In a month’s time, the UK will have a new prime minister. The campaign has been dominated by candidates’ views on how to deliver Britain’s withdrawal from the EU by October, alongside some discussion of domestic issues.

But relatively little has been said about international affairs, despite the fact that foreign policy questions are becoming a more partisan issue and Britain is facing crucial questions around Brexit and the wider international context. These will be waiting for whoever finds themselves in Number 10 on 22 July. 

1. How can Britain influence Europe from outside the EU?

Theresa May was fond of saying that Britain is leaving the EU but not leaving Europe. Britain cannot change its geography. It will continue to share many strategic and security interests with the rest of the continent, but it will be outside of Europe’s central political and economic project. A new PM will not only have to negotiate Britain’s new relationship with the EU, but also think about how to influence it as a third country.

An aspect of this will be finding a new way to work with the EU on foreign, security and defence policy that meets the need for autonomy on both sides. How deep this relationship is or how institutionalized it will be is yet to be negotiated and can be shaped by the next PM.

The UK needs to decide how ambitiously it wants to engage with the new defence agenda in the EU (particularly its industrial components), and how to balance these with key bilateral relationships like France and Germany. Amid uncertainty about American security guarantees and Russian aggression, the next PM must also consider what Britain’s security role in Europe should be and NATO’s place within that.

Beyond conventional foreign policy issues, Britain is also going to be heavily shaped and influenced by the rule-making power of the EU, and how the world’s largest market regulates itself, from energy to financial services, consumer products and the environment.

The UK will need a strategy to influence the EU from the outside – something Swiss, Norwegians and Americans will acknowledge is no easy feat. This could include significantly increasing its diplomatic footprint across Europe, working closely with the UK’s private and non-profit sectors, utilizing Britain’s technical expertise in areas like sanctions, and creating new ad hoc groupings to share perspectives and ideas, building on examples like the Northern Future Forum. 

2. Should Britain do business with President Trump?

President Trump represents a fundamental challenge to Britain: an American president whose belligerent unilateralism runs counter to many of Britain’s foreign policy objectives. His frequent and often shameless diplomatic faux pas – from proposing Nigel Farage be the British ambassador to his dog-whistle attacks on the mayor of London – are compounded by real differences of substance on issues like trade, climate change and nuclear non-proliferation.

A new prime minister must decide how to manage relations with the US administration, whether to challenge or condemn a US president when he acts against Britain’s interests, or use flattery or quieter diplomacy to seek to influence him. Theresa May’s strategy of staying politically close to the president and playing to his ego has yielded little in policy terms, though other world leaders have fared little better.

A new PM will face some uncomfortable choices. Will they continue to defend the Iran nuclear deal alongside European allies while the US continues to undermine it? Do they believe a trade deal with America is desirable or achievable with the current administration, and what are they willing to sacrifice to achieve it? Is the American security guarantee for Europe secure with Donald Trump as president? Judgements on these questions should inform Britain's wider strategy, and its objectives for a future relationship with the European Union.

3. Should Britain prioritize economics or security in its relations with China?

Britain faces its own version of the challenge that many countries face – how to balance the economic and investment benefits of a positive relationship with China with concerns about repressive domestic politics and a more assertive Chinese role regionally and globally. This tension has become more acute for two reasons.

First, the economic dislocation of leaving the EU may create a greater reliance on Chinese trade and investment. China is already a major investor in the UK. If Brexit proves to be disorderly, Britain’s need may be all the greater (though China faces economic headwinds as well). Some in Brussels even fear that the economic difficulties of Brexit may make the UK a soft touch for emerging powers from which it seeks inward investment and market access.

Second, the deterioration in US–China relations means the UK may come under increasing pressure from the United States to take a tough line with China. The controversy over Huawei’s role in delivering 5G networks may become a more regular feature of transatlantic debates, with Britain facing Chinese economic pressure on one side and a squeeze from America over security issues on the other, without the weight of the EU behind it.  

A new prime minister should consider whether the UK’s interests are served by a security role in east Asia, and whether it has the capability to play one.

The UK remains a party to the Five Power Defence Arrangements. The Royal Navy has conducted freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea, prompting a rebuke from Beijing. It has also taken steps to deepen security ties with Japan.

But the UK government has struggled to present a coherent position. Some cabinet ministers have sought to open doors to the Chinese market at the same time as others announced their intentions to send aircraft carriers to the Pacific. The next PM will need to find a balance between China and the US, or accept the consequences of more directly taking sides on disputes about trade, technology, and security.

4. How can the contradictions between UK foreign and domestic policy be reconciled?

One of the many problems with the vague and unhelpful slogan ‘Global Britain’ is how it jars with many aspects of domestic policy. This incoherence reduces Britain’s foreign policy credibility and effectiveness.

Britain has actively supported the UN-led Yemen peace process while continuing to support Saudi Arabia’s military campaign through arms sales. Britain wants to build a new ambitious independent trade policy while restricting the migration that is crucial for services trade. British foreign secretaries trumpet the UK’s soft power while the Home Office deports members of the Windrush generation, bungles EU citizenship applications and sets unreasonable burdens for many people seeking visas simply to visit the country.

Global universities are celebrated while international students had their post-study visas cut (a policy that sensibly is likely to be reversed). Britain advocates international tax compliance and transparency while not taking robust steps to regulate the tax haven role played by crown dependencies and overseas territories.

A new prime minister has the chance to get to grips with these inconsistencies and develop foreign and domestic policies which are more coherent and self-re-enforcing.

5. At what level should Britain’s international ambitions be funded?

Successive governments have celebrated the fact the UK is the only Western country to spend 2% of GDP on defence and 0.7% on development. However, this masks some real pressures in the system.

There are significant problems in the defence budget and a growing gap between commitments and committed funds. Meanwhile, the funding of Britain’s diplomacy has been cut by successive governments – Labour, Conservative and coalition – for much of the last 20 years. Numerous bodies have highlighted the problems facing the overstretched and underfunded Foreign Office. Where would defence and diplomacy sit in the new prime minister’s hierarchy of priorities?

The problem is not purely one of funding, but the gap between ambitions, rhetoric and resources. It is not sustainable for British ministers to trumpet Britain’s global ambitions while not properly funding the tools of its influence abroad.

It would be reasonable and understandable for a new prime minister to adjust that ambition and tone down the rhetoric, or alternatively to address resource pressures by investing in diplomacy and defence. But that choice should be informed by a sober reflection on Britain’s international position and interests as it leaves the EU. Brexit offers a chance to revisit assumptions that have guided British policy for a generation. A new prime minister should seize this opportunity.

A realistic vision for the future

All these issues will be more pronounced if the UK leaves the EU with no deal at the end of October. ‘No deal’ would be not simply an economic shock but a diplomatic rupture that will colour the UK’s capacity to negotiate a new relationship with the EU, which will be the first order of business after a ‘no deal’ exit. Trust will be in short supply.

Even if they don’t get to vote on the new prime minister, the public deserves serious answers to these and other questions from the men who want to lead the country. Not the platitudes of ‘Global Britain’ or a reflexive and unexamined British exceptionalism, but a serious, realistic assessment of how Britain will cope with the disruptions of leaving the EU and how it might thrive outside the regional bloc it has been a part of for more than 45 years.

Three years ago, as the UK was holding its referendum on Brexit, the EU was rolling out its Global Strategy for a more cohesive and effective security and defence policy. Since then, EU member states have set impressive goals and, as significantly, taken important practical steps to make an EU defence capability a tangible proposition, despite differing collective defence commitments, traditions of neutrality among some member states and very different strategic cultures.

All of these developments have taken place with the UK as reluctant observer. The UK has been traditionally hostile to a deepening of defence collaboration within the EU (and consistent of the view that Europe’s military security was best provided through NATO). But the Brexit referendum vote has placed the UK as a bystander as EU security and defence initiatives have been pursued which have overridden the past red lines of British governments.

There is, however, a Brexit-related paradox in all these developments.

A central goal of the security and defence-related aspects of the EU Global Strategy is for the EU to have the capacity to act independently of the United States and, through indigenous defence industries, the ability to produce the means to make that possible.

