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On Tuesday we were given our first real glimpse of what Boris Johnson’s vision for “Global Britain” will look like and the shape of the country’s post-Brexit and post-Covid grand strategy.

Although the press focused on the bureaucratic reshuffle, the week’s events as a totality have revealed the contours of a radically different and far more realist foreign policy. Johnson is

clearly keen to move away from the reactivity imposed by the pandemic and to start shaping distinctive government policy. With “Global Britain” he may well achieve this with a foreign policy

that’s slimmed down and far more focused than we are used to. Gone are the days of liberal idealism, which reached its zenith under Tony Blair, to be replaced with a more hard headed,

albeit limited assessment of Britain’s interests. Johnson announced the merging of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development into a new super

department to be called the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development office. At one level it was simply the latest in a historic, ideological battle between the Tories and Labour that has been

played between successive Labour and Conservative administrations since the Wilson government founded the Ministry of Overseas Development in 1964. Ted Heath merged that department with the

Foreign Office in 1970, only to see Wilson separate them again on his return to power in 1974. A process of merger and demerger, repeated under Thatcher and then Blair. In keeping with this

history, Sir Keir Starmer immediately called this week’s decision a “diversion” and both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown broke with the convention of not criticising their successors, to attack

the move. However criticism has not only been partisan, with David Cameron also breaking cover to voice his displeasure. Cameron’s attack in particular serves as a pointed reminder that

Johnson’s move is far more radical than simply a reversion to time honoured Tory policy. The blueprint for the merger was adopted in toto from an influential 2019 policy paper entitled

“Making Global Britain Work” written by Professor John Bew. Bew, a noted realist, is also leading the work for the integrated defence and security review, which is currently on hold due to

Covid-19. (John Bew is the son of Lord (Paul) Bew, whose report on Britain’s global aid spending was cited as the proximate impetus for the departmental merger.) The decision to make this

announcement before John Bew’s defence review is finished seems to be putting policy before strategy. But a different interpretation is that Britain’s grand strategy has already been

decided, behind closed doors. The timing of the announcement, followed by the launch of the trade talks with Australia and New Zealand the next day, indicates that the intended audience was

almost certainly the EU’s trade negotiation team. It seems they were being directed to the conclusion that Johnson will not back down in ongoing trade negotiations between the bloc and the

UK. There is however a more fundamental realignment of Britain’s grand strategy underway and Bew’s “Making Global Britain Work” paper is a useful guide to those shifts. The most important

aspects of Bew’s paper were to specifically name the Indo-Pacific as a strategic focus for the UK. He coupled this with a reorganisation of how Britain undertakes foreign policy in order to

make sure humanitarian goals were tied to achieving Britain’s interests. This is a fundamental rethink of foreign policy and the impetus is clearly the challenge to the Western international

order from China. Indeed the model for development spending that the UK seems to be adopting is perhaps closest to China’s own “Belt and Road Initiative” which links Chinese backed

international development with a vision of political influence, if not direct alliance. This grand strategy was hinted at by Tobias Ellwood, Chair of the Defence Select Committee, earlier in

the year. Ellwood suggested that “With a global recession looming and a lack of any superpower leadership we are actually reflecting the 1930s.” His fundamental point was about “recognising

the colossal might of China” and suggesting that countries would have to make a “binary choice” between East and West. Covid-19 has made such divisions much more stark. While Brexit is

clearly an important part of this foreign policy rethink, it is also underpinned by a tacit acceptance of the limits to Britain’s power. It can be seen as the culmination of the gradual

retreat from true great power status after Suez. If Britain cannot project power everywhere, where should we focus our limited resources on the international stage and what guiding

principles should shape our foreign policy? A number of recent events throw this debate into sharp relief. Firstly, the US decision to pull troops out of Germany, a central plank of European

defence and Nato. Secondly, China’s decision to brutally end the principle of “One Country, Two systems” which underpinned Britain’s negotiation for the return of Hong Kong and her sudden

seizure of Indian territory this week, seems to herald a more aggressive era of Chinese power. Johnson’s statement to the House on Tuesday, makes much of this logic clear, although its

importance seems to have been ignored. As he put it, “We give as much aid to Zambia as we do to Ukraine, though the latter is vital for European security. We give ten times as much aid to

Tanzania as we do to the six countries of the Western Balkans, who are acutely vulnerable to Russian meddling… we have a responsibility to ask whether our current arrangements, dating back

to 1997, still maximise British influence… those judgments date from a relatively benign era when China’s economy was still smaller than Italy’s and the West was buoyed by victory in the

Cold War.” So the announcement the next day that Britain was seeking membership of the Trans Pacific Partnership was probably more important than the departmental reorganisation itself. In

keeping with Bew’s suggestions, we can expect less focus on aid in Africa and further afield and far greater emphasis on European security and the Indo-Pacific region. There is little doubt

that as the post-Cold War international system breaks down, the US-backed liberal internationalism of the 1990s that spilled into the early part of this century, is over. Johnson seems to be

trying to shore up what is left of the European security order in Europe, while also attempting Britain’s own pivot to Asia. At best this is a modernisation of the focus of the special

relationship that dominated the post-1945 landscape. Yet the danger is that we lose sight of a number of unresolved issues. One of the biggest sources of political fragmentation in Europe

has been a significant migration crisis. This was in large part caused by the aftermath of Blair’s strategically short sighted interventions in the Middle East. While a tighter focus to

Britain’s global ambitions is to be welcomed, we must hope that even with our limited resources we do not lose sight of recent follies and the obligations they created, not least out of

self-interest.