinet 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 37, 42, 43, 68, 115, 189n37, 190n88 Cabinet government 42–3 Cabinet Office 13, 18, 41, 46, 47, 42, 75 Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (COBRA) 18

Callaghan, James 14 relationship with foreign secretaries 192n123 use of Cabinet 18 Cameron, David Afghanistan withdrawal 143 commercial foreign policy 57 defending Britain’s interests 110–11 foreign policymaking 17 humanitarian intervention 31 military intervention 31, 110, 180 new initiatives 17–18 on aid in Europe 116 on arms sales 105, 207n51 on economics 149, 151 on human rights 93–4 on Libya 111 on New Labour’s military policy 111 on role of UN 93–4 tour of Gulf 105 Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) 32 Canada 68, 69, 126, 160, 166, 168 British troop deployments 128 centralized foreign policymaking 14–16 centre–periphery model 83, 203n20 Chakrabati, Sir Suma 115 Chamberlain, Neville 14, 30, 121 Chatham House 34, 39, 78, 94, 112 China 68, 69, 83 arms exports controls 152 attractiveness to business 168 autocratic regime 110 Britain’s trade with 162, 170 dispute with France 172–3 domestic challenges 177 economic development 34, 116–17, 134, 164, 177, 182, 183–4 economic regulation 171 ethnic groups 109–10 global values 178 human rights 178 in UN Security Council 85, 109, 180 increased exports 166 military expenditure 82, 84 negotiations with Iran 36 new global order 178–9 on international economic regulations 173

Index

on international financial regulation 173 rising powers 1, 37, 94, 177 role in Middle East peace process 36 role in world 178 veto power 85, 109 Churchill, Sir Winston 66, 73, 155, 156 City of London 57, 151 Clegg, Nick 68 Clinton, Bill 31 Clinton, Hillary 114 Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC) 32 coalition government changes to foreign policymaking machinery 17–18 Coles, Sir John Britain’s role in Europe 94 Britain’s role in world 61, 85 on diplomacy 190n77 on management within Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) 52 on role of non-state actors 51–2 on Thatcher 18 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 163 Common European Security Committee 28 Commonwealth 13, 18, 22, 24, 31, 38, 64, 66, 68, 71, 84, 85, 87, 89, 95, 97, 98, 159, 161, 162 complicity 112–14 Congress of Vienna (1815) 84 Conservative Party 17, 31, 54, 102, 103, 104, 115 constructivism 10 Cook, Robin 15 ethical direction 96, 102 India and Pakistan 89, 91 on arms sales 15, 101–3, 188n14 on Blair 19–20 on human rights 15, 32 on scrutiny bodies 28 promoting Britain 26 Cooper, Robert 3 Council of Europe 97 Crowe, Sir Eyre 92–3 Cuba 45, 57, 151 Curtis, Mark 107 Cyprus 126, 128 Czech Republic 49

Dannatt, Richard 123 Daoud, Mohammed 138 Darroch, Sir Kim 18 defence 120–44 as deterrence 120–1 as diplomacy 120–1 cuts 121, 126, 132, 134, 135, 181 reviews 135; see also Strategic Defence Review; Strategic Defence and Security Review Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 25, 103, 152 Department for International Development (DFID) 13, 19, 27, 32, 33, 41, 50, 115, 116, 117, 138 development 115–16 devolution 59, 176 domestic/foreign dichotomy 4, 6–7, 97 East Timor 103 economics 145–74 and foreign policymaking 149–73 Britain’s role within global economy 170–3 competition 147–8, 151, 163–70 balancing 166–70 growth 164–5 output 165–6 currency 146, 153–8 crisis 156–8 gold standard 153–4 New Labour monetary policy 157 financial regulation 171–2 G20 London Summit 170–3 global debt 173 liberalism 147, 150 markets 147, 150 within Europe 162 mercantilism 147 non-state actors 145 protectionism 151–2 role of state 145–6 providing infrastructure 148 sanctions 29, 102, 110, 150–2 social welfare 148 taxation 148 trade 147, 149, 158–63, 216n7 Britain as trading nation 159 freeloading 161 free trade 160–1

