More than a few prime ministers have come to office swearing that, unlike their predecessors, they will not be drawn into foreign affairs, but will focus unrelentingly on home-grown issues on which elections are fought and won. Such resolve never works. Prime ministers get sucked into foreign policy and soon overshadow their foreign secretaries. The broader canvas of summits can be a relief after the pointillisme of home affairs. And who can easily resist the coverage of stepping on and off planes and being glad-handed by globally recognisable leaders? It’s not cynicism, just the way the world works in the television age.
Prime ministers took over the lead diplomatic role from monarchs in the late 18th century and have hogged it ever since. And as British interests have been internationalised through our membership of the UN, Nato and the EU as well as the burgeoning summit industry, even the most determinedly domestic prime ministers have had to succumb to foreign policy involvement. John Major provided outstanding leadership in the Gulf War and later become ensnared in the coils of the Maastricht treaty. But who can doubt he would have preferred the Oval? It was not an option.
There has been a great variance in the degree to which modern prime ministers have come to No 10 with foreign policy experience. Eden was a foreign policy prime minister in the way George Bush Sr was a foreign policy president. At the other extreme Margaret Thatcher came to office with firm ideas and prejudices but no practical experience. So what defines their approach to it once in office?
In the first place their instincts are born of their experience of life. Mrs Thatcher’s most impressionable years were spent in the last flush of Britain’s imperial glory and under the shadow of fascism’s rise in Germany. Her instincts were to believe in Britain’s worldwide role, an absolute commitment to resist aggressive dictators and to see Europe as a source of problems, remaining suspicious of Germany in particular. These instincts came out in her approach to the Falklands, German reunification and European integration. Tony Blair, growing up thirty years later in an age of optimism about the potential of a united Europe, reached very different conclusions, wanting to see Britain at its heart.
But both Mrs Thatcher and Mr Blair believed strongly that Britain has a unique contribution to make to world affairs, setting it apart from and above European countries of similar size. Both believed that Britain should operate in close harness with the US. But Mrs Thatcher picked enemies to defeat: Galtieri, the Soviet empire, Saddam. Mr Blair picked causes that offended our moral sense, wanting to set the world to rights through liberal interventionism.
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David Cameron’s foreign policy pedigree is traditional Tory realism, best summed up for me by Willie Whitelaw’s response on being asked by Mrs Thatcher to brief Cabinet on his visit to Brazil: “All I need to tell colleagues is that it’s a very big place.”
But an important influence on Mr Cameron while still in opposition was the Russian invasion of Georgia. He was the first international figure to understand the implications of this return to old-style Soviet behaviour and to speed to Tbilisi to show solidarity with Georgia’s defence of its independence. It was the right thing to do and played well politically, though quite a few foreign policy experts thought he was nuts.
The tactics of Mr Blair and Mrs Thatcher were also very different. Mrs Thatcher relished isolation: when asked at the end of a European summit how she felt about being in a minority of one, she replied that she was sorry for the others. It reinforced the image of battling Maggie fighting single- handedly for British interests against the devious ploys of European bureaucrats. Mr Blair hankered for coalitions, reflecting his consensual approach, shared with John Major.
Two other factors shape the foreign policy of prime ministers . The first is the context: the ability to spot the global trends that will really matter to Britain, then weigh them against the resources that we can bring to bear to shape them and advance our interests.
The second is to read the national mood and generate support for a continuing role that goes beyond our position in the league table of economic size. It’s a calculation that only prime ministers, not foreign secretaries, can make. Almost all our prime ministers have believed in British exceptionalism, not for reasons of vanity or glory but because they sense it clicks with our history and national character. Fortunately the evidence consistently points to people wanting Britain to step forward and pick up challenges abroad rather than hide behind woolly communiqués.
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Mr Cameron seems reassuringly determined to keep it that way, even while shifting the focus to China and India and the power centres of the future. We are seeing the instinct he showed in Georgia now playing out in Libya. Although his horizontal stabilisers wobbled a bit to begin with, they have now levelled off so that he is leading support for a no-fly zone as realistically the best available way to protect Libyans from Colonel Gaddafi’s terror without getting dragged in too deeply. You could call it Blairism without the missionary fervour.
The question longer-term will be whether Mr Cameron succumbs to the temptation to über-leadership that can affect prime ministers once in possession of the No 10 bully pulpit. I think it’s temperamentally unlikely in his case.
The cuts to our defence spending are a setback to our national self-image of the part that Britain should play in the world. But, as the experience of the Eighties demonstrated, restoring the health of the economy has to trump everything else in restoring our national self-confidence. The test will be whether Mr Cameron will keep the faith with our national destiny as we go through the bleak period of aircraft carriers without aircraft and then recommit the resources to match the forward role we need as the economy recovers.
It’s a mighty challenge. But it should be this, even more than the Big Society, that keeps the Prime Minister awake at night. Meeting existential challenges is what we employ prime ministers for. No challenge is greater for a smallish island nation than ensuring that its voice is heard, its security protected and its trade safeguarded.
Lord Powell of Bayswater was private secretary to Margaret Thatcher, 1983-90