Unless it is merely a transformation into "satrapy" by the American empire, or even why not one day Chinese, as some opponents kindly suggest, a successful British diplomatic strategy after Brexit can only be navigation and balance between the various large power blocks, "splendid isolation" when necessary, targeted and measured cooperation with each other on a particular subject most of the time.
In short, in French terms, a Gaullist strategy. More precisely "Gaullist historical canal", certainly not in the Chirac or Sarkozy style. Some would probably go so far as to say "Gaullist ultra". To say the least, such a strategy does not seem to come naturally to most pro-Brexit policies. It is even possible to suspect that most of them have not really understood what they are getting into.
It must be said that a Gaullist strategy is probably particularly difficult for Great Britain, for the simple reason that it is very unfamiliar with it.
Who said at the end of the war "Know the De Gaulle, whenever I have to choose between Europe and the open sea, I will always be for the open sea. Every time I have to choose between you and Roosevelt, I will always choose Roosevelt"? It's Churchill, all right.
But Churchill, and the British after him, did not mean the big picture in the sense of fierce independence combined with a policy of cooperation in all directions. Or, if there were still some ambiguities in this sense, they were quickly resolved. The "big open sea", in the British case, meant little more than following the Big Brother on the other side of the Atlantic. And the British defence was organised in this way.
Over time, three trends have become more pronounced:
Brexit, whatever one thinks of it and even if one is convinced that it is a huge mistake, it seems to me that one can only analyse it as the desire to be independent and to conduct one's own affairs. In short, the choice of cooperation with foreign countries - in this case the 27 - rather than submission to a superstructure that constrains and partly directs Great Britain - as do the others.
But this will and the decision that resulted from it... it suddenly puts the United Kingdom in the big league, forced to position itself and sail and defend its beefsteak both against:
Rome was not built in a day:
Unfortunately, the British political class is far from showing the will, flexibility, realism and patience that would be necessary: sad:
On 31 October this year, the most likely date is that the United Kingdom will leave the EU by smashing out the window, with glass shards and all that, for an immediate dive into the shark pool. One of them will be decorated with a small blue flag with twelve stars... while another will have an orange crest and a carnivorous smile. Not to mention the most polite of all, with a beautiful five-star red flag... which is perhaps also the most ferocious in fact.
It would be a good time for a small provincial nobliau, probably a soldier, say a brigadier general on a temporary basis, to appear on a beautiful white steed and become Her Majesty's Prime Minister. There is not a Charles The Wall in the British army?
Things will probably not go exactly that way, of course. There will inevitably be capable leaders who emerge across the Channel - it is in times of crisis that they tend to appear - but precise events are not predictable. And London may have to glimpse for a while before it can float: unsure:
It is not enough for a decision to be strategically sound. It is still necessary that the execution follows....
Politique étrangère du Royaume-Uni
In short, in French terms, a Gaullist strategy. More precisely "Gaullist historical canal", certainly not in the Chirac or Sarkozy style. Some would probably go so far as to say "Gaullist ultra". To say the least, such a strategy does not seem to come naturally to most pro-Brexit policies. It is even possible to suspect that most of them have not really understood what they are getting into.
It must be said that a Gaullist strategy is probably particularly difficult for Great Britain, for the simple reason that it is very unfamiliar with it.
Who said at the end of the war "Know the De Gaulle, whenever I have to choose between Europe and the open sea, I will always be for the open sea. Every time I have to choose between you and Roosevelt, I will always choose Roosevelt"? It's Churchill, all right.
But Churchill, and the British after him, did not mean the big picture in the sense of fierce independence combined with a policy of cooperation in all directions. Or, if there were still some ambiguities in this sense, they were quickly resolved. The "big open sea", in the British case, meant little more than following the Big Brother on the other side of the Atlantic. And the British defence was organised in this way.
