Boris Johnson has an extraordinary plan for Britain’s global role

Has British Prime Minister Boris Johnson finally found in his country the global role that has eluded him since he lost his empire?

Did the irreverent, ambitious and disheveled UK leader – the biographer, admirer and sometimes emulator of Winston Churchill – provide the plan for his own chance at greatness?

Or Johnson’s critics are certain that this week’s launch of “Global Britain in a Competitive Age” – the impressive 114-page orientation to the future of Her Majesty’s Government – is courageous but insufficient coverage for the historic Brexit error that will forever tarnish your legacy?

One thing is right. This document came as a welcome reminder of British strategic seriousness after more complaints about national decline after Oprah Winfrey’s meeting with the rogue royals Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (which included a visit to his California farm and his chickens) rescue).

Johnson’s article also comes as a belated effort to answer Dean Acheson’s hard-hitting speech at West Point, almost six decades ago, in 1962, where he argued: “Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role.”

At the time, the legendary American diplomat praised the “vast importance” of the United Kingdom’s request to become part of the then common European market of six countries, which it would only enter eleven years later, in 1973.

His words humiliated then British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and electrified the Fleet Street media.

“The attempt to play a role of separate power,” said Acheson, “that is, a role apart from Europe, a role based on a ‘special relationship’ with the United States, a role based on being the head of one ‘ community ‘that has no political structure, unity or strength – that role is almost over. “

One wonders what Acheson would say today, more than a year after the United Kingdom left the European Union, 47 years after its accession, and with its current Prime Minister Boris Johnson looking again for this indescribable role.

It is a fair bet that he would be encouraged by the ambition, clarity and details of the Integrated Review. Although, at the same time, he questioned how little attention is paid to what he considered the central role of the European dimension to the role of Great Britain.

Perhaps the pain of divorce remains too close for solid reflection.

Still, this document takes the UK in many of the right directions that could guarantee its disproportionate global role as a medium-sized European country with world-leading security and intelligence agencies.

It also shows a keen understanding of the most pressing global challenges, making it a must-read for Biden government officials. It is inspiring as a meeting place for other democratic countries.

“History has shown that democratic societies are the strongest supporters of an open and resilient international order,” wrote Johnson in the article, “in which global institutions prove their ability to protect human rights, manage tensions between great powers, deal with with conflicts, instability and climate change, and share prosperity through trade and investment. ”

The most notable among Johnson’s new ambitions for Britain, as he put it in his preface to the newspaper, is “securing our status as a Superpower in Science and Technology by 2030”.

Eight pages detail how the UK intends to do this, expanding research and development spending, strengthening its global network of innovation partnerships and improving national skills – including a Global Talent Visa to attract the best and brightest in the world.

“In the coming years, countries that establish a leadership role in critical and emerging technologies will be at the forefront of global leadership,” says the document, identifying quantum computing, artificial intelligence and cyber domains as areas of focus.

Without dusting off the overused term “special relationship”, the United Kingdom would place the highest priority on ties with the United States (“none more valuable to the British people”) while, at the same time, “tilting” its focus international for the Indo-Pacific.

Johnson invited the leaders of Australia, South Korea and India to participate his G7 summit in June, and he is visiting India in April to intensify efforts to deepen relations with the world’s largest democracy, which was under British Raj until 1947.

There is much more on the pages than is being announced as the UK’s most significant strategic rethink since the Cold War, which will be followed this week for its military dimension. The sticker is that the UK will be “a nation that solves problems and shares responsibilities with a global perspective”.

Many will discuss that this article cannot undo the Brexit strategic error. They point to the inevitable long-term blow to the British economy, both for London as a financial center and for the United Kingdom as a domestic manufacturing base for European markets.

They question whether the United Kingdom, with a population that is 0.87% of the global total and an economy that is the sixth in the world, will ever have the influence to rival what it enjoyed as one of the leaders of a European Union with a 5.8% of the global population and 17.8% of the world economy.

That said, if Johnson’s purpose was to justify his decision on Brexit, the paper comes at a good time. Criticism is growing about the EU’s leadership and bureaucracy in treating Covid-19 and delivering vaccines, and the UK is performing well by comparison.

What is most significant about the document is its pragmatic, non-ideological and intelligent structure for the future. There is nothing of Boris Johnson’s bluster in an article designed as “a guide to action”.

You can see the fingerprints of the man chosen by Johnson to lead the review, 40-year-old historian John Bew. Johnson recruited him for his broad perspective, while distancing himself from the more conventional choice of a senior government official or politician.

Most significantly, the Integrated Review transformed “Global Britain” from a much-maligned slogan into an extraordinary plan. If the United Kingdom can execute against it, the old empire may have found a global role equal to its resources, capabilities, ambitions – and the historic moment.

Frederick Kempe is a bestselling author, award-winning journalist and president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, one of the United States’ most influential think tanks on global issues. He has worked for The Wall Street Journal for over 25 years as a foreign correspondent, assistant administrative editor and as the longest-serving editor of the European edition of the newspaper. His latest book – “Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev and the most dangerous place on Earth” – was a New York Times bestseller and was published in more than a dozen languages. Follow him on Twitter @FredKempe and sign up for Inflection Points here, his look every Saturday on the main news and trends from last week.

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