With the UK outside the EU, and its opposition absent, it is easier to create a political consensus to push for more defence integration. But without the UK there are diminished collective defence capabilities which would make European strategic autonomy much harder to achieve.  

The May government has been an enthusiast for preserving close security and defence cooperation with the EU. The Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration both seek to provide for a close EU–UK relationship post-Brexit.

However, the Article 50 negotiations have made clear that the EU’s institutions are hostile to special treatment for the UK beyond that normally accorded to a third country. Disagreements over the terms of the UK’s continuing participation in the Gailleo dual-use satellite system, which has a significant security and defence utility, have signalled that there is a strong lobby in Brussels and some national capitals seeking to significantly circumscribe collaboration with Britain.

The scale and capabilities of the UK’s military, its defence expenditure (notably on defence research and development) and its defence industrial base make any British decoupling from the EU’s security and defence a major issue. Disconnecting the UK from EU developments entirely would be a costly political choice for both sides.

And excluding the UK from new initiatives in defence R&D and new defence procurement arrangements would be suboptimal in delivering a stronger European defence, technological and industrial base. Duplicating existing UK capabilities, especially strategic enablers such as strategic airlift, target acquisition and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, would be an unnecessary squandering of already hard-pressed European defence budgets.

At present the common procurement and defence industry plans driven by the EU Global Strategy are embryonic. And significant defence capability decisions are taking place detached from the EU’s plans, which could reinforce a divide between the UK and other member states.

As illustrative, the formal agreement this week between France, Germany and Spain on the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) to develop a next-generation stealth fighter is competing with the UK-supported Tempest project that shares the same objective. The 20-year timescales for the delivery of the FCAS and Tempest projects are a reminder that defence procurement decisions are of multi-decade significance.

As the EU’s ambitions are nascent, it is too early to fully assess what might be the impact of any decision by the EU and the UK to keep each other at an arms-length in security and defence cooperation. With a more detached relationship, the UK will have significant concerns if it sees the EU’s common procurement arrangements develop in a manner that actively discriminates against the UK defence industry.

Outside of procurement and defence issues there may be other areas of future concern for the UK – for example, the extent to which the EU might deepen and broaden cooperation with NATO in a manner that makes the collective influence of EU member states within NATO more apparent, or to which the footprint of future EU conflict and security activities in third countries starts to overshadow the activities of the UK.

As the UK has been grappling with Brexit domestically, the EU has been evolving its security and defence policy ambitions. These are developments that will impact on the UK and in which, therefore, it has a stake but as a departing member state it has a weakening ability to shape.

Any aspect of future EU–UK cooperation is hostage to the vagaries of how the Brexit endgame concludes.

With the new leader of the Conservative party due to be announced on 23 July, what are the prospects for the party and the country?

On Brexit, the new prime minister faces most of the same challenges and constraints as Theresa May. The leadership contenders have outlined their ambitions for a revised deal, but with the EU insisting negotiations are over, their room for manoeuvre appears to be limited. Furthermore, even with a new leader at the helm, important divisions remain among voters about what shape Brexit and the future UK-EU relationship should take. If the EU won’t change the deal, and parliament won’t accept it, how can the deadlock be broken? Is a 'No Deal' Brexit politically deliverable? Or could there be a general election later in 2019? Can the Conservative party survive a pre-Brexit election intact?

Beyond Brexit, what are the other choices, in both domestic and foreign policy, facing the next prime minister? How might the decisions he makes affect the future of the party and British politics more broadly?

In this session, the speaker will share his reflections on the likely result of the leadership election, and what lies beyond it.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

On 12 December, Britain will hold the most consequential election in its postwar history. The outcome of the election will influence not only the fate of Brexit but also the likelihood of a second referendum on EU membership, a second independence referendum in Scotland, the most economically radical Labour Party for a generation, Britain’s foreign and security policy and, ultimately, its position in the wider international order.

If you look only at the latest polls, then the outcome looks fairly certain. Ever since a majority of MPs voted to hold the election, the incumbent Conservative Party has averaged 38%, the opposition Labour Party 27%, the Liberal Democrats 16%, Brexit Party 10%, Greens 4% and Scottish National Party 3%. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his party continue to average an 11-point lead which, if this holds until the election, would likely deliver a comfortable majority.

Johnson can also point to other favourable metrics. When voters are asked who would make the ‘best prime minister’, a clear plurality (43%) say Johnson while only a small minority (20%) choose the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Polls also suggest that, on the whole, Johnson is more trusted by voters than Corbyn to deal with Brexit, the economy and crime, while Jeremy Corbyn only tends to enjoy leads on health. All of this lends credence to the claim that Britain could be set for a Conservative majority and, in turn, the passing of a withdrawal agreement bill in early 2020.

But these polls also hide a lot of other shifts that are taking place and which, combined, make the 2019 general election unpredictable. One concerns leadership. While Boris Johnson enjoys stronger leadership ratings than Jeremy Corbyn, it should be remembered that what unites Britain’s current generation of party leaders is that they are all unpopular. Data compiled by Ipsos-MORI reveals that while Johnson has the lowest ratings of any new prime minister, Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn has the lowest ratings of any opposition leader since records began.

Another deeper shift is fragmentation. One irony of Britain’s Brexit moment is that ever since the country voted to leave the European Union its politics have looked more ‘European’. Over the past year, one of the world’s most stable two-party systems has imploded into a four-party race, with the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats and Nigel Farage’s strongly Eurosceptic Brexit Party both presenting a serious challenge to the two mainstream parties.

In the latest polls, for example, Labour and the Conservatives are attracting only 61 per cent of the overall vote, well down on the 80 per cent they polled in 2017. Labour is weakened by the fact that it is only currently attracting 53 per cent of people who voted Labour at the last election, in 2017. A large number of these 2017 Labour voters, nearly one in four, have left for the Liberal Democrats, who are promising to revoke Article 50 and ‘cancel Brexit’. This divide in the Remain vote will produce unpredictable outcomes at the constituency level.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Conservatives are grappling with a similar but less severe threat. Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party are attracting around one in ten people who voted Conservative in 2017, which will make Boris Johnson’s task of capturing the crucial ‘Labour Leave’ seats harder. There is clear evidence that Johnson has been curbing Farage’s appeal, but it remains unclear how this rivalry on the right will play out from one seat to the next.

One clue as to what happens next can be found in those leadership ratings. While 80 per cent of Brexit Party voters back Johnson over Corbyn, only 25 per cent of Liberal Democrat voters back Corbyn over Johnson. Johnson may find it easier to consolidate the Leave vote than Corbyn will find the task of consolidating the Remain vote.

All of this reflects another reason why the election is unpredictable: volatility. This election is already Britain’s fifth nationwide election in only four years. After the 2015 general election, 2016 EU referendum, 2017 general election and 2019 European parliament elections, Britain’s political system and electorate have been in a state of almost continual flux. Along the way, a large number of voters have reassessed their loyalties.

As the British Election Study makes clear, the current rate of ‘vote-switching’ in British politics, where people switch their vote from one election to the next, is largely unprecedented in the post-war era. Across the three elections held in 2010, 2015 and 2017, a striking 49 per cent of people switched their vote.

This is not all about Brexit. Attachment to the main parties has been weakening since the 1960s. But Brexit is now accelerating this process as tribal identities as ‘Remainers’ or ‘Leavers’ cut across traditional party loyalties. All this volatility not only gives good reason to expect further shifts in support during the campaign but to also meet any confident predictions about the election result with a healthy dose of scepticism.

This roundtable brings together German experts to discuss the country’s role in Europe and the world. Over the course of two sessions, Germany’s EU and wider foreign policy will be examined, with speakers sharing their views on where the country finds itself at the beginning of 2020 and what drives its current priorities across a number of areas. Participants will also compare perspectives on what a post-Merkel Germany might look like, now that the future leadership of CDU, Germany’s largest political party, is under question.

The event will comprise two separate sessions. Participants are welcome to attend either one or both.