263

264

Index

Eden, Anthony 14, 19, 30 El Salvador 103 English Defence League (EDL) 75, 201n106 ethics and aid 114–18 and arms sales 101–6, 193–4n156 and humanitarian intervention 106–12 and torture 112–14 and war on terrorism 112–14 communitarian 97, 105, 115 consequentialist 98–9 cosmopolitan 97–8, 115 definition of 96 deontology 98, 99–100, 105 Kantian 98–100, 105, 110, 114 ‘nonperfectionist’ 98 role in foreign policymaking 96–119 virtue 100–1 Ethiopia 29, 191n103 European Commission 49, 149, 194n161 European Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) 4, 36, 85, 152, 194n161 European Economic Community (EEC) 162, 187n48 European exchange rate mechanism (ERM) 157 European External Action Service (EEAS) 36, 37, 50, 194n161 European Free Trade Association (EFTA) 162 European Union (EU) 3, 4, 13, 29, 30, 31, 32, 36, 37, 41, 47, 48, 49, 50, 57, 68, 69, 85, 87, 97, 98, 116, 118, 125, 127, 147, 149, 150, 151, 153, 157, 162, 163, 178, 183, 194n161 European Union Select Committee 28–9 Eurozone 62, 68, 145, 163, 165, 173, 178, 183, 221n12 Falkland Islands 2012 dispute 89–90 Falklands War 14, 17, 26, 78, 82, 83, 93, 117, 118, 124, 132, 134, 146, 147, 164, 165, 166, 169, 170, 178

financial crisis (2007) 6, 17, 26, 78, 82, 83, 93, 117, 118, 124, 132, 134, 146, 147, 164, 165, 166, 169, 170, 178 Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) 7, 9, 10, 13–18, 20–30, 32–7, 39, 41, 43–6, 50–3, 56, 61, 75, 79, 81, 86–8, 92, 103, 115, 134, 138, 152, 187n51, 188n3, 193n137 budget 26 commercialization 27 incorporation of development ideas 27–8 managerialism 27 outreach 25 stereotypes 25–6 Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) 17, 25, 28, 142 foreign policy changing nature of 25 redefinition 4 foreign policy actors domestic 12–35 business Cabinet 18–20, 189n37, 190n58 committees 17–18 diplomatic service 22–5 Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) 21–8 foreign secretary 20–1 monarchy 12–14 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 31–3, 193n137 prime ministers and 14–17 scrutinizing bodies 28–34 special advisers 15 special representatives 17 Treasury 20 external 35–9 foreign policy analysis asymmetric power model 42, 55–7 bureaucratic politics model 41 differentiated polity model 42, 47–55 organizational process model 41–2 rational actor model 41 Westminster model 42–7 Former Yugoslavia 78, 107 Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 121 Fox, Liam 126

Index

France 26, 69, 85 dispute with China 172–3 financial regulation 171–2 G20 London Summit 48–9 historic relationship with Britain 73 historic world position 84 in world trade 163–5, 167–8 military cooperation with UK 133 military expenditure 135 on Iran nuclear issue 36 relationship with UK 67–8, 94 role in Europe 36, 87 role in UN Security Council 85–6 Suez crisis 156–7 veto power 85 Franks, Oliver 126 Fraser, Simon 23, 26 G8 3, 6, 13, 38, 39, 85, 87, 118, 170, 183 G20 1, 3, 13, 31, 38, 48, 85, 87, 118, 146, 153, 170, 171–4, 182, 183 G20 London Summit 48, 170–3 Gaddafi, Colonel Muammar 30, 110–11, 113, 122 International Criminal Court (ICC) referral 110 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 220n80 General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) 220n80 Genocide Convention 107 Georgia 17, 100 Germany 26, 68, 69, 94, 182 at G20 London Summit 48–9 British military deployments 128 great power status 84 in world trade 164–8, 171 Nazi 110, 161 on Iran nuclear issue 36 relations with Britain 67, 82, 85 role in Europe 36 role in UN Security Council 86 Weimar 147 Gladstone, William 14, 216n23 global civil society 3 globalization 1, 3, 5, 25, 59, 82, 152, 176, 185n7 Glorious Revolution 71, 153

