Statecraft. Margaret Thatcher

† – is a concept which blurs at the edges the more closely it is examined. Bismarck, its most famous practitioner, once remarked over dinner that conducting policy with principles would be like walking along a narrow forest path while carrying a long pole between one’s teeth. But even the Iron Chancellor had principles of a kind: after all, he accepted without demur that his loyalty was to his royal (and later imperial) master rather than to the German people – a large section of whom he left excluded from the Reich.‡ He upheld the system and the values of the Prussian state, not those of a liberal democratic Germany. Whatever you think of this policy, it was not mere pragmatism.

      Moreover, in the age of democracy the pursuit of statecraft without regard for moral principles is all but impossible, and it makes little sense for even the most hard-nosed statesmen to ignore this fact. Since Gladstone’s Midlothian Campaigns in 1879 and 1880 – launched on the back of denunciations of Britain’s foreign policy as ‘immoral’ – politicians who try to appeal exclusively to national interest have repeatedly run into trouble with national electorates. And the rise of America, as a great power with an easily troubled conscience, has confirmed that trend.

      The years of the Cold War also had a deep and lasting effect. In that period, when the world was divided into two armed blocs with opposing ideologies – capitalism and socialism – the upholding of national interest and the upholding of political principles were for most of the time a seamless web. And though much has been questioned since the end of the Cold War, there have been few attempts to suggest that considerations of national interest are all that matter in weighing up foreign policy choices.

      For my part, I favour an approach to statecraft that embraces principles, as long as it is not stifled by them; and I prefer such principles to be accompanied by steel along with good intentions. I accordingly suggest three axioms which the statesman would do well to bear in mind today.

      First, the extension of democracy through every country and continent remains a legitimate and indeed fundamental aspect of sound foreign policy. There are many practical reasons for this: democratic states do not generally make war on each other; democracy generally promotes good government; democracy generally accompanies prosperity. But I do mean true democracy – that is a law-based state with a limited government, in which the tyranny of the majority no less than that of a minority is banished. Furthermore, as I shall explain, I entertain deep reservations about some initiatives taken in the name of human rights and democracy, on grounds of both practicality and of legitimacy.* And I would also caution against making the best (perfect democracy) the enemy of the good (imperfect democracy).† Commonsense must always temper moral zeal.

      Second, a sound and stable international order can only be founded upon respect for nations and for nation states. Whatever the flaws of particular nationalisms, national pride and national institutions constitute the best grounding for a functioning democracy. Attempts to suppress national differences or to amalgamate different nations with distinct traditions into artificial states are very likely to fail, perhaps bloodily. The wise statesman will celebrate nationhood – and use it.

      Third, whatever stratagems of international diplomacy are deployed to keep the peace, the ultimate test of statesmanship is what to do in the face of war. Deterring wars, and being in a position to win wars that are forced upon one, are two sides of the same coin: both require continuous investment in defence and a constant and unbending resolution to resist aggression. Our present age is one in which even the thought of war has become anathema. Yet at any one time wars of varying intensity are being fought around the globe. For example, in 1999 alone there were civil wars of one kind or another taking place in nineteen countries around the world.* In addition there were four international armed conflicts between governments over sovereignty and territory: the Kosovo conflict (and subsequent NATO intervention); the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea; the clash between India and Pakistan over Kashmir; and the Arab—Israeli conflict in Southern Lebanon. Most such conflicts are in places remote from the daily concerns of Western electorates and politicians. But in today’s world, with its widely available weapons of mass destruction, its ethnic and religious fault-lines, and its propensity for international interventions, distant wars easily pose present dangers.

      The first draft of this book was completed before the terrorist attacks on America of Tuesday, 11 September 2001. Any study of events always runs the risk of being overtaken by them.† This happened to Statecraft. In fact, so traumatic and far-reaching have been the consequences of that day’s vile outrages that an author may be tempted to follow some commentators in concluding that only entirely new approaches are relevant to an entirely different world.

      But I resisted that temptation. Instead, I set about reconsidering my thinking and revisited my conclusions in the light of what we now know about the scale of the threat posed by Islamic terrorism. I also reflected upon how the requirements of the global war against terrorism, which President Bush and his allies have declared, altered the way in which we should handle relations with other world powers like Russia, China and India. I weighed up the case for a radically different approach to the Middle East. I tried to assess whether the crisis altered Britain’s role in Europe or Europe’s role in the Western Alliance. In fact, I sought to test everything.

      On some questions I did indeed find myself altering my emphasis. In giving priority – as we now must – to beating terrorism, we inevitably give less attention to other issues. We have to achieve a somewhat different balance between individual liberties and the safety of the public at home. Abroad, our attentions will also be refocused. In forging a coalition to defeat one enemy we may have, at least temporarily, to deal more closely with unsatisfactory regimes which we have otherwise been right to criticise. But then, having a conservative rather than a liberal view of foreign and security policy, I agree with Winston Churchill, who once remarked of his alliance with the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany: ‘If Hitler invaded Hell I would at least try to make a favourable reference to the Devil.’ Thankfully, we are not confronted with allies like Stalin, and the Devil’s hand is clearly recognisable in the works of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network.

      Yet, all that said, I do not in fact find myself altering my analysis in any very significant respect. And this is not mere stubbornness on my part. Let me explain why.

      In the wake of America’s tragedy, we heard it said again and again that Tuesday, 11 September was ‘the day the world changed’. The headlines proclaimed it. The newscasters repeated it. The politicians, with a few exceptions, echoed it. It is easy to understand why the statement came to be made. What happened that day was the worst ever terrorist outrage. Westerners in general, Americans in particular, never felt more vulnerable or less prepared. The scale of the grief and the depth of the anger simply have no equivalent.

      For those who mourn, of course, reality had changed – for ever. In time, perhaps, they will find new lives, new sources of consolation, blessed forgetfulness; but nothing politicians or generals do can recapture what they have lost.

      But in a different way the world has stayed the same: it is just that years of illusion have been stripped away. Ever since the end of the Cold War, the West had come to believe that it was time to think and speak only of the arts of peace. With one great enemy – Soviet communism – vanquished, it was all too demanding and unsettling to think that other enemies might yet arise to disturb our prosperous calm.

      So we heard more and more about human rights, less and less about national security. We spent more on welfare, less on defence. We allowed our intelligence efforts to slacken. We hoped – and many were the liberal-minded politicians who encouraged us to hope – that within the Global Village there were only to be found good neighbours. Few of us were tactless enough to mention that what makes good neighbours is often good fences.

      Yet, the world we all view so much more clearly now, with eyes wiped clean by tears of tragedy, was in truth there all along. It is a world of risk, of conflict and of latent violence. Democracy, progress, tolerance – these values have not yet taken