Boris Johnson has an extraordinary plan for the global role of Great Britain

Has British Prime Minister Boris Johnson finally found his country’s global role that has prevented it since losing its empire?

Did the ambitious, ambitious, moppy-haired leader of the United Kingdom – Winston Churchill’s biographer, admirer and sometimes emulator – offer the plan for his own stroke of greatness?

Or Johnson’s criticism of the launch of “Global Britain in a Competitive Age” this week – the impressive 114-page guidance for the future from Her Majesty’s government – is it a brave but insufficient cover for the historic blunder of Brexit that will forever tarnish its legacy?

One thing is for sure. This document came as a welcome reminder of the British strategic seriousness, as it continued to discuss national decline after Oprah Winfrey’s settlement with rogue kings, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (which included a visit to their California farm and her cubs). rescue).

Johnson’s newspaper also comes as a belated effort to respond Dean Acheson’s painful speech in 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 Britain’s demand to become part of the then common European market of the six states, which he would join only eleven years later, in 1973.

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

“The attempt to play a separate role of power,” said Acheson, “that is, a role outside Europe, a role based on a ‘special relationship’ with the United States, a role based on being the head of a ‘common state.’ which has no political structure, no unity, no force – this role is almost played. “

We wonder what Acheson would say today, more than a year after the United Kingdom left the European Union, 47 years after it joined, and with its current Prime Minister Boris Johnson now looking for that evasive role again.

It is a fair bet that he would be encouraged by the ambition, clarity and details of the integrated magazine. Although, at the same time, he would question how little attention he pays to what he considers to be the central role of the European dimension compared to the role of Britain.

Maybe the pain of divorce stays too close to reflect the sound.

However, this work takes the UK in many of the right directions that could ensure its oversized role as a medium-sized European country, with world-class security and intelligence agents.

It also shows a deep understanding of the most pressing global challenges, making it a must-read for Biden administration officials. It is inspiring as a meeting point for democratic countries.

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

The most notable of Johnson’s new ambitions for Britain, as he said in the preface to the publication, is “to secure our status as a scientific and technological superpower by 2030.”

Eight pages detail how the UK intends to do this by expanding R&D spending, strengthening its global network of innovation partnerships and enhancing national skills – including through a global talent visa to attract the best and brightest bright in the world.

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

Without dusting off the overused term “special relationship”, Britain would give the highest priority to ties with the United States (“none more valuable to the British people”), while “tilting” its international focus to the Indo-Pacific.

Johnson invited leaders from Australia, South Korea and India to participate its G7 summit in June and visits India in April to intensify efforts to deepen relations with the world’s largest democracy, which was under British rule until 1947.

There is much more in the pages of what is considered Britain’s most important strategic rethink since the Cold War, which will be followed this week by its military dimension. The sticker is that the UK will be “a problem-solving and task-sharing nation with a global perspective”.

Many will argue that this work cannot undo the strategic error of Brexit. They indicate the inevitable long-term impact on the British economy, both to London as a financial center and to the UK as a base for domestic production for European markets.

One wonders whether Britain, with a population of 0.87% of the global total and an economy that is sixth in the world, will ever have the influence to compete with what it has enjoyed as one of the leaders of a European Union, with a a total of 5.8% of the global population and 17.8% of the world economy.

That being said, if Johnson’s goal was to justify his Brexit decision, the paper is coming at a good time. Criticism refers to the EU’s leadership and bureaucracy in managing Covid-19 and the distribution of vaccines, and the UK is doing well in comparison.

What is most significant about the document is its pragmatic, non-ideological and intelligent framework for the future. There is no Boris Johnson bluster in a work designed as a “guide to action.”

One 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 moving away from the more conventional choice of a senior government official or politician.

Most significantly, the Integrated Magazine transformed “Global Britain” from a very offended slogan to an extraordinary plan. If the United Kingdom can run against it, the former empire could have found a global role equal to its resources, capabilities, ambitions – and historical momentum.

Frederick Kempe is a best-selling author, award-winning journalist and president and CEO of Atlantic Council, one of the most influential global business think tanks in the United States. He worked for The Wall Street Journal for more than 25 years as a foreign correspondent, assistant editor and as the longest-lived editor of the European edition of the newspaper. His most recent 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 subscribe here to Inflection Points, his look every Saturday at the top stories and trends of the last week.

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