Over time, three trends have become more pronounced:
- Practical dependence on Washington has deepened. From the 1960s onwards, the British renounced the independence of their nuclear deterrence, renouncing the manufacture of their own ballistic missiles. Later, it was for the manufacture of nuclear weapons themselves that London allowed a dependency on the Americans to develop. In the 2000s, it was their new ANS Astute that they were only able to complete thanks to American assistance. And in the 2010's, they buy F-35 aircraft for which they don't even have the software source code, Washington having decided in the late 2000s that the British were not trustworthy enough to do so.
- Follow-up in foreign policy has tended to get worse. London, for example, did not send troops to Vietnam in the 1960s to fight alongside the Americans - only the Australians did. But in 2003, there were several tens of thousands of British soldiers in Iraq under Washington's command. There are still sometimes remnants of independence, it is true, for example in 2013 the British parliament refused to send fighters to bomb Syria, even before Obama cancelled the operation. But for example, it seems that the recent takeover of an Iranian oil tanker in Gibraltar by British commandos is the response to an American request
- Finally, and perhaps worst of all, American presidents are taking fewer and fewer gloves and no longer playing the comedy of "No, the UK is not my favourite follower, it is a partner I respect and listen to for its great experience". Obama has already made it clear that he was more outspoken than his predecessors when it came to Britain. At least he was being polite. Trump, on the other hand, is a festival of disrespect and even insults towards the British Prime Minister, when it is not a blarney "you are going to see the beautiful trade agreement I am going to make you", all fangs out and the tongue hanging out: laugh: when we compare the objectives of the United States for such a negotiation, which have filtered out and it is brutal!
Brexit, whatever one thinks of it and even if one is convinced that it is a huge mistake, it seems to me that one can only analyse it as the desire to be independent and to conduct one's own affairs. In short, the choice of cooperation with foreign countries - in this case the 27 - rather than submission to a superstructure that constrains and partly directs Great Britain - as do the others.
But this will and the decision that resulted from it... it suddenly puts the United Kingdom in the big league, forced to position itself and sail and defend its beefsteak both against:
- From the European legal and commercial empire,
- Of the American military, financial and IT empire
- And the expanding Chinese industrial and financial empire.
- A strong desire to get closer or further away from any of the large blocks - in order to be courted by all
- The fundamental instruments guaranteeing its freedom of action
- The ability to make compromises, because of course independence does not mean the ability to do whatever you want, let alone anything
- A lot of cold realism to handle all this
- And finally patience!
Rome was not built in a day:
- It is not necessarily possible to fully free oneself from legal, trade and standards links from one year to the next that have taken 43 years to deepen (from 1973 when one joined the EEC to 2016 when one decided to leave the EU),
- Nor can we necessarily achieve full foreign policy independence immediately when we have a military tool that depends on the American Big Brother on many sides,
- Nor to develop in the blink of an eye an industry capable of balancing British foreign trade at a certain level, which will become even more so with the migration to the continent - Brexit obliges - of some of the predation, casino and financial charlatanism activities where London excels today, or with the depletion of gas fields in the North Sea
Unfortunately, the British political class is far from showing the will, flexibility, realism and patience that would be necessary: sad:
On 31 October this year, the most likely date is that the United Kingdom will leave the EU by smashing out the window, with glass shards and all that, for an immediate dive into the shark pool. One of them will be decorated with a small blue flag with twelve stars... while another will have an orange crest and a carnivorous smile. Not to mention the most polite of all, with a beautiful five-star red flag... which is perhaps also the most ferocious in fact.
It would be a good time for a small provincial nobliau, probably a soldier, say a brigadier general on a temporary basis, to appear on a beautiful white steed and become Her Majesty's Prime Minister. There is not a Charles The Wall in the British army?
Things will probably not go exactly that way, of course. There will inevitably be capable leaders who emerge across the Channel - it is in times of crisis that they tend to appear - but precise events are not predictable. And London may have to glimpse for a while before it can float: unsure:
It is not enough for a decision to be strategically sound. It is still necessary that the execution follows....
Politique étrangère du Royaume-Uni
