Organising for British National Strategy

Abstract

Foreign policy strategy requires an understanding of long-term national interests (Strachan 2011, pp. 1281–1296). However, ‘the national interest’ is a catch-all term that can be both meaningful and meaningless. Political leaders do try to define the national interest. Some will veer towards a minimalist reading, favouring limited national goals. Others may push for a maximalist reading, moved by principle or universalism. The balance between values and interests — and the definition of interests — is determined at the level of strategic foreign policymaking in the British system, as in other democratic societies. The prime minister, foreign secretary and cabinet, supported by civil servants and no doubt influenced by the small band of writers and thinkers who are actually read, now regularly set out a formal foreign policy strategy. Thinking about Britain’s interests, values and role in the world was once largely articulated through speeches and articles or in debate on the floor of the House of Commons. Today it has moved into the terrain of official strategy documents, although speeches remain important markers.

The author would like to thank John Gaddis, Paul Kennedy, Ryan Irwin, Charlie Laderman and Chris Miller for their encouragement at Yale, and the Asia Society, as selected interviews cited here were conducted during a Bernard Schwartz fellowship in New York in 2012. This chapter was written in a personal capacity and does not reflect the views of the UN or the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This is a revised and updated version of an article that first appeared in International Affairs, London, vol. 90, no. 3 May 2014, pp. 509–524, and is reproduced with permission.