08.30 – 09.30
Germany in the EU and the Eurozone

Speaker: Mark Schieritz, Economics Correspondent, Die Zeit
Chair: Quentin Peel, Associate Fellow, Europe Programme, Chatham House

Germany’s voice remains possibly the most important in any debate within the EU, including in those around the future of the Eurozone. The country has long been seen as the stalwart of the European economy and its government has always played a key role in driving Eurozone policy. However, most recent EU-wide attempts at reform have fallen short of what many claim needs to be done to complete the monetary union. The recently announced Eurozone budgetary instrument, for instance, remains very small and only focused on investment instead of stabilisation. The German government has been reluctant to go along with French President Emmanuel Macron and his structural reform proposals, though some other member states remain sceptical of his ideas for further integration too.

How can German attitudes towards the future of the Eurozone be explained? Is the government’s resistance to ambitious EU-wide economic reforms shared across the political spectrum in Germany? What stands in the way of further Eurozone reform when it comes to other EU member states? And will Germany’s reluctance to engage with reforms in this area, make it more difficult for the country to build coalitions when it comes to other EU policy areas?

09.45 – 11.00
German Foreign Policy in Perspective

Speakers: Joshua Webb, Programme Manager, Berlin Foreign Policy Forum and the Berlin Pulse, Koerber Stiftung
Dr Nicolai von Ondarza, Deputy Head, EU/Europe Research Division, German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP)
Chair: Dr Uta Staiger, Executive Director, UCL European Institute

Historically, Germany has been reluctant to play too active a role on the global stage, relying on its place at the heart of Europe and the transatlantic alliance. However, the current uncertain global context appears to have led to some rethinking on how the country can ensure its voice is being heard internationally, especially where its values are being challenged and its interests are at stake.

What drives German foreign policy in 2020? What are domestic priorities when it comes to trade, security and Germany’s place in the world? What shifts in public opinion may have been engendered by Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency? What does the rise of China – and China’s growing interest in Europe – mean for Germany’s wider Asia policy?  Finally, what role will Germany play in a post-Brexit Europe? And what are the country’s priorities in its future relationship with the UK?

The speakers will discuss these and other questions, sharing the findings of a recent German public opinion survey and compare these with international expert perspectives. 

Summary

• There is a widespread sense that liberal democracy is in crisis, but little consensus exists on the specific nature and causes of the crisis. In particular, there are three prisms through which the crisis is usually seen: the rise of ‘populism’, ‘democratic deconsolidation’, and a ‘hollowing out’ of democracy. Each reflects normative assumptions about democracy.
• The exact role of digital technology in the crisis is disputed. Despite the widely held perception that social media is undermining democracy, the evidence for this is limited. Over the longer term, the further development of digital technology could undermine the fundamental preconditions for democracy – though the pace and breadth of technological change make predictions about its future impact difficult.
• Democracy functions in different ways in different European countries, with political systems on the continent ranging from ‘majoritarian democracies’ such as the UK to ‘consensual democracies’ such as Belgium and Switzerland. However, no type seems to be immune from the crisis. The political systems of EU member states also interact in diverse ways with the EU’s own structure, which is problematic for representative democracy as conventionally understood, but difficult to reform.
• Political parties, central to the model of representative democracy that emerged in the late 18th century, have long seemed to be in decline. Recently there have been some signs of a reversal of this trend, with the emergence of parties that have used digital technology in innovative ways to reconnect with citizens. Traditional parties can learn from these new ‘digital parties’.
• Recent years have also seen a proliferation of experiments in direct and deliberative democracy. There is a need for more experimentation in these alternative forms of democracy, and for further evaluation of how they can be integrated into the existing institutions and processes of representative democracy at the local, regional, national and EU levels.
• We should not think of democracy in a static way – that is, as a system that can be perfected once and for all and then simply maintained and defended against threats. Democracy has continually evolved and now needs to evolve further. The solution to the crisis will not be to attempt to limit democracy in response to pressure from ‘populism’ but to deepen it further as part of a ‘democratization of democracy’.

The new European Commission had a bold new agenda when it began its work in December 2019, with climate change, digital transformation and strengthening European democracy among its priorities. Less than six months later, the European continent is in the midst of the worst crisis since the second World War and business as usual has been taken over by crisis management.

Has COVID-19 monopolized the agenda in Brussels? What priorities are still on the table and what debates have fallen victim to the coronavirus? Is the current crisis reigniting and exacerbating existing faultlines in the EU or creating new ones?

Reflecting on his first four months as the Economist’s Charlemagne columnist, the speaker will share what decision-making in Brussels looks like during a pandemic and what debates are dominating conversations in the EU capital today.

Although the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ has become popular in the foreign policy discourse of some countries, we have yet to see any significant institution-building in the Indo-Pacific region. Borrowing insights from functional institutionalism and political leadership studies of international regimes, we introduce a ‘leadership–institution’ model to explore the problems and prospects of institutionalizing the Indo-Pacific. Through a comparative case study of the institutionalization of the Asia–Pacific vs the Indo-Pacific, we argue that two crucial factors contributed to the slow institutionalization of the Indo-Pacific as a regional system in world politics: the lack of ideational leadership from an epistemic community and the weak executive leadership from a powerful state. While ideational leaders can help states identify and expand common interests in cooperation, executive leadership will facilitate states to overcome operational obstacles in cooperation, such as the ‘collective action’ problem and the ‘relative gains’ concern. The future of institution-building in the Indo-Pacific will depend on whether and how these two leadership roles are played by scholars and states in the region. In the conclusion, we discuss the challenges of institutionalizing the Indo-Pacific and highlight China as a wild card in the future of Indo-Pacific regionalism.

Smart Peace brings together global expertise in conflict analysis and research, peacebuilding and mediation programming, and behavioural science and evaluation. Together, Smart Peace partners are developing integrated and adaptive peace initiatives, working with local partners to prevent and resolve complex and intractable conflicts in Central African Republic, Myanmar and northern Nigeria.
 
This roundtable is an opportunity for Smart Peace partners to share the Smart Peace concept, approach and objectives, and experiences of the first phases of programme implementation. Roundtable discussions among participants from policy, practice and research communities will inform future priorities and planning for Smart Peace learning, advocacy and communication.
 
Smart Peace partners include Conciliation Resources, Behavioural Insights Team, The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Chatham House, ETH Zurich, International Crisis Group and The Asia Foundation.

In this article, drawing on the work of the development sociologist Norman Long, I make the case for an actor-oriented approach to understanding the ‘turn to religion’ by global aid actors over the past couple of decades. I ask, is the ‘turn to religion’ evidence of the emergence of post-secular partnerships or are faith actors being instrumentalized to serve neo-liberal development goals? I argue that neither option captures the whole story and advocate that the study of religion and development needs to move beyond a binary between the ‘turn to religion’ as either evidence of post-secular partnerships or of the ‘instrumentalization’ of religion by the secular global aid business, and instead to think about how faith actors themselves encounter and shape development discourses and frameworks, translate them into relevant formats and strategically employ them. Alongside the adoption of an actor-orientated approach, I build on the work of Lewis and Mosse, Olivier de Sardan and Bierschenk to view international faith-based organizations (IFBOs) as development brokers and translators. This approach allows me to articulate the distinctive role that many members of IFBOs report they play as intermediaries who shift register between the secular development language and the faith-inspired language of their local faith partners. I take the engagement of faith actors with the new Sustainable Development Goals framework as a case-study to explore this.

Situated within feminist Christian Realism, this article looks at what political theology is and its relevance to International Relations. Hope is a central theme to political theology, underpinning the necessity to be witness to and to work against oppressive structures. Simply put, hope is the desire to make life better. For Christians, this hope stems from a belief in resurrection of Christ and the faith that such redemption is offered to all of humanity. Hope, however, is not limited to Christianity and, therefore, Christian theology. Thus, taking an intersectional approach, the article looks for similarities in how hope is articulated in three personal narratives: theologian Jürgen Moltmann, UK Muslim advocate Asim Qureshi, and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors. Across all three personal narratives, the need for hope begins in a place of despair, signalling a need to recognize that hope and privilege are in tension with one another. Feminist Christian Realism acknowledges and embraces this tension, recognizing that hope cannot function if the pain, oppression and harm caused by privilege are erased or minimized.

