State of British Diplomacy

In the year since the UK Government’s Integrated Review was published, Russia has invaded Ukraine; the United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan; the UK, United States and Australia signed the AUKUS agreement; France’s President Emmanuel Macron secured another term in office; and the Social Democrats in Germany became the biggest party in the recent German elections, catapulting Olaf Shultz into the chancellorship. At the same time, Britain’s foreign policy apparatus has been subject to change as the Foreign Office continues to reckon with its merger with the Department for International Development; design approaches to secure foreign policy priorities; and adjust to the relatively recent appointment of Liz Truss as Foreign Secretary.

 

This begs the question: is British diplomacy fit for purpose? Does it have the mechanisms, resources and personnel it needs? Is the British foreign policy apparatus capable of securing its foreign policy priorities? Has British foreign policy been responsive enough to global events, or indeed is it too responsive to global events – undermining strategies laid out in the Integrated Review? Is diplomacy sufficiently well coordinated with other arms of external policy like defence, aid and trade? Is British diplomacy too ambitious? Does it have the right balance between Europe, the United States and the Indo-Pacific? Join us as our expert panellists dig into these questions and more.

 

Speaker Biographies

Dr Maeve Ryan is a Senior Lecturer in History and Grand Strategy at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, where she co-directs the Centre for Grand Strategy, leading on the centre’s major research projects and impact activities. A former Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Dr. Ryan’s research focuses on modern global history, the history of slavery, emancipation, human rights, and humanitarian governance, British foreign policy and diplomatic history, and on interdisciplinary approaches to the study of world order in the 21st century. Before joining King’s in 2016, Dr. Ryan was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of History at the University of Leicester. She also helped to found the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Geopolitics. She holds an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in History from Trinity College Dublin. Dr. Ryan is the Impact Lead for the School of Security Studies and the convenor of the annual Strategy Masterclass series. She is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA).

Lord Peter Ricketts spent 40 years as a member of the Diplomatic Service. His final post was Ambassador in Paris (2012-16). Before that he was the UK’s first National Security Adviser (2010-12), and in that role was the coordinator of the 2010 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review. He was Permanent Under Secretary at the FCO and Head of the Diplomatic Service (2006-10). He spent much of his career working on politico-military issues and crisis management, including spells as the FCO Political Director (2001-3) and Permanent Representative to NATO (2003-6). He holds Honorary Degrees from the Universities of London, Kent and Bath and is an Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College Oxford.

Suzanne Raine served in the Foreign Office from 1995-2019. This included postings in Poland, Iraq and Pakistan. She specialised in counter-terrorism, holding a number of senior domestic appointments including Head of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre from 2015-2017 and Director Counter Terrorism from 2017-19. She was also a senior member of the UK government assessment community. She is now an Affiliate Lecturer at the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University and a Trustee at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the Imperial War Museum (IWM) and at Stop the Traffik, a charity aiming to disrupt human trafficking worldwide.

Tom Fletcher is the Principal of Hertford College, Oxford University. Tom previously served as the foreign policy advisor to Prime Ministers Blair, Brown and Cameron, before becoming British Ambassador to Lebanon (2011-15) and a Visiting Professor at NYU (2015-20). He is the author of the bestselling Naked Diplomacy: Power & Statecraft in the Digital Age (2016) and Ten Survival Skills for a World in Flux (Harper Collins, February 2022). Forthcoming publications include his first novel, The Ambassador (Canelo, August 2022). He led reviews of the modernisation of the FCO (2016); future of the UN (2017) and the future of learning (2019). He is a former chair of the international board of the UK's Creative Industries Federation, adviser to businesses, academies and NGOs, and a member of the Global Tech Panel. He writes for the NYT, Prospect, Foreign Policy, The National and others, is a regular interviewee on BBC, Sky, CNN and has been profiled by the BBC, Arab News and more. His Foundation for Opportunity supports good people doing good things in public life.