The past few weeks have witnessed not only the abandonment of US leadership, but also the end of statecraft. Statecraft is the use of instruments of power in a considered and consistent manner to realise critical national interests. Statecraft was the embodiment of the Atlantic Charter that Churchill and Roosevelt created and with it the modern West. Statecraft applies a complex mix of values and interests collectively in pursuit of shared and legitimate national objectives. Those objectives are enshrined in a rules-based order that combines pragmatism and principle. Statecraft is thus the transmission between ends and ways and helps establish the required scale and type of required means. The collapse of the Special Relationship over the past few weeks and the threat now posed to NATO by President Trump’s threat to walk away demonstrates the extent to which statecraft has been abandoned on both sides of the Atlantic. On the one side of the Atlantic abyss there is Trump with his ahistorical might is right America First belief that geopolitics is part of the real estate with military coercion the arbiter of power. Trump has abandoned diplomacy and the use of institutions to constrain extreme state behaviour. On the other side of the abyss is Starmer with his mistaken belief that a rules-based order is in fact a law-based order. Starmer has abandoned Britain’s military and diplomatic instruments of power as a precursor to once again placing the British under EU bureaucratic diktat and inertia. He is not alone in a Europe in which much of the elite believe institutions and law can be an alternative to power. It is why Starmer is betraying the Brexit vote. What both Trump and Starmer share is a complete lack of any understanding about how wield national instruments of power as part of a wider shared effort in a complex and competitive world. Whilst Trump confuses bullying with leadership, Starmer confuses appeasement and surrender with lawfare. Trump seeks to mask his ignorance of statecraft through the use of the US military hammer to strike imaginary nails. Starmer masks his ignorance by constraining Britain’s still considerable power within the legal straitjacket of the EU. Trump has a Hollywood world-view of American power built on excessive national pride and hybris, Starmer detests Britain and its history whilst speaking vacuously about defending a national interest in which he does not believe. Both are incompetent, not a little stupid, and utterly irresponsible. The only real winners are Xi and Putin.
Julian Lindley-French