Politics
The west may be finding its match in the most unlikely places
Published 19 July 2007
It is a little-remembered fact, but when George W Bush came to power in 2001 his first foreign policy preoccupation was not the Middle East, but China. A US spy plane collided with a Chinese jet, leading to the American crew being detained on Hainan Island. This was a classic confrontation of two cold warriors that was eventually defused by the classic method of diplomacy. It was only after the events of 11 September that the administration, which initially had not adopted a particularly distinctive tone in foreign affairs, embarked on its neoconservative mission of madness. And Tony Blair followed his friend, joined at the hip, as the new Foreign Office minister Mark Malloch Brown aptly put it.
Six years later, a new British government desperately trying to start afresh is confronted by an old problem. This time it is Russia. As ever, the game is being played on a number of levels. The assassination in London of Alexander Litvinenko was horrific, and could have caused further casualties. As a former KGB man, Litvinenko inhabited that murky nexus of the security services and money. The exact identity of his killers remains a mystery, although the trail includes Andrei Lugovoi, a former friend and fellow operative.
Nobody will ever know who gave the order - did it go up to President Putin himself? People familiar with communist or capitalist Russia understand that such questions are pointless. They also realise that attempts at extradition are fruitless. Not only do the UK and Russia have no such treaty, but if they did, what would we do with the likes of Boris Berezovsky, a one-time top Kremlin figure-turned-dissident whom Putin regards as his public enemy number one? Berezovsky and other oligarchs now live here in opulence, thanks to our absurdly generous tax laws, but also live in fear of their lives.
Gordon Brown and his Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, responded to the Kremlin's intransigence by expelling four Russian diplomats. Miliband was advised that he had no choice but to act. His actions may have been justified, but in the end they will make little difference.
Even in a few weeks Brown and Miliband have given Britain's foreign policy a new tinge. While they were uncomfortable with the "anti-neocon" language used by Malloch Brown - whose hostility to the Bush administration was well known to all who dealt with him at the UN - they share many of his sentiments. They, too, hold the view that Blair did UK interests considerable harm by elevating one single alliance and one world-view above all else.
The inexperienced but highly thoughtful Miliband uses the pages of the NS (page 12) to set out the tenets of his fresh approach. He talks about a new distribution of power requiring a new diplomacy. Citing China, India and Russia, he predicts that within two decades political, economic and military power will be more dispersed than at any point for more than a century. In other words, US hegemony is coming to a close; prepare for a new world order.
Miliband talks about the need for what he calls "intellectual leadership" (along with security measures) to confront the great existential threat of our time - Islamist terrorism. Brown has spoken of poverty as being a root cause of extremism. In recent years, attention has focused on failed states. But what if the real danger is posed by successful states? What if a rapidly growing China, and a Russia whose wealth is based on raw materials, are now setting the terms of engagement? What if, as is already the case in much of Africa, the Chinese message of prosperity unencumbered by lectures about human rights and democracy is more attractive to nations still struggling to make something of their independence?
Brown saw how Blair's messianic zeal failed to promote "western values". He accepts that military action can sometimes achieve immediate goals (deposing dictators or driving back an invading army), but that democracy is seldom spread through the barrel of a gun. A more chastened west may now be finding its match, not in the back streets of Islamabad or Baghdad, but in the gold-leafed chancelleries of Beijing and Moscow. That is the "changing distribution of power" to which Miliband refers.
Sacred cows and calm passions
Despite the best efforts of Messrs Dawkins and Hitchens, all kinds of religion still exert a considerable hold on humanity today. Hindu monks near Carmarthen have just won a battle against the Welsh Assembly, after the high court ruled its decision to put down their temple bull unlawful. Other TB-infected bulls have been despatched to the great paddock in the sky, but Shambo's sacred status has saved him, to the delight of all who follow him via his "MooTube" webcam.
Pagans are also irate that a white outline of Bart Simpson has been painted next to the giant on the hillside at Cerne Abbas. If their "rain magic" fails to prompt a downpour sufficient to wash Bart away, will they also seek legal redress? On the other hand, followers of the Simpsons, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, may feel that the juxtaposition of Bart - emblem of a show Rowan Williams praised as a "rich" resource for exploring Christianity - with the priapic giant is quite inappropriate. Shouldn't the pagans have to cover him up?
Soon to come will be a wailing and a gnashing of teeth from the disciples of Harry Potter, whose creator (or should that be Creator?), J K Rowling, has decreed that after the new book there will be no eighth coming for the boy wizard.
We urge those who hanker for something beyond reason nevertheless to keep their passions reasonable; to remember the wise words of Dave Allen - "May your God go with you"; and to keep to their spirit, too.
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