Ample evidence exists that China was caught off guard by the Trump administration's onslaught of punishing acts—the trade war being a prime, but far from the only, example. This article, in addition to contextualizing their earlier optimism about the relations with the United States under President Trump, examines why Chinese leaders and analysts were surprised by the turn of events. It argues that three main factors contributed to the lapse of judgment. First, Chinese officials and analysts grossly misunderstood Donald Trump the individual. By overemphasizing his pragmatism while downplaying his unpredictability, they ended up underprepared for the policies he unleashed. Second, some ingrained Chinese beliefs, manifested in the analogies of the pendulum swing and the ‘bickering couple’, as well as the narrative of the ‘ballast’, lulled officials and scholars into undue optimism about the stability of the broader relationship. Third, analytical and methodological problems as well as political considerations prevented them from fully grasping the strategic shift against China in the US.

This year marks the 20^th anniversary of the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security – the first to recognize the important role of women in peacebuilding. How did the resolution come into being and how significant was its adoption in 2000?  

Well it has quite an amazing history that goes back to other UN resolutions, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights, which were passed in the 1960s and came into force in the 1970s. These were some of the biggest covenants on human and civil rights at the time but it was only later that people realised, that those who passed them, did not assume that they applied to women.

There was an attempt, subsequently, to pass the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women – commonly called the CEDAW Convention – which was widely adopted in 1979, when 187 out of 194 UN members signed, although the United States was not one of them, and in fact, the US has still not ratified the treaty. But the understanding that women’s rights were not necessarily assumed in human and civil rights action was beginning to gain recognition.

Then, in 1995, Hillary Clinton spoke in Beijing and really put it forward that women’s rights were human rights and also civil rights and we all have to address them as such. So, ‘95 really brought together all the different social groups – women’s groups, human’s rights groups, civil rights groups, and more, who pushed for the women, peace and security agenda to be passed in 2000 at the United Nations. 

The resolution on women, peace and security was a significant moment because it recognized gender equality issues were national security issues – not just social justice issues – and was soon followed by a number of other resolutions which make up the women, peace and security agenda today. 

Conflict has a disproportionate effect on women and girls, with global security threats, such as climate change,  reported to impact women more than men. In light of this, growing numbers of women are now serving on the frontlines of conflicts, in comparison to 1957-1989, when  only 20 women served as UN peacekeepers. In your view, what have been the successes of the women, peace and security agenda so far?

I think some of the successes specific to peacekeeping have been, as you mentioned, that women are increasingly part of peacekeeping forces being deployed to conflict and post-conflict situations.

Importantly, the nature of war is changing – we are no longer primarily engaged in interstate work in some places – it’s mostly intrastate work where there are often ethnic or religious overtones.

In this landscape, women are often caught up in the battle lines. They often become the heads of their households when the men are gone or injured or killed. There have also been instances of rape being used as a weapon of war and other forms of sexual violence being committed in conflict and post-conflict situations even by peacekeepers.

So, having more women as peacekeepers is important because, number one, when women see women peacekeepers, they are much less likely to fear them, and therefore, feel less threatened speaking to them. Number two, women are a less threatening presence so civil society begins to build again. Number three, women peacekeepers give women in the local area a role model of strength showing them that they can play an active role in their own security. Finally, I would say that women peacekeepers are all impressively trained to guard those under their protection.

What other successes have there been more broadly outside of peacekeeping? Well, I think one that is often cited is that there’s a 20 per cent increase in the probability of a peace agreement lasting at least two years and a 35 per cent increase in the probability of that peace agreement lasting 15 years if women are at the negotiating table. The reason being that women bring things to the table – for example focussing on the root causes of conflict – that men neglect either because they’re not aware of them or it’s not considered an issue of importance to them. 

We have a pretty abysmal history of peace agreements holding so including more women in peace negotiations, given these increases in the probability of agreements holding, seems to me the only logical thing to do.

You mentioned the inclusion of women in peace processes increases the likelihood of agreements succeeding, however, women continue to be underrepresented, comprising under 10 per cent of peace negotiators and under 4 per cent of signatories to peace agreements. Do you think there are any shortcomings with focusing on increasing the presence of women over the positions they hold and how their positions are used to further gender equality?  

I think there are a couple of aspects to this. Importantly, women have been extremely effective in leadership positions, for example, in Liberia. But it is true having women at the table does not necessarily further gender equality in the long-term and I think this was the case in Northern Ireland where the women who were at the table did not include provisions for women. But, I think, we’ve learned since then.

The most important case to cite right now, in my view, is that of women in Afghanistan. They came out of their homes, they went to school, they identified themselves as proponents of gender equality, yet now, with the US-Taliban deal, there were almost no women at the table and not a single provision in the peace agreement that deals with women. So what’s going to happen to all of these women?

Since 2000, the number of agreements referring to women has grown to 28 per cent – more than double the number between 1990-2000. However, some critics have pointed to the gap between theory and practice since many peace agreements still omit a gender perspective on peacekeeping operations. What, in your opinion, have been the failings of realising the women, peace and security agenda so far?

You know, it’s not just critics who point this out, it’s advocates as well, that there is a big gap between rhetoric and implementation. I think the reason for this, in most cases, is political will. It’s the idea that gender equality is an optional luxury – we’ll get to it when we can – and that we have more important issues to work out. Well the agency of 50 per cent of the population should not be seen as an optional luxury.

In all cases, however, it’s a question of power. There are only so many seats at the table where power is doled out and nobody wants to give up theirs to let somebody else sit down. So, I think, there is active resistance to implementing gender equality in the peace and security arena because it would mean sharing power. 

There are also some other reasons. The first is something we call the ‘blind fish’ – people who are simply unaware of gender equality issues – the second, which is interestingly by adamant supporters of the women in peace and security agenda, and that’s they are not given the budget and the authority to carry out the agenda as it should be.

The concept of a feminist foreign policy, which places gender equality and women’s rights at the centre of its foreign policy goals, has been gaining momentum globally. Sweden became the first country in the world to adopt a feminist foreign policy in 2015, and since then, 82 countries have adopted national action plans to raise the role of women in peace processes. How effective have these measures been to furthering women in peace and security? 

That, I think, is one of the issues that women in peace and security advocates, such as myself, are currently looking at because the word ‘feminist’, for better or for worse, is a trigger in many countries.

In many countries, it’s a negative trigger, which is kind of ironic because, if you ask people, ‘Do you believe in gender equality?’, a lot of people will say, ‘Yes absolutely.’  But if you ask people, ‘Are you a feminist?’, a lot of people will say, ‘No not me.’ 

So, the question is, do we aim for a broad goal like a feminist foreign policy which would look at defining peace as, not just the absence of war, but a lot more then than that, such as creating the conditions needed for gender equality and aiming for peace and stability among other broader goals.

Or do we aim to work on a more incremental basis by trying to get more women into peacekeeping, trying to get more women into leadership positions, trying to move gender equality up the agenda as the more effective path forward?

I think the answer to the question is that it depends. If you’re Sweden, Canada or Mexico, a feminist foreign policy might be acceptable. But, if you’re the United States, it’s nowhere near acceptable. Even getting the US Defence Department to take the incremental steps of the women, peace and security agenda has been challenging.

Why do you think that is the case in the United States?

I think a lot of it has to do with power as I mentioned earlier. It has to do with an assumption that women aren’t assertive and don’t see security under the same lens as men, which is true, but which is why they are needed in this space.

I think it also, again, goes back to the point that some see it as an optional luxury rather than an absolute necessity and everybody is too busy – or simply unwilling – to change the status quo.

You mentioned the cases of Liberia and Northern Ireland, but another example that struck me was Rwanda, where women make up 62 per cent of the national legislature, far more proportionally than any other country, following provisions included in its constitution in the aftermath of the genocide of 1994.

Though equal representation between men and women is still far off for most of the world, what does the case of Rwanda and other post-conflict countries demonstrate about how to go about including more women in peacebuilding?

