Andrew Amesbury: Foreign policy initiative

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Foreign policy initiative

Above: The Lion and the Tiger by Denis Judd.

David Cameron is in India, leading a big delegation to create a new alliance.

The foreign policy initiative is extremely interesting and made me think of The Lion and the Tiger by Denis Judd, which I read last year (Denis Judd is Professor of Imperial, Commonwealth and Indian History at London Metropolitan University).

The book is an entirely unsentimental review of the historical relationship between Britain and India and had a number of points that made me think:

The association between Britain and India created the world’s first superpower, and Britain ceased to be a world power immediately after Indian independence in 1947.

Putting to one side the colonial aspects, the association was essentially one of collaboration.

The behaviour of the local (and self-serving) British community in India (especially the women) poisoned the atmosphere and masked the mutual dependency.

Indian and British people were well suited in temperament.

Under British rule Indian industry developed rapidly from the 1880s, so that by 1914 India was among the top fourteen most industrialized nations.

India was granted its own delegation in the Versailles Conference that followed the First World War.

Roosevelt’s policy objective was to weaken the link between Britain and India, and the Atlantic Charter in 1942 was part of this process – this stealthy manouvre became on-going American policy.

What does all this tell us about David Cameron’s mission today? The Guardian dismisses the visit as a cynical attempt to sell arms to the sub-continent, and they may be right. But it is also possible that David Cameron has a much more far-sighted aspiration.

Both India and the United Kingdom are regional powers. India is one of the strongest powers in Asia. Britain is one of the strongest powers in Europe. Neither country can achieve regional military-economic hegemony alone (assuming hegemony is a policy objective). If they pooled their commercial and military power in a strong alliance they would, almost immediately, become an irresistible world power. With hardly any effort, and almost unnoticed, David Cameron would have taken the United Kingdom to the edge of greatness.

The two countries are well-matched. They have economies that are roughly equal in size but complementary so that there is little rivalry. They have surplus assets that would be of use to the other (for instance, the United Kingdom has considerable reserves of diplomatic influence throughout the world). The linguistic link is obvious. The geographical separation adds rather than detracts from the alliance (neither country is particularly enamoured with its neighbours). A huge number of semi-dormant cultural links already exist between to the two nations.

To create such an alliance would mean an unaccustomed exercise of realpolitik. Britain would have to abandon any pretence of friendship with Pakistan. India would have to get over its post-colonial hang-ups. Sections of British society would have to get over their Jewel In The Crown hang-ups (although there cannot be many of the Raj generation left alive). The pro-Labour Indian claque in Britain will need to be faced down. There will be many critics around the world.

But this looks like the most interesting and ambitious foreign policy initiative since 1st January 1973.