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) 13, 20, 190n59 Great Britain see United Kingdom Greenspan, Alan 83 Greenstock, Sir Jeremy 27 on managerialism in Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) 53 on UN 38 Grenada 13 Guantanamo Bay 113 Hague, William 22, 23 Britain’s place in world 79 exports 162 on Afghanistan 91 on ambassadors 24 on bilateral agreements 56 on business 34 on digital media 25–6 on economic interests 24 on Europe 69 on foreign policy committee 17 on Libya 30 on networks 51, 67, 68, 180 on role of prime minister 17–18 on UN Security Council reform 94 relationship with prime minister 21 trade 158 UK as military power 126 Hain, Peter on ethical arms sales 104 on global issues 3 Hammond, Philip 121 Hankey, Maurice on island nation 200n63 Hannigan, Robert 23 Healey, Denis 18, 135 Heath, Edward 31 on Britain 65 on realism 187n48 relationship with business 147 Hennessy, Peter 9, 18, 19 Henri-Levi, Bernard 33 Hezbollah 16 historical materialism 203n2 Holmes, John 15 House of Commons 15, 125 House of Lords 22

265

266

Index

Howe, Geoffrey 15, 38 humanitarian intervention 6, 64, 106–12 selectivity of 109–10, 118 human rights 6, 32, 93–4, 96, 102–3, 104, 105, 178 Human Rights Watch (HRW) 32 Hurd, Douglas 14 on Britain in world 93 on business world 196n50 on Malaysian aid 117 identity 60–1 British 59–95, 176–7, 197–8n1 Anglosphere 198n9 as military power 125–6 binary divisions 62 colonial legacy 71, 87, 89–90 economic 72 ethical 63–4, 72–8 Euroscepticism 87 global 61, 84–8 historic 70–1 internationalism 65 three circles 66–7 trade 65–6 European 69–70 island 71, 199n47 material elements 81–4 normative elements 81 role in foreign policymaking 59, 61–4 India 38, 69 arms trade with UK 103 colonial legacy 13, 21, 71 domestic challenges 177 East India Company 159 economic development 116, 166, 170, 183 global values 178 historic relations with UK 21 Kashmir dispute 89, 91 new global order 179 possible role in UN Security Council 86 regional power 94 rising power 1, 37, 68, 84, 85, 177, 178 trade with UK 162 UK aid 117 UK relations 30

Indonesia 4, 69 arms sales 102–3 growing population 86 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 151 International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) 32 International Criminal Court (ICC) 6, 97, 110, 178 International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) 34, 49 internationalism 15–16, 108, 178, 199n39 international justice 96 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 5, 13, 49, 50, 85, 87, 153, 155, 157, 171, 172, 173, 183 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) 128, 137, 138 Iran 36, 69, 102, 121 arms sales 102 sanctions 151, 152, 178 Iraq 19 arms sales 101, 193–4n156 Blair and intervention, 19, 62, 91 breaches of international law 112 Britain’s decision to invade 19, 91, 99 Clare Short on 18, 19, 115 external relations after invasion of 182 Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) expenditure on 27 inquiry 16, 19, 115, 131, 189n25 Jack Straw on 19 Liberal Democrats opposition 31 military covenant see military (British) military interventions 6, 34, 86, 88, 99; see also military (British) post-9/11 policy 16 public awareness 49 public opinion towards invasion 29–30, 55, 126 Robin Cook on 19 role in media 29 sanctions 102, 151, 152 self-defence operations 122 UK police actions 122 war crimes 112

