John Bew Applies History To Foreign Policy-Making

>> Andrew Roberts: John Bew is a professor in history and foreign policy at King's College London. He held the Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress, but for the last five years, he has been the foreign policy advisor for four Prime Ministers, the advisor most proximate to the Prime Minister.

 

John, history is in the blood for you, isn't it? Did you have much choice about being a professor? Both your father, Paul Bew, and your mother, Greta Jones, were both professors. Did you have much say in the matter?

>> John Bew: I guess in hindsight there was probably some past dependency that I didn't quite recognize at the time.

 

It was more of a challenge of not being good at anything else, Andrew. That meant I sort of ended up entering academia. It certainly was not my dream, but it's something that happens. Sort of death by a thousand cuts.

>> John Bew: Thereafter, but basically a reflection of my incompetence in any other walk of life.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Do you know, that's exactly why I'm a historian as well. I was functionally enumerate when I was in the city and therefore, I chucked it. Let's talk about your books, Castlereagh, which was published in 2011, about the great British foreign minister of the Napoleonic wars, an absolute giant.

 

Not well-known now, sadly, not as well-known as his contemporaries, people like Talleyrand and Metternich. But he should be, shouldn't he?

>> John Bew: Absolutely, absolutely. I was reflecting, before we came to this podcast, Andrew, that an unkind interpretation of my books would be that I do the B sides, for your A sides.

 

 

>> John Bew: In the sense that, you've written on Wellington, I've written on Casserole, you've written on Churchill, I've written on Atlee.

>> John Bew: But actually, of course, I'd of course say they're the A sides and Cassar is an A side figure. So, among others, he was very much admired by Henry Kissinger.

 

And in fact, at different periods of history, crucial periods like the 1930s, there was a big famous biography of Castlereagh as well, as Britain tried to navigate the foreign policy challenges of that era. So Castlereagh, for those who are interested in major questions of international order, statecraft, how you navigate questions of values and enlightenment in a world that does not follow Enlightenment rules, is actually kind of extremely useful.

 

I was attracted to him partly because he's an Ulsterman by birth, like myself, born not far from where I was, but actually his career thereafter is of huge consequence. He was British foreign secretary for 10 years, from 1812 to 1822. Before that, he was Chief Secretary in Ireland in a period of rebellion.

 

He was intimately involved in the act of Union in 1801. He was war secretary and of course he was the great sponsor of the Duke of Wellington. And without Castlereagh sponsoring backing and support, you wouldn't have had the sort of path to Waterloo and the eventual success in the Napoleonic wars.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: And he kept the anti-Napoleon coalition together for years and years.

>> John Bew: Absolutely, so it takes six coalitions to defeat Napoleon. And the only country that's consistently in the anti-Napoleon coalition is Britain. But Britain can't fight a land war to defeat Napoleon. So therefore Britain has to deliver a grand strategy that involves proxy war, guerrilla war, and the Peninsula maritime challenge to France.

 

But basically, also a sort of diplomatic masterclass of building these coalitions simultaneously. And he's truly a kind of grand strategic figure in that sense Castlereagh.

>> Andrew Roberts: Which brings us on to Realpolitik, the subject of your 2015 book. You were, as I mentioned, the Kissinger Chair at Library of Congress.

 

And you knew Henry well, and of course he is considered today the great master of modern Realpolitik. How did his foreign policy-making actually stack up when it came to Realpolitik? Was it a sort of cold-blooded policy of Realpolitik or was there an element of idealism there as well?

 

Or should one not see this as two sort of poles of the same thing?

>> John Bew: We shouldn't see it as two poles, but I got to know Henry through the shared interest in Lord Castlereagh. So, Castlereagh is the hero with Metternich of a world restored, so his graduate thesis book.

 

Also, in the last few years of his life, I had the pleasure to organize the publication of Henry's undergraduate thesis on a meaning of history Spengler and Toynbee and Kant. And this absolutely supports Neil Ferguson's argument in his first volume on Henry, which he calls Idealist. Because Henry is someone wrestling with the same question that Castlereagh is wrestling with.