Well, I think the number one way to get more women into political leadership roles, where the women, peace and security agenda could then be implemented, is quotas. 

Many countries use quotas to increase more women in political participation, which Rwanda certainly does, although there are different types. There are quotas that say each political party must have X number of women as candidates and then there are quotas that say the overall number of women in the parliament must reach a certain level. 

So there are different varieties of quotas but they are all used as, kind of, affirmative action methods to at least temporarily bring the numbers up to where women’s voices are inclusive not token. 

Research has shown that until you have at least 33 per cent of a minority in an overall group – so if it’s all men then 33 per cent of this group as women – then you won’t see any change because having one or two will likely be drowned out. But, at about 33 per cent, they’re able to have political power which then means their views and their agendas are seriously considered. So, in Rwanda, that has certainly been the case and that’s been one of the big lessons learned. 

As I mentioned earlier, in Northern Ireland, the lesson learned was that it’s not enough to just have women in on peace agreements. There need to be implementation assurances written into the peace agreement that says it must be taken forward. So, in this vein, women have been learning over the years how to make a difference in male-dominated spaces. 

50 years ago, humans landed on the moon, becoming one of the most significant moments in human history. The stories of women, from Margaret Hamilton, to Katherine Johnson, to JoAnn Morgan, who all helped men take their first steps on the moon at the height of the space race, have since come into the spotlight. How will the inclusion of women need to be considered more in space security as it becomes increasingly important in international relations?

Right now, space security is at a very critical point. We have moved from a situation where there was both co-operation and competition during the space race to a situation of great power competition in space where the United States, China and Russia are, for the first time, overtly weaponizing space. When I say overtly, much of space technology is dual-use, meaning it could be used as a weapon or it could be used as something for non-military purposes.

In the past, the United States and other countries have been very careful, kind of, not to cross the Rubicon into the overt weaponization of space but that’s now ending which I think puts us in a very precarious situation. 

What seems to be missing from considerations of space security at the moment is the most threatening issue – space debris – which can only be dealt with on a multinational basis meaning it inherently requires co-operation. 

So, what I think more women in space security positions would bring, would be that inclusion and the insistence on inclusion as a pillar of space diplomacy.

If there was just a fraction of the money, and manpower, spent on space diplomacy as there is on planning for space warfare, I think we’d all be a lot better off.

How far do current discussions about women in peace and security factor in space security?

Not at all.

Do you see the role of women in space security progressing in the future in spite of this and also despite what some have described as a broader backlash against women around the world whether in the political or in the security space?

I think there have been events over the past five or so years that have made women around the world, if anything, more acutely insistent on their participation than ever before.

We saw the marches in 2017, in the United States and worldwide, in response to what women felt was a rise in authoritarian and misogynistic governments and we have seen the rollbacks in gender equality rights in areas like reproduction too but I don’t think they’re going to take it lying down. The backlash, if anything, is going to spur women to be more, not less, active in all spaces. 

Some have argued for the need of a men, peace and security agenda, to compliment the work on women, with proponents arguing that men are needed to realise gender equality worldwide. How far are men needed as allies to realise the women, peace and security agenda? 

Well, I think, though the women, peace and security agenda has women in the title, it argues for gendered perspectives, that policies affect men and women differently. So, I think it is very important that it not be seen as dealing only with women’s issues – it deals with gendered perspectives. 

In that regard, it is very much needed to have a broadening of all of those involved. I mentioned earlier it was all women’s groups that got the women, peace and security agenda passed and now we need to include men. In fact, I would point out, NATO is a great example of an organization that has recognized the importance of looking at how policies affect men and women, girls and boys. 

So bringing more men in to support gendered perspectives is absolutely essential and looking at gendered perspectives in things like leadership roles is critical as well as gendered perspectives in everything from space policy to nuclear policy to human security issues too.

In your view, what are the greatest challenges to the uptake of gendered perspectives across the board and what, if anything, needs to change in order to realise the goals set out by the UNSC 20 years ago?

On a macro level, we need accountability. We have lots of policies, laws, national action plans and strategies of all kinds but we need accountability.

In the United States, in particular, I very much hope that accountability comes from Congress. In 2017, Congress passed the Women, Peace and Security Act on a bipartisan basis but I think it’s now up to Congress to hold organizations responsible for its implementation. 

On an organizational level, we need to get, as you said, more men involved. But, interestingly, not all women agree, so we need to have more talks among women too, be they liberal, conservative, working, non-working, mothers, not mothers etc. We may have different views but where we’re trying to go is the same and we need to work together better. 

I think among the advocates of women, peace and security, there are still issues that are up for debate like do we go for big feminist foreign policies or do we go for incremental change? In addition, are there lynchpin issues such as reproductive rights, women’s healthcare, gender equality or budget? 

You know, in the United States, I wrote in an article that although the US Defence Department gave $4 million for women, peace and security in 2018, which they were patting themselves on the back for, the Military Times pointed out that they are spending $84 million a year on Viagra.

But this is not just in the United States. 140 countries stood up at the UN to advocate for women, peace and security in 2000 but only 25 per cent of those have national action plans and any budget connected to those plans. Everyone everywhere needs to put their money where their mouths are if we are to realise the goals set out by the UNSC 20 years ago.

Complex systems models have played a significant role in informing and shaping the public health measures adopted by governments in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, modelling carried out by a team at Imperial College London is widely reported to have driven the approach in the UK from a strategy of mitigation to one of suppression.

Complex systems modelling will increasingly feed into policymaking by predicting a range of potential correlations, results and outcomes based on a set of parameters, assumptions, data and pre-defined interactions. It is already instrumental in developing risk mitigation and resilience measures to address and prepare for existential crises such as pandemics, prospects of a nuclear war, as well as climate change.

The human factor

In the end, model-driven approaches must stand up to the test of real-life data. Modelling for policymaking must take into account a number of caveats and limitations. Models are developed to help answer specific questions, and their predictions will depend on the hypotheses and definitions set by the modellers, which are subject to their individual and collective biases and assumptions. For instance, the models developed by Imperial College came with the caveated assumption that a policy of social distancing for people over 70 will have a 75 per cent compliance rate. This assumption is based on the modellers’ own perceptions of demographics and society, and may not reflect all societal factors that could impact this compliance rate in real life, such as gender, age, ethnicity, genetic diversity, economic stability, as well as access to food, supplies and healthcare. This is why modelling benefits from a cognitively diverse team who bring a wide range of knowledge and understanding to the early creation of a model.

The potential of artificial intelligence

Machine learning, or artificial intelligence (AI), has the potential to advance the capacity and accuracy of modelling techniques by identifying new patterns and interactions, and overcoming some of the limitations resulting from human assumptions and bias. Yet, increasing reliance on these techniques raises the issue of explainability. Policymakers need to be fully aware and understand the model, assumptions and input data behind any predictions and must be able to communicate this aspect of modelling in order to uphold democratic accountability and transparency in public decision-making.

In addition, models using machine learning techniques require extensive amounts of data, which must also be of high quality and as free from bias as possible to ensure accuracy and address the issues at stake. Although technology may be used in the process (i.e. automated extraction and processing of information with big data), data is ultimately created, collected, aggregated and analysed by and for human users. Datasets will reflect the individual and collective biases and assumptions of those creating, collecting, processing and analysing this data. Algorithmic bias is inevitable, and it is essential that policy- and decision-makers are fully aware of how reliable the systems are, as well as their potential social implications.

The age of distrust

Increasing use of emerging technologies for data- and evidence-based policymaking is taking place, paradoxically, in an era of growing mistrust towards expertise and experts, as infamously surmised by Michael Gove. Policymakers and subject-matter experts have faced increased public scrutiny of their findings and the resultant policies that they have been used to justify.

This distrust and scepticism within public discourse has only been fuelled by an ever-increasing availability of diffuse sources of information, not all of which are verifiable and robust. This has caused tension between experts, policymakers and public, which has led to conflicts and uncertainty over what data and predictions can be trusted, and to what degree. This dynamic is exacerbated when considering that certain individuals may purposefully misappropriate, or simply misinterpret, data to support their argument or policies. Politicians are presently considered the least trusted professionals by the UK public, highlighting the importance of better and more effective communication between the scientific community, policymakers and the populations affected by policy decisions.

