United States: Foreign Policy

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Ashdown for initiating this debate, even though I sometimes do not share his historical analogies or gloomy prognosis of what is to come.

The US role in securing the liberal international order that the world has enjoyed over the last 70 years is changing—there is no doubt about that—but it has been changing since the more stable certainties of the Cold War fell away. It is giving rise to a set of new and complex global issues. Since the early 1990s we have seen a unipolar moment but at the same time we have seen enormous disruption in what we thought were certainties: the rise of climate change, the rise of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

In preparing for this debate, I was fortunate enough to realise that Chatham House is wonderful. It is a UK institution that we really must cherish and which has an extraordinary reputation around the world. If I recall correctly, my noble friend Lord Ashdown is himself an honorary president of the institution. It kicked off 2018 by producing a special edition of its journal, International Affairs, on the future of the liberal international world order. This is a very important moment to help us reflect on the changes I have described. In the leading article in the journal, Professor John Ikenberry from Princeton, who I know my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire also knows, makes a few central points that I think worth repeating. He says that preserving the liberal international order in the face of globalisation is a,

“problem of authority and governance”.

That is what we have seen with the rise of populism and authoritarianism.

The central question therefore becomes: who pays, who adjusts and leads? How do you redistribute authority? It is a matter of managing change as power and authority shift from the West, the EU and Japan to rising powers such as China and India. My money is still very much on the United States and, broadly, with the West. Indeed, even through the Trump presidency, despite the reservations that several noble Lords have voiced today, I would argue that there are more continuities than disruptions. The US economy has not tanked as predicted; indeed, the EU and UK can look with envy at a growth rate of nearly 3% and unemployment at just above 4%. NAFTA has not been scrapped; it has been renegotiated, but then again we only wish that our own renegotiation had gone better. The checks and balances that are hard-wired into the US system and constitution are bigger than the incumbent of the White House, including when it comes to nuclear stand-offs. Lastly, even on the question of climate change, my greatest concern is the US withdrawing from the Paris agreement but that will be implemented only after the next presidential election, so who knows? There might be a change of view in that regard.

The UK’s own changing relations must embrace both continuity and change. Continuity comes from remaining a steadfast partner to both the US and the EU, including making the right calls when confronted with divergences in international affairs—for example, over Iran, which has been widely mentioned across the House. However, we must also change in recognising that, as we sit among our allies as defenders of the liberal international order based on multilateralism and a rules-based system, our values matter more than ever. The defence of freedom, human rights and democracy in the face of the rise of authoritarianism across the world makes defending and standing up for our ideas and values even more important, even though there appear to be temporary reverses.

The West has experienced many crises of confidence in the last 70 years. Think of the Cuban missile crisis, the nuclear stand-offs in Asia between India and Pakistan, and 9/11 and the war on terrorism. No doubt the disruptions will continue to challenge us, even as we come up to the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Judd, on his role in supporting the UN system. Even as we come up to this period, it is important that we keep our nerve. The power of our values and ideals still trumps all the other ideologies out there. People around the world can see that, which is why they still gravitate to western culture, western economic models and, most importantly, western democracy and freedom.