Whatever one thinks of his foppish red socks or penchant for Prime Ministerial underwear, famous Iraq whistleblower Sir Christopher Meyer is a sound chap when it comes to foreign policy.
So when the UK's former ambassador to the US writes that “a return to 1815 is the way forward for Europe: the Congress of Vienna divided the continent into spheres of influence[and] similar rules are needed for the 21st century”, we should listen.
His provocative essay, published in the Times, argues that globalisation and the end of the cold war have actually strengthened nationalism around the world:
It is useless to say that nationalism and ethnic tribalism have no place in the international relations of the 21st century. If anything the spread of Western-style democracy has amplified their appeal and resonance.
He issues a stinging rebuke to the now fashionable conception of the national interest, and spheres of interest, as anachronistic. Speaking of Russia and Iran, Meyer states:
You don't have to like or approve of these regimes. But not to understand their histories is not to understand the mainspring of their external policies – in Russia's case its determination to rebuild its greatness, dismantled, as millions of Russians see it, by Mikhail Gorbachev and his Georgian Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, aided and abetted by the West.
I would bet a sackful of roubles that Russian foreign policy would not be one jot different if it were a fully functioning democracy of the kind that we appear keen to spread around the globe.
This last passage is so important because it pierces the misguided notion of ideological primacy in international relations so peddled by the Bush and Blair administrations. Whether a regime is democratic or not ultimately bears little relation to its definition of geopolitical self-interest.
Sir Chris calls on “Russia and the West…to draw up rules of the road for the 21st century” similar ot the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
Something similar is needed today, based again on spheres of influence. Nato must renounce the provocative folly of being open to Georgian or, worse, Ukrainian membership. This strikes at the heart of the Russian national interest and offers no enhanced security to either Tbilisi or Kiev. As for Russia, it must be made unambiguously clear where any revanchist lunge westwards would provoke a military response by Nato.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
