Dr Robin Niblett CMG
In this paper, Chatham House Director Robin Niblett sets out a proposed blueprint for Britain’s future foreign policy. Rather than reincarnate itself as a miniature great power, he argues that the country has the chance to remain internationally influential if it serves as the broker of solutions to global challenges.
The paper lays out six international goals for the UK that offer the best points of connection between its interests, resources and credibility. These are: protecting liberal democracy; promoting international peace and security; tackling climate change; enabling greater global health resilience; championing global tax transparency and equitable economic growth; and defending cyberspace.
In pursuit of these goals, the UK will need to invest in and leverage its unique combination of diplomatic reach, diverse security capabilities and prominence in international development. It should use these assets to link together liberal democracies and, where possible, engage alongside them with other countries that are willing to address shared international challenges constructively.
Britain has left the EU and now the safe harbour of the EU’s single market and customs union at a time of heightened global risk. The COVID-19 pandemic has stalled globalization and intensified geopolitical competition.
For its supporters, part of the logic of Brexit was that a more sovereign ‘Global Britain’ could pursue its commercial interests more successfully and enhance its voice internationally. Today, however, the UK must contend with greater protectionism, a more introspective US, no ‘golden era’ in relations with China, and gridlock in most international institutions.
The incoming administration of Joe Biden will seek to heal America’s relations with allies in Europe and Asia. But Brexit Britain will have to fight its way to the table on many of the most important transatlantic issues, with the EU now the US’s main counterpart in areas such as China relations and digital taxation.
Nevertheless, the UK embarks on its solo journey with important assets. It will still be the sixth- or seventh-largest economy in the world in 2030, at the heart of global finance, and among the best-resourced behind the US, China and India in terms of combined defence, intelligence, diplomatic and development capabilities. Even outside the EU, its government will be better networked institutionally than almost any other country’s. And the soft power inherent in its language, universities, media and civil society can enhance the influence of British ideas.
But assets do not automatically equate with influence. There needs to be a vision for Britain’s international role, and the political will, resources and popular support to put this vision into action.
A central question, then, is to what end should the UK combine its resources and enhanced autonomy on the international stage? Rather than try to reincarnate itself as a miniature great power, the UK needs to marshal its resources to be the broker of solutions to global challenges. And it should prioritize areas where it brings the credibility as well as the resources to do so.
Six objectives meet these criteria. They are protecting liberal democracy; promoting international peace and security; tackling climate change; enabling greater global health resilience; championing global tax transparency and equitable economic growth; and defending cyberspace.
Which countries should Britain engage in order to pursue these objectives? Shared geography and policy approaches mean the EU and its member states will be the most closely aligned with Britain across all six objectives, despite Brexit. The US comes next, given its unparalleled resources and special security relationship with the UK.
The large, economically significant Asia-Pacific democracies that are already part of British and US alliance structures – such as Australia, Japan and South Korea – should also be a priority, given the increasing pressure they face from a stronger and more assertive China. So should sub-Saharan Africa, given the many challenges facing its rapidly growing populations and its proximity to the UK.
In contrast, some of the original targets of ‘Global Britain’ – China, India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – may be important to the UK’s commercial interests, but they will be rivals or, at best, awkward counterparts on many of its global goals.
Three areas are ripe for Britain to tackle as a global broker in 2021, given the imminent arrival of the Biden administration. First, the UK can leverage its world-leading commitments to carbon emissions reduction alongside its co-chairmanship of COP26 to secure stronger national commitments on climate change from the US and China, the world’s two largest emitters.
Second, the UK can leverage its strong position in NATO alongside a more transatlanticist Biden administration to broker closer working relations between NATO and the EU, especially on cybersecurity and protecting space assets, critical new priorities for the safety of European democracies.
Third, the UK can use its presidency of the G7 in 2021 to start making this anachronistic grouping more inclusive. Rather than enlarging it to a catchy but arbitrary ‘D10’ or ‘Democratic Ten’, Britain could reach out to other mid-sized G20 democracies such as Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea as and when they are willing to commit to joint action towards shared objectives.
It could also link up its G7 programme with the Summit for Democracy, which Joe Biden has committed to host in 2021 to tackle the serious challenges now facing democracies at home. Britain could help define this agenda by convening meetings between officials, NGOs and US technology giants and brokering practical ideas to combat misinformation and disinformation.
Outside the EU, the UK’s new international role will require additional resources. The government’s announced increase in defence spending is an important recognition of this fact. The proposed cut in development assistance to 0.5 per cent of gross national income is not. And the UK will be unable to play a meaningful global role unless it spends significantly more on its diplomatic resources.
A positive reputation for Britain as a valued and creative broker in the search for solutions to shared problems will need to be earned. It will emerge only from the competence and impact of Britain’s diplomacy, from trust in its word, and from a return to the power of understatement for which the country was so widely respected in the past. Britain’s G7 presidency and co-chairmanship of COP26 in 2021 will be critical first tests.
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