Acknowledging limitations

While measures can and should be built in to improve the transparency and robustness of scientific models in order to counteract these common criticisms, it is important to acknowledge that there are limitations to the steps that can be taken. This is particularly the case when dealing with predictions of future events, which inherently involve degrees of uncertainty that cannot be fully accounted for by human or machine. As a result, if not carefully considered and communicated, the increased use of complex modelling in policymaking holds the potential to undermine and obfuscate the policymaking process, which may contribute towards significant mistakes being made, increased uncertainty, lack of trust in the models and in the political process and further disaffection of citizens.

The potential contribution of complexity modelling to the work of policymakers is undeniable. However, it is imperative to appreciate the inner workings and limitations of these models, such as the biases that underpin their functioning and the uncertainties that they will not be fully capable of accounting for, in spite of their immense power. They must be tested against the data, again and again, as new information becomes available or there is a risk of scientific models becoming embroiled in partisan politicization and potentially weaponized for political purposes. It is therefore important not to consider these models as oracles, but instead as one of many contributions to the process of policymaking.

A controversial debate during COVID-19 is the state of readiness within governments and health systems for a pandemic, with lines of the debate drawn on the issues of testing provision, personal protective equipment (PPE), and the speed of decision-making.

President Macron in a speech to the nation admitted French medical workers did not have enough PPE and that mistakes had been made: ‘Were we prepared for this crisis? We have to say that no, we weren’t, but we have to admit our errors … and we will learn from this’.

In reality few governments were fully prepared. In years to come, all will ask: ‘how could we have been better prepared, what did we do wrong, and what can we learn?’. But after every crisis, governments ask these same questions.

Most countries have put in place national risk assessments and established processes and systems to monitor and stress-test crisis-preparedness. So why have some countries been seemingly better prepared?

Comparing different approaches

Some have had more time and been able to watch the spread of the disease and learn from those countries that had it first. Others have taken their own routes, and there will be much to learn from comparing these different approaches in the longer run.

Governments in Asia have been strongly influenced by the experience of the SARS epidemic in 2002-3 and - South Korea in particular - the MERS-CoV outbreak in 2015 which was the largest outside the Middle East. Several carried out preparatory work in terms of risk assessment, preparedness measures and resilience planning for a wide range of threats.

Case Study of Preparedness: South Korea By 2007, South Korea had established the Division of Public Health Crisis Response in Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and, in 2016, the KCDC Center for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response had established a round-the-clock Emergency Operations Center with rapid response teams. KCDC is responsible for the distribution of antiviral stockpiles to 16 cities and provinces that are required by law to hold and manage antiviral stockpiles.

And, at the international level, there are frameworks for preparedness for pandemics. The International Health Regulations (IHR) - adopted at the 2005 World Health Assembly and binding on member states - require countries to report certain disease outbreaks and public health events to the World Health Organization (WHO) and ‘prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade’.

Under IHR, governments committed to a programme of building core capacities including coordination, surveillance, response and preparedness. The UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk highlights disaster preparedness for effective response as one of its main purposes and has already incorporated these measures into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other Agenda 2030 initiatives. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said COVID-19 ‘poses a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security’ and that ‘a signal of unity and resolve from the Council would count for a lot at this anxious time’.

Case Study of Preparedness: United States The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) established PERRC – the Preparedness for Emergency Response Research Centers - as a requirement of the 2006 Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, which required research to ‘improve federal, state, local, and tribal public health preparedness and response systems’. The 2006 Act has since been supplanted by the 2019 Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act. This created the post of Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in the Department for Health and Human Services (HHS) and authorised the development and acquisitions of medical countermeasures and a quadrennial National Health Security Strategy. The 2019 Act also set in place a number of measures including the requirement for the US government to re-evaluate several important metrics of the Public Health Emergency Preparedness cooperative agreement and the Hospital Preparedness Program, and a requirement for a report on the states of preparedness and response in US healthcare facilities.

This pandemic looks set to continue to be a grave threat to humanity. But there will also be future pandemics – whether another type of coronavirus or a new influenza virus – and our species will be threatened again, we just don’t know when.

Other disasters too will befall us – we already see the impacts of climate change arriving on our doorsteps characterised by increased numbers and intensity of floods, hurricanes, fires, crop failure and other manifestations of a warming, increasingly turbulent atmosphere and we will continue to suffer major volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. All high impact, unknown probability events.

Preparedness for an unknown future is expensive and requires a great deal of effort for events that may not happen within the preparers’ lifetimes. It is hard to imagine now, but people will forget this crisis, and revert to their imagined projections of the future where crises don’t occur, and progress follows progress. But history shows us otherwise.

Preparations for future crises always fall prey to financial cuts and austerity measures in lean times unless there is a mechanism to prevent that. Cost-benefit analyses will understandably tend to prioritise the urgent over the long-term. So governments should put in place legislation – or strengthen existing legislation – now to ensure their countries are as prepared as possible for whatever crisis is coming.

Such a legal requirement would require governments to report back to parliament every year on the state of their national preparations detailing such measures as:

• The exact levels of stocks of essential materials (including medical equipment)
• The ability of hospitals to cope with large influx of patients
• How many drills, exercises and simulations had been organised – and their findings
• What was being done to implement lessons learned & improve preparedness

In addition, further actions should be taken:

• Parliamentary committees such as the UK Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy should scrutinise the government’s readiness for the potential threats outlined in the National Risk register for Civil Emergencies in-depth on an annual basis.
• Parliamentarians, including ministers, with responsibility for national security and resilience should participate in drills, table-top exercises and simulations to see for themselves the problems inherent with dealing with crises.
• All governments should have a minister (or equivalent) with the sole responsibility for national crisis preparedness and resilience. The Minister would be empowered to liaise internationally and coordinate local responses such as local resilience groups.
• There should be ring-fenced budget lines in annual budgets specifically for preparedness and resilience measures, annually reported on and assessed by parliaments as part of the due diligence process.

And at the international level:

• The UN Security Council should establish a Crisis Preparedness Committee to bolster the ability of United Nations Member States to respond to international crisis such as pandemics, within their borders and across regions. The Committee would function in a similar fashion as the Counter Terrorism Committee that was established following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
• States should present reports on their level of preparedness to the UN Security Council. The Crisis Preparedness Committee could establish a group of experts who would conduct expert assessments of each member state’s risks and preparedness and facilitate technical assistance as required.
• Regional bodies such as the OSCE, ASEAN and ARF, the AU, the OAS, the PIF etc could also request national reports on crisis preparedness for discussion and cooperation at the regional level.

COVID-19 has been referred to as the 9/11 of crisis preparedness and response. Just as that shocking terrorist attack shifted the world and created a series of measures to address terrorism, we now recognise our security frameworks need far more emphasis on being prepared and being resilient. Whatever has been done in the past, it is clear that was nowhere near enough and that has to change.

Case Study of Preparedness: The UK The National Risk Register was first published in 2008 as part of the undertakings laid out in the National Security Strategy (the UK also published the Biological Security Strategy in July 2018). Now entitled the National Risk Register for Civil Emergencies it has been updated regularly to analyse the risks of major emergencies that could affect the UK in the next five years and provide resilience advice and guidance. The latest edition - produced in 2017 when the UK had a Minister for Government Resilience and Efficiency - placed the risk of a pandemic influenza in the ‘highly likely and most severe’ category. It stood out from all the other identified risks, whereas an emerging disease (such as COVID-19) was identified as ‘highly likely but with moderate impact’. However, much preparatory work for an influenza pandemic is the same as for COVID-19, particularly in prepositioning large stocks of PPE, readiness within large hospitals, and the creation of new hospitals and facilities. One key issue is that the 2017 NHS Operating Framework for Managing the Response to Pandemic Influenza was dependent on pre-positioned ’just in case’ stockpiles of PPE. But as it became clear the PPE stocks were not adequate for the pandemic, it was reported that recommendations about the stockpile by NERVTAG (the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group which advises the government on the threat posed by new and emerging respiratory viruses) had been subjected to an ‘economic assessment’ and decisions reversed on, for example, eye protection. The UK chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies, when speaking at the World Health Organization about Operation Cygnus – a 2016 three-day exercise on a flu pandemic in the UK – reportedly said the UK was not ready for a severe flu attack and ‘a lot of things need improving’. Aware of the significance of the situation, the UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy launched an inquiry in 2019 on ‘Biosecurity and human health: preparing for emerging infectious diseases and bioweapons’ which intended to coordinate a cross-government approach to biosecurity threats. But the inquiry had to postpone its oral hearings scheduled for late October 2019 and, because of the general election in December 2019, the committee was obliged to close the inquiry.