Index

weapons of mass destruction (WMD) 91, 121 wider implications of invasion 67, 76 Irish Republican Army (IRA) 14 Israel 69, 156 Arab–Israeli conflict 88, 192n123, 216n4 arms deals 103–4 relations with Hezbollah 16 Italy 49, 69, 82, 129, 165, 166, 168, 182 Japan 35, 69, 86, 94, 129 economic situation 164, 167 historic great power status 82, 85, 177 in world trade 167–8 Jay, Michael 39 on climate change 39 on coherent foreign policy 191n163 on managerialism 53 on nature of EU discussions 37 on role of diplomatic service 23–4 joint committees 32 Kantian ethics 98–100, 105, 110, 114 Karzai, President Hamid 91 Kenya British troop deployments 128 British use of torture in 71 colonial legacy 71 Kerr, Sir John 22–3, 28 on discipline of International Relations 187n51 on economic interests 24 think tank development 34 Keynes, John Maynard 166–7 Khan, Dost Mohammed 136 Khan, Mohammed Sidique 76 Kosovo 131 Blair on 93 Blair’s role in 15 humanitarian intervention 15, 30, 64, 78, 88, 93, 99, 108–9, 121, 122, 127, 131 legality of intervention 88 media’s role in 29 military intervention 6, 30, 64, 78, 99, 192n128 UN Security Council on ethnic cleansing 127

Kumar, Inder Gujral 89 Kuwait 105, 121 1991 Iraq invasion 121 Labour Party 31, 44, 157, 162 Leach, Admiral 125 Lebanon 127, 152 Liberal Democrats 31 liberalism 10, 187–8n51 Libya 69 crisis 1, 30, 33, 99, 108, 110–11, 122, 127, 180, 182 International Criminal Court (ICC) referral 178 sanctions 152 Litvinenko, Alexander 179, 225n15 Maastricht Treaty 4, 31, 194n161, 216n12 MacDonald, Ramsey 20 Macedonia see Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Machiavelli, Niccolo 98 Mackay, Brigadier 140 Macmillan, Harold 14, 84 defence of Jordan 190n58 military intervention 190n58 on nuclear armaments spending 125 Magna Carta 71, 79 Major, John 14 island nation 65 leadership style 15, 16 relationship with US 31 scandals 102 Malaysia 69, 117 Malloch-Brown, Lord on Commonwealth 87 on policymaking 48 on UN Security Council 86 managerialism and foreign policymaking 52–4 Marshall Aid 156, 166 Merkel, Angela on economic regulation 171–2 Meyer, Christopher on centralization of foreign policymaking 24, 188n20 on managerialism 53 on measuring diplomacy 27 MI5 28

267

268

Index

MI6 20, 28, 30 Miliband, David as foreign secretary 17, 20 Britain as global hub 67 introduction of digital media 25 on Afghanistan insurgency 143 on arms sales 44 on torture 113 relationship with Brown 17 Millennium Development Goals 33, 209n113 military (British) finance 134–5 in Afghanistan 6, 112, 127, 136–43 aims 142 ending war 142–3 failings 140–3 strategy 137–41 tactics 140 in Iraq 16, 19, 28, 29, 31, 49, 55–6, 62, 67, 78, 86, 88, 91, 99, 115, 122, 123, 126, 131, 132, 180, 189n25 military covenant 109, 123 purpose 124–9 national security 124–5 protection of UK nationals 127 war and foreign policy 120 structure 129–33 geographic impact 129 inward-looking policy 130 joint military ventures 132–3 pragmatic agenda 129 symbolic meaning 124 UK troop deployments 128 military intervention 6, 82, 126–7 Milosevic, Slobodan 110 Ministry of Defence (MOD) 13, 18, 41, 49, 50, 91, 103, 131, 134, 138, 177, 180, 183 Mitchell, Andrew 27, 117 monarchy see foreign policy actors; Queen Elizabeth II Mountbatten, Earl 14 Mueller, John on American industrial strength 213n116 Mugabe, Robert 151 multilateralism 1, 2–3, 5, 38–9, 48, 49, 149, 180 multinational corporations (MNCs) 2, 145, 182

Murray, Craig 32 Musaddiq, Mohamed 92 National Security Council (NSC) 17, 18, 20, 39, 43 neoliberalism 54 neorealism 202n1 Netherlands 49, 69, 168 networks 49–51 new international security threats energy politics 179, 181 transnational crime 179 New Labour 15, 29, 31, 34, 37, 52, 54, 65, 67, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108, 110, 111, 115, 116, 125, 127, 132, 142, 157 New Zealand 68, 69 colonial legacy 71 Nigeria 86 arms sales 152 sanctions 152 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 2, 13, 31, 32, 33, 47, 51, 52, 53, 180 non-state actors 2, 3 North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) 147 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 22, 64, 78, 85, 87, 91, 98, 108, 109, 111, 122, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 132, 135, 137, 138, 139, 180, 192n138, 212n68 Northern Ireland 7, 59, 73, 176 devolution 59 peace process 16 North Korea 23, 46, 69 autocratic regime 110 Britain’s policy towards 45, 57 police action 122 sanctions 152 Number 10 Downing Street 15, 16, 43, 44, 45, 47 Obama, Barrack 172 oil embargo (1973) 165, 216n4 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 39, 104 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) 97

