British Diplomacy: Foreign Secretaries Reflect
Graham Ziegner (ed)
Politico’s, 165pp, £19.99
This collection of short essays by former British foreign secretaries, based on a series of lectures given at the London School of Economics in late 2003, makes for a compelling mix of academic analysis and personal memoir.
Lord Carrington, reflecting on the problems that came across his desk during his stint as foreign secretary between 1979 and 1982, is arguably the most humble of the contributors, admitting mistakes that were made and lessons that could be learnt.
Meanwhile, Lord Howe, Margaret Thatcher’s longest-serving foreign secretary from 1983 to 1989, chronicles how disagreements with the prime minister over foreign policy contributed to the deterioration of their relationship, and shows how a prime minister’s approach to foreign policy is so often shaped by their relationship with their Washington counterpart. Howe notes that ‘nothing is more calculated to impair the judgement of a British prime minister than a standing ovation from both houses of Congress.’
It is the transatlantic relationship that Sir Malcolm Rifkind, foreign secretary during the twilight years of the Major government, examines, asking how ‘special’ the relationship really is. While pointing out that Tony Blair is by no means the first British prime minister to attach great importance to his relationship with a US president, Rifkind makes the compelling point that ‘other prime ministers have been quite prepared to fight it out with the Americans if necessary.’
Blair’s perceived slavish obedience to US foreign policy inevitably raises the question of Iraq, the issue that has dominated foreign policy discussion since 2003. In a chapter assessing the future of humanitarian intervention post-Iraq, Lord Hurd deems the conflict ‘not a model to be followed but an example to be avoided,’ and urges more cooperation with Europe in future diplomatic efforts.
And in a carefully thought through afterword on New Labour’s foreign policy, Christopher Hill and Tim Oliver attribute Blair’s preoccupation with foreign policy to the fact that a large proportion of control over domestic policy was handed over to Gordon Brown. It will be interesting to see what future historians make of the latter’s foreign policy initiatives once he has moved next door to No 10.
Ed Thornton