In 2017 Trump expressed pity for the ‘beautiful babies’ killed in a gas attack on Khan Shaykhun in Syria before launching airstrikes against President Assad's regime. Images of suffering children in world politics are often used as a synecdoche for a broader conflict or disaster. Injured, suffering, or dead; the ways in which images of children circulate in global public discourse must be critically examined to uncover the assumptions that operate in these environments. This article explores reactions to images of children by representatives and leaders of states to trace the interconnected affective and political dimensions of these images. In contrast to attending to the expected empathetic responses prompted by images of children, this article particularly focuses on when such images prompt bellicose foreign policy decision-making. In doing this, the article forwards a way of thinking about images as contentious affective objects in international relations. The ways in which images of children's bodies and suffering are strategically deployed by politicians deserves closer scrutiny to uncover the visual politics of childhood inherent in these moments of international politics and policy-making.

When powerful liberal democratic states are found to be complicit in extreme violations of human rights, how do they respond and why do they respond as they do? Drawing on the example of the United Kingdom's complicity in torture since 9/11, this article demonstrates how reluctant the UK has been to permit a full reckoning with its torturous past. We demonstrate that successive UK governments engaged in various forms of denial, obfuscation and attempts to obstruct investigation and avoid accountability. The net effect of their responses has been to deny the victims redress, through adequate judicial processes, and to deny the public adequate state accountability. These responses are not simply aimed at shielding from prosecution the perpetrators and those who have oversight of them, nor preventing political embarrassment. The various forms of denial and obstruction are also designed to ensure that collusion can continue uninterrupted. A core concern of intelligence officials and ministers has been to prevent any process that would lead to a comprehensive prohibition on involvement in operations where torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are a real possibility. The door remains wide open, and deliberately so, for British involvement in torture.

The new European Commission had a bold new agenda when it began its work in December 2019, with climate change, digital transformation and strengthening European democracy among its priorities. Less than six months later, the European continent is in the midst of the worst crisis since the second World War and business as usual has been taken over by crisis management.

Has COVID-19 monopolized the agenda in Brussels? What priorities are still on the table and what debates have fallen victim to the coronavirus? Is the current crisis reigniting and exacerbating existing faultlines in the EU or creating new ones?

Reflecting on his first four months as the Economist’s Charlemagne columnist, the speaker will share what decision-making in Brussels looks like during a pandemic and what debates are dominating conversations in the EU capital today.

The coronavirus pandemic continues to claim lives around the world. As countries grapple with how best to tackle the virus, and the reverberations the pandemic is sending through their societies and economies, scientific understanding of how the COVID-19 virus is behaving and what measures might best combat it continues to advance.

Join us for the sixth in a weekly series of interactive webinars on the coronavirus with Professor David Heymann and special guest, Johan Giesecke, helping us to understand the facts and make sense of the latest developments in the global crisis. What strategy has Sweden embraced and why? Can a herd immunity strategy work in the fight against COVID-19? How insightful is it to compare different nations’ approaches and what does the degree of variation reveal?

Professor Heymann is a world-leading authority on infectious disease outbreaks. He led the World Health Organization’s response to SARS and has been advising the organization on its response to the coronavirus. 

Professor Giesecke is professor emeritus of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute Medical University in Stockholm. He was state epidemiologist for Sweden from 1995 to 2005 and the first chief scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) from 2005 to 2014.

Kazakhstan has attracted international attention due to its energy resources, its relative openness to foreign investment and its proximity to Afghanistan, all of which influence its foreign policy. The withdrawal of ISAF forces from the region in 2014 and Kazakhstan's participation in a number of regional and international initiatives are also likely to play a role in shaping the country's foreign policy in the short to medium term.

Mr Idrissov will outline the main items on Astana's foreign policy agenda for approximately 15 minutes, followed by 45 minutes for questions and discussion.

Attendance is by invitation only. 

As Prime Minster Abe enters his second year in office, the speakers will consider future prospects for Japanese foreign policy and UK-Japan relations. 

This event is funded by the Nippon Foundation. It is held in partnership with the Nippon Foundation and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.

THIS EVENT IS NOW FULL AND REGISTRATION HAS CLOSED.

Is the news our society’s religion today?

In the developed economies, the news now occupies a position of power at least equal to that formerly enjoyed by the faiths. Matins has been transubstantiated into the breakfast bulletin, vespers into the evening report. It also demands that we approach it with some of the same deferential expectations we would once have harboured for the faiths. Here, too, we hope to receive revelations, learn who is good and bad, fathom suffering and understand the unfolding logic of existence. And here too, if we refuse to take part in the rituals, there could be imputations of heresy.

What would you like the news to be?

It feels like there is always an infinite amount of news, so much is happening in the world every day. Yet after a while it becomes clear that the same kinds of event are recurring again and again. The details change, but all circle round the same archetypal story. Men in highly responsible positions are coming unstuck because their desires lead them to do things that, when made public, are shameful.

Identifying the underlying theme is more important in the long run than going through the details of every case. The news that matters is not so much that this MP or banker did what they did. What we need to address is why such things happen.

How do you keep the public interested in the news that does matter?

We cannot be collectively dragged into being more responsible through guilt. The Arctic ice is melting and this is going to have major, lasting implications for sea levels and weather around the world. A few people care a lot but, strangely, Taylor Swift’s legs are far more captivating. The starting point has to be indulgence towards the way our minds work. We are interested in Swift’s legs not because we are evil – but because we are wired in unhelpful ways. If we are going to be interested en masse in the defrosting poles, we need to take our fragilities on board and therefore get serious about trying to make important news not just ‘important’, but also beguiling. Then things stand a chance of changing.

You argue that we should set aside ‘neutral reporting’. Are you asking for more bias?

Many people imagine that what makes news organizations serious is their ability to provide us with information that is ‘unbiased’. But facts can only become meaningful and relevant to us when they slot into some picture of important or trivial, right or wrong. News organizations that vaunt their neutrality forget that neutrality is simply impossible. There is no risk-free, all-knowing sober set of answers to cling to. At heart, the word ‘bias’ simply alludes to the business of having a ‘take’ on existence. One may have a better or worse take, but one can’t make any sense of the flotsam of daily events in the news without having one. All of the figures we revere in history have been highly biased: each of them had a strong sense of what mattered and why, and their judgments were anything but perfectly balanced. They were just flavoured in the right way. We don’t need news stripped of bias, we need news presented to us with the best kinds of bias.

What is the purpose of foreign reporting?

Foreign reporting implicitly defers to the priorities of the state and of business, occupying itself almost exclusively with whom and where we should fight, trade or sympathize. But it should instead offer us a means by which to humanize the Other who instinctively repels, bores or frightens us and with whom we can’t, without help, imagine having anything in common.

Foreign countries also furnish a scale against which our own nation and ways of living can be assessed; they may help us to see our national oddities, blind spots and strengths. Stories from them may lead us to a fresh appreciation of the imperfect freedoms and comparative abundance of our homelands, which otherwise would be treated only as matters for grumbling or blame. Alternatively, problems with which we are all too familiar may be revealed to have been solved better elsewhere.

You mention the importance of historical perspective in reporting, so that we can respond to issues with context.