Index

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) 2, 185n5, 216n4 Osborne, George 158 Owen, David on arms sales 103 on Blair 16 on Israel 192n123 relationship with prime ministers 18 Oxfam 32, 33 Pakistan 17, 23, 69 arms sales 103, 152 Britain’s bilateral relations with 28 complicity in torture 112 growing population 86 Kashmir dispute 89, 91 war on terrorism 112–14, 138, 208n107 permanent under-secretary (PUS) 18, 22, 23, 24, 28, 34, 37, 39, 53, 191n163 Pitt the Younger 159 Pope John Paul II 151 Portugal 69, 162 Powell, Charles 14–15 Powell, Enoch 74 Powell, Jonathan 15 presidentialism 14–16, 43–4 Prime Minister’s Office 15, 24, 41, 45, 46, 47 Pym, Francis on Europe 194n168 on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) 29 relationship with Thatcher 14 role of public in foreign policy 149 Queen Elizabeth II 12 controversies of diamond jubilee 13 on Grenada invasion 13 role in foreign policy 12 trip to Republic of Ireland in 2011 13–14 Rammell, Bill 45 realism 10, 90–1, 187n48, 187n49 regionalism 1, 3, 5, 35–7, 48, 87, 97, 147, 149, 194n161 Reid, John 138, 141–2

Republic of Ireland 59, 69, 176 exports to UK 162 historic relations with Britain 73 queen’s visit in 2011 13–14 Republic of Sudan 17, 52 Britain’s failure to act 6, 100 responsibility to protect 6, 89, 93, 108, 109, 110, 111, 126 Rhodesia 18 Richards, David 2010 defence review 125 on importance of economics to security 134 Sierra Leone 127 Ricketts, Sir Peter 18, 20 on role of Cabinet 20 Rifkind, Malcolm 15 island nation 199n47 on humanitarian intervention 109 on prime ministers’ role in foreign policy 14 role of military in diplomacy 122 Roberts, Sir Ivor on centralized policymaking 52 on management 24 role of state 5 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 155 Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) 34 rule of law 111 Rumbold, Sir Anthony 24 Russell, Lord 121–2 Russia 69, 84, 89 autocratic regime 110 bilateral relations with UK 28 energy exports 179 ethnic groups 110 global values 178 human rights 103 imports from UK 162 invasion of Georgia 100 military size 129 negotiation with Iran 36 re-emerging power 1, 179, 183–4 relationship with EU 36 rising economy 116, 166, 170, 183–4 role in international law 179 role in Middle East peace process 36 transnational crime 179 UN Security Council 85 veto power 109, 180

269

270

Index

Russia–Georgia war 17, 100 Rwanda 16 humanitarian intervention 106–7, 109 Salisbury, Lord 20 on forcible diplomacy 121 Sandys, Duncan 135 Sarkozy, Nicolas on economic regulation 171–2 Saudi Arabia 69 arms sales 102–4 role in Afghanistan 112 Schelling, Thomas on diplomacy 120 Scotland 73, 148 Act of Union (1707) 70 devolution 59 independence from UK 59 Sheinwald, Nigel 45, 47 Short, Clare 16 Department for International Development (DFID) 115 on Blair 16 on Iraq 16, 19, 115 on military intervention 27 on use of Cabinet 19 Sierra Leone 128, 131 arms embargo 28 humanitarian intervention 108, 122 military intervention 6, 16, 127 sanctions 152 UN peacekeeping 128, 218n68 Single European Act 31 Somalia intervention in 107 piracy 28 sanctions 152 Soros, George Black Wednesday 157 Soviet Union 84, 130 collapse 129, 130, 134 relations with US 151, 156 South Ossetia 100 South Sudan 17, 52 sanctions 152 Spain 49, 69, 126, 129 special advisers 15, 43 special relationship 31, 38, 49, 68, 84, 89, 125, 133, 178

