Dr Robert Seely MBE is author of ‘The New Total War’, ConservativeHome foreign affairs columnist and a former Conservative MP.
This is the second part of a series asking: What’s wrong with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and how to fix it. You can read part one here
The Foreign Office has been under some uncomfortable scrutiny of late – thanks largely to the Peter Mandelson affair.
Whilst it’s clear that the buck in the wretched saga stops with the Prime Minister – despite his attempts to throw everyone he can under the proverbial bus – this process has nevertheless shown Whitehall, and the Foreign Office, in a poor light. It adds to the sense that it is not only the Government that is drifting but also the institutions of state.
I believe one idea now worth discussing is whether Britain – the Foreign Office to be more exact – needs a National Strategy Council to complement the work of the National Security Council. The Strategy Council would be forward-looking and proactive; the Security Council, as it is now, reactive and focused on crises that are happening.
Why does Britain need a National Strategy Council?
Strategy, done well, aligns ends, ways and means. Something that we used to do quite well, but arguably no longer. We’ve lost the art of strategic thinking. Our power is less than the sum of its parts, because we silo chunks of it and don’t combine it. At times, the former Department for International Development treated the British national interest as if it were a bad smell. For the UK to advance its interests effectively, it needs to better integrate the tools of state power rather than treating them, as it too often does, in isolation. We live in an era of intensive competition. We need to maximise our power and make it count.
The Strategy Council would require neither extra staff nor money, just a change in horizons and thinking. It would be supported by diplomats, but also outside experts and institutions; the Royal United Services Institute, Chatham House, and others, who I am confident would be only too delighted to take part in strategic thinking that will actually be acted on. The National Strategy Council needs to look forward, a decade minimum, and frankly, up to 30 years. It will amount to a systematic attempt to drive clear thinking and develop action to support it.
To say that the FCDO currently doesn’t do strategy at all is not entirely true. Diplomats say that there is some thinking, although I have yet to meet anyone who sets much store by it.
We do have country business plans, but they tend to be worthy and windy. At their worst, they are tick-box exercises. There is a strategy unit, but it is small and tends to go from project to project, more of a policy unit. And yes, we have the Security Council, but that is reactive to immediate threats. Ah, say diplomats, but there are committees that look at longer-term issues. Yes, but they are not of the same stature. Finally, our resilience and documents are woke publications, obsessed by climate change and flooding, not state threats, the security of our deep-sea cables or long-term raw material supply.
But why do we need long-term plans which, heaven forbid, may bind the hands of future governments? It hasn’t, thus far, been the Foreign Office way. Simply put, because there is a greater need than before. We shouldn’t be copying Russia or China, but we can learn something from them: China thinks long-term, and Russia integrates the tools of state power in a way few others have done. They both believe in utilising integrated power to confront the West.
Look, for example, at China’s long-term intention to dominate key industries, industrial supply chains and raw and rare earth materials. These plans are, sadly, proving their worth. That is not an argument for a planned economy. Our experience with it has been poor. Indeed, the post-war planned economy of the 50s and 60s, aligned with the increasing power of the unions, was almost as destructive to the UK as that walking, talking disaster of a politician, Ed Miliband, is now.
Russia, despite having an economy the size of Spain’s, manages to remain a strategic threat to the UK and Europe through its close integration of military and non-military tools of conflict, everything from ‘political warfare’ to economic, espionage and cyber tools.
Again, we don’t want to copy – and in a democracy there are many things in the field of culture, academia and religion – “civil society” – which the state should not co-opt even if it wanted to, and let’s face it, I can’t see the Church of England being willing to smuggle weapons or provide Forward Air reconnaissance as Russian Orthodox ‘priests’ – or very possibly Russian military agents disguised as priests – have in Ukraine.
But nevertheless, combining more holistically the powers that we have, basic stuff like linking aid money to taking back illegal immigrants and deported criminals, we can make our power go further. Needless to say, the more ‘hard’ power one has too, the more ‘soft’ power one can often exert, and through our language, customs, culture and laws, we have a lot of soft power anyway.
So, what would the National Strategy Council do?
Every decade, it would set the long-term direction for Britain’s international engagement, integrating defence, diplomacy, trade and development within a single strategic framework. For sure, incoming governments might want to change it. But much of it would/should stick. Second, it would outline long-term risks; supply chains, raw materials and technology threats. For the past two decades, too much of what work has been done in this area has been frankly vacuous.
Chaired by the Prime Minister, with the Foreign Secretary as deputy, the Council would be supported by a Global Strategy Adviser alongside the National Security Adviser. To strengthen integration, the Foreign Office should become the lead department for this global policy, with trade, development and defence aligned and incorporated more closely into its structure, mirroring models used in countries such as Australia and Canada. Ultimately, this fits with the “one HMG” agenda, which aimed to remove barriers between departments to enable cross-government working.
Government waffle-eeze aside, the principle is a simple one. Coordinating our tools of power will deliver more power and more influence, drive strategic thinking to make the Foreign Office more effective and our undisputed intellectual driver of global engagement.
A National Strategy Council is an idea whose time has come.