Contrary to what the news usually suggests, hardly anything is ever totally new, few things are truly amazing and very little is absolutely terrible. The economic indices are grim, but we have weathered comparable drops many times over the past century and even the worst scenarios only predict that we will return to a standard of living we had a few decades ago. A bad avian flu may disrupt international travel and defeat known drugs for a while, but research will eventually understand and contain it. The floods look dramatic, but in the end, they will affect merely a fraction of the population and recede soon.

How can photography change the way we report news?

There are now more images than ever before in the coverage we consume, but the problem lies in the lack of ambition behind their production and display. We might usefully divide news photographs into two genres. The first are images of corroboration, which do little other than confirm something we have learnt about a person or an event through an accompanying article. The second is a rarer kind of image, the photograph of revelation, whose ambition is not simply to back up what the text tells us but to advance our level of knowledge to a new point. It sets out to challenge cliché. We have lost any sense of photography’s potential as an information-bearing medium, as a force to properly introduce us to a planet that we keep conceitedly assuming that we know rather well already.

Do you feel oppressed by the news?

The pressure of not missing out makes one feel one has to care about a given topic, even when one doesn’t want to. Take Mandela’s funeral. One was supposed to care a lot, and yet, you don’t. You know the reasons why it is important, but they don’t grip you because you are focused elsewhere on subjects that, while tiny in the grand scheme of things, matter a lot within your context. It would be dangerous if hardly anyone paid attention to what the Government was doing, or what was happening to the environment. But it is not right to go from this to the demand that everyone should be interested in every item whenever the news machine calls. We badly need people whose attention is not caught up in the trends of the moment and who are not looking in the same direction as everyone else. We need people scanning the less familiar parts of the horizon.

Do you think we get the news we deserve?

Much of what we now take for granted as news has its origins in the information needed by those people taking major decisions or who are at the centre of national affairs. Ease of communication and a generous democratic impulse means that selections from the knowledge base, originally designed for decision-makers, now gets routinely sent via the media to very large numbers of people. It is as if a dossier which might properly arrive upon the desk of a Minister has accidentally been delivered to the wrong address and ends up on the breakfast table of an electrician in Pitlochry. Every day the news gives us stuff that is both interesting for some people and irrelevant to you. No wonder we’re sometimes a bit bored. It’s not our fault.

The landlocked southern African nation of Lesotho faces a number of domestic challenges in 2014. Reducing reliance on the agricultural sector, containing the prevalence of HIV and improving service delivery are all important issues that must be addressed to ensure sustainable growth. However, social achievements including literacy rates and levels of gender parity among the highest in Africa, the country’s potential for electricity exports, and the booming relationship between its textile industry and the United States, could mean Lesotho is well-placed for future growth and development. 

HE Prime Minister Tom Thabane will discuss how his government seeks to address the Lesotho’s domestic issues and how the country seeks to exert its influence in the regional Southern African Development Community.

From intimidation to restrictive laws and curbs on information, media outlets and individual journalists face a variety of threats to maintaining their independence and integrity in print and online. The panel will outline key challenges to international media freedoms, and Yavuz Baydar will share his experiences as a journalist in Turkey, a country that has faced growing criticism from the international community following a crackdown on social media sites, an increased pressure on its press and high numbers of detained journalists. 

LIVE STREAM: This event will be live streamed for members only. The live stream will be made available here at 18:30 BST on Tuesday 20 May.

ASK A QUESTION: Send questions for the speakers by email to questions@chathamhouse.org or using #askCH on Twitter. A selection will be put to them during the event.

This event will be followed by a reception.

This is an Under 35s Forum event.

Three years on from the Arab uprisings, many of the goals of the protests remain unmet. However, the spirit of collaboration which was nurtured during this time lives on and has resulted in an expansion of grassroots organizations, tech startups and artists’ collectives. At this roundtable, Maryam Jamshidi, author of The Future of the Arab Spring: Civic Entrepreneurship in Politics, Art, and Technology Startups, will argue that the Middle East’s ‘civic entrepreneurs’ continue to apply their talents to rebuilding their countries’ political, economic and social fabrics.

THIS EVENT IS NOW FULL AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.

This event will discuss the rise of the culture of world development. It will examine the post-war reconstruction and development projects of the 1940s through to the 1960s, including those devised at Chatham House. The speaker will argue that these projects hold valuable lessons that still apply to the current economic environment. The speaker will also discuss the key role played by Eugene R Black (1898-1992), the third president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank), who was one of the main architects of post-war reconstruction and development projects and a promoter of a ‘culture of development’.

The speaker will argue that Japan’s economic problems are exacerbated by the fact that its social and employment policies favour age over youth, and men over women. In order for its economy to improve, Japan will need to loosen its rigid labour laws, encourage greater mobility and improve women’s career opportunities. Until Japan begins rewarding creativity and productivity in the workplace rather than longevity, Abenomics will fail to have the desired effect.

This event is funded by the Nippon Foundation and held in partnership with them and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.

The digital age has seen an extraordinary transformation in how individuals can exercise their right to freedom of expression. What are the proper limits of state interference in online communication in pursuit of national security and public order? What does this mean for privacy? And away from the digital world, to what extent is free speech being affected by counterterrorism measures and actions to prevent hate crimes? How do all of these challenges affect the space for civil society action?

Signs of growing anger at the restrained denunciation of Pennsylvania-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen - whose followers are thought to have played a key role in the attempted coup - are being vocalised more and more, but this criticism only shows part of the true picture.

It is true that prominent liberal Turkish intellectual Soli Ozel spoke for many when he criticised EU politicians and Western media for failing to recognise the “invaluable democratic resistance shown by all political parties in a parliament bombed by war planes”, as well as demonstrating “a lack of sensitivity, empathy and solidarity that cannot be easily digested” by not sending anyone from an EU institution to offer solidarity with the Turkish parliament.

The criticism is reasonable - officials from Western governments and regional institutions such as the Council of Europe exhibited unconditional solidarity with Ukraine during its bitter feud with Russia, which leads some to believe that Muslim-majority Turkey does not apparently deserve the same treatment as its neighbours also experiencing an unlawful attempt to seize control of the state.

Moral authority at risk

It is also right that the West should have censured the coup plotters more forcefully and built upon Turkey’s fragile unity to encourage the country to pursue further democratic reform. To quote former Swedish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt: “Europe risks losing its moral authority if it does not appear particularly engaged in dealing with the coup itself.”

In addition, the EU’s strong criticism of Turkey but not France, for imposing a state of emergency and for temporarily suspending the European Convention on Human Rights, undeniably, smacks of double-standards.

However, some of the criticism falls short. To begin with, the West’s tepidity can be explained (though not wholly justified) by Erdogan’s abrasive behaviour at home and towards Western and international media.

Just three days after the coup, Erdogan threatened in his characteristically defiant tone to revive the controversial construction plans that sparked the 2013 Gezi Park protests, saying: “If we want to preserve our history, we must rebuild this historic [Ottoman-era barracks] structure, [and] we will rebuild it.”

It is also fair for Turkey to be reproached for the widespread crackdown against tens of thousands of suspected Gulenists in the aftermath of the coup. Even if it is conceivable that all 1,577 university deans who were forced to resign were Gulenists, this action will also have a lasting negative impact on the reputations and career prospects of academics unconnected to Gulen.

Fervour against Gulenism

The vigilance by the West is understandable given the Turkish government’s fervour against Gulenism in the immediate post-coup period. It would make no sense for the West to attack the coup and yet, at the same time, equivocate on flagrant violations of due process and human rights. Both efforts are mutually inclusive and identifying such violations has the greatest potential to encourage policy reversals or corrective measures.

Similarly understandable is the attention on Erdogan himself. He is the most formidable and powerful figure in a hierarchical and top-down political system, able to make fateful decisions with few effective checks and balances. He single-handedly replaced Ahmet Davutoglu as prime minister with Binali Yildirim in a clear breach of the Turkish constitution.

Despite Erdogan’s tactical attempts at embracing all the opposition parties apart from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), his refusal to renounce his ambition to transform Turkey into a powerful executive presidency indicates that this fragile political unity will not last.

Only the West has the wherewithal to moderate his policies by continuing to express its friendship with Turkey, whilst not shying away from closely monitoring, scrutinising and commenting on the post-coup developments.

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