Sri Lanka 17 diaspora protests 30 arms exports 103 Stirrup, Sir Jock, 141 St Malo agreement 16 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) 125, 126, 133, 134, 135, 181 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) 125, 126, 130, 131, 172 Straw, Jack 19, 45 on Iraq 19 relationship with Blair 16 Suez crisis 19, 92, 156, 157 Synnott, Hilary 206n31 Syria 100, 180 Taliban 91, 114, 131, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141 Thatcher, Margaret 15 centralization of power 14–15 defence spending 147 Falklands War 125 leadership style 14–15 relationship with civil service 14 relationship with foreign secretaries 14 relationship with Soviet Union 193n150 resignation of 15 use of Cabinet 18 use of special advisers 14 think tanks 13, 34, 47, 49, 50, 57 Treasury 18, 20, 26, 27, 47, 50, 52, 87, 134, 155 Treaty of Amsterdam 4, 16, 194n161 Treaty of Nice 16 Turkey arms sales 103 role in Afghanistan 137 Uganda 16 United Kingdom (UK) as global economic leader 170–3 as military power 6, 124–9 as norm entrepreneur 94, 178 as revisionist power 93 as status quo power 92 balancing power 88 colonial legacy 5, 21, 31, 84 currency 146, 153–6 definition of 7

Index

future prospects 177–83 history as military power 124 in international society 89 international law 6, 62 material capabilities 81–4 moral leader 89 possible break-up 176, 177 relationship with business 23, 34, 35 relationship with Europe 36, 37, 48, 67 relationship with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 32 responsibilities in world 84 role in multilateral institutions 38, 85 role in UN Security Council 38, 64, 85–6, 90 role in world 1, 88–94 solidarist approach 96 United Kingdom Trade and Investment (UKTI) 22, 26, 35, 36 United Nations (UN) 2, 3, 18, 31, 47, 48, 86, 93, 97, 106, 107, 179 United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) 106 United Nations Charter 111 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) 38, 93, 151 United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 6, 13, 38, 64, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 94, 98, 106, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 122, 127, 137, 176, 180 United States Department of Defense 41, 49 United States of America (USA) 1, 18, 69, 83, 84, 107, 115, 116, 134, 161 9/11 137 aid donors 115–16 complicity in torture 112–14 financial crisis beginning in 2007–8 170 Marshall Aid 156 partnership in War on Terror 112–14 policy alignment with UK 88 relations with Cuba 151 relations with UK 28

role after Second World War 5 role as global hegemon 161 role at G20 London Summit 170–1, 173 role in Afghanistan 136–43 role in Suez 135 role in UN Security Council 85 role of academics in foreign policymaking 33 sanctions 178 special relationship 31, 38, 68, 84, 89, 94, 98, 125, 178 veto power 85 United States State Department 41 Vietnam 110 Vietnam War 127, 205n70 von Bismarck, Otto 92 von Clausewitz, Carl 120, 123, 143 on war and defence 120, 136 Wales devolution 59 possible independence 176 Wall Street Crash 154, 161, 173 war on terrorism 112–14, 137 weapons of mass destruction (WMD) 29, 49, 91, 121, 126, 151, 196n37, 218n34 Wen, Jiabao 171 Westphalian system 5 Whitehall 17, 23, 24, 37, 42, 44, 45, 47, 48, 52, 55, 115, 134 Wilmshurst, Elizabeth 88 World Bank 13, 50, 85, 87, 116, 153, 164, 173, 183 World Trade Organization (WTO) 49, 50, 85, 147, 149, 153, 179, 183 World Wildlife Fund 172 Yemen 112 Yom Kippur War (1973) 216n4 Yugoslavia see Former Yugoslavia Zimbabwe arms sales 103 failure to intervene 100 human rights abuses 87 hyperinflation 147 sanctions 151, 152

271