 

The sort of peak enlightenment era for Castlereagh, which is how do you preserve a sense of enlightenment and a certain set of values and also order. Because in Castlereagh`s view, order is a thing that allows enlightenment and radical revolutionary change is something that upsets him and scares him.

 

But how do you do that in a world where great power politics is happening, where ethnic identity, national identity, confessional identity is also everywhere. So a more sort of Hobbesian world. And it's that sort of balance that you allude to, not two poles, but a balance between trying to keep a sort of civilizational goal, and then the sort of challenges of acting in a realist way alive.

 

Now, Realpolitik is a kinda different kind of word. And Henry, I think, says himself at one stage, I think his speech in London in the early 1980s, that the exponents of a realist foreign policy are caricatured by the German word Realpolitik. And he kinda thought that in some ways, because of his German background, this was sort of thrown at him as an allegation, as something sort of imported from the dark heart of Europe into Anglo American foreign policy.

 

And of course, there's never been. People have sort of very rarely sort of worn the badge of Realpolitik in a kinda famous. It's considered Machiavellian. So, I kinda went back to the original. I said, well, what is this word, that Henry says he's been caricatured with? And I discovered the original text, which is a book in 1853 by a German liberal revolutionary, actually.

 

Who basically fails in 1833 and fails again in 1848 to deliver a liberal revolution across Europe and travels from Germany to Paris to Italy as he sees the dreams of the 1848ers go up in smoke. Of course, by the way, Karl Marx is doing the same thing. So all these people who think the world is gonna change in 1848 and it doesn't change in the way they're expecting, are trying to wrestling with this.

 

So this is where the word Realpolitik was born. So it's created by a liberal saying, okay, I want constitutionalism, I want enlightened government. I want a sensible government by the people. I want people to have rights. So Ludwig von Rocco, for example, was very progressive on the rights of Jews in Germany.

 

But I've got to work out how to achieve those goals because around me I'm faced by external threat. I'm faced by other social forces. I'm faced by traditionalism, conservatism of the church in some instances. So I've got to navigate that world. So Realpolitik is actually, in its original inception, about.

 

I say, it's a kind of a liberal instead or a goal, but basically, it's a kind of, to borrow a phrase from another time, Von Rochau and the creator of Realpolitik, is a liberal mugged by reality. So he's basically trying to work out, how I navigate politics, how I accept that power politics is a natural fact of life, and how to deliver politics on the back of it.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Following up on the concept of external threat, the person, of course, who worked very hard in the 1940s, late 1940s in particular, to end external threat, or at least deal with external threat to Britain, was Clement Attlee. The subject of your 2016 book, Citizen Clem, that extraordinary concatenation of alliances, NATO of course, being the central one, but lots of others that essentially help make Britain safe.

 

Tell us about and preserve the peace, tell us about, about that book. What made you want to write it? And what would you say its main thesis is?

>> John Bew: Well, I was trying to pick a 20th century British Prime Minister who you haven't written about.

>> John Bew: So I went for Clement Attlee.

 

 

>> John Bew: I mean, I deeply admired, I like a certain type of character. So I like Castlereagh because he was not a wonderful speaker, he's from the provinces in terms of how he's regarded by rivals like Canning, who are extremely lucid and quick on their feet. But he had a sort of deep soulfulness to him and a seriousness, and that kind of appealed to me at some level as a Northern Irishman.

 

That's a very flattering portrait of a Northern Irishman, by the way. But I'll stick with it, Attlee, the things that academics have missed about Attlee are really interesting to me, it's a deep patriotism, deep, deep patriotism. Which is kind of particularly as a figure on the left, is sort of less interesting to a lot of scholars who've written about Attlee and had a kind of unobtrusive sophistication.

 

So he read a hell of a lot, but he read widely. He read Kipling, he read Edward Gibbons, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as the British Empire in India was ending. And he didn't wear that kind of reading on his sleeve. So patriotism, history, he wonderfully describes Churchill as a kind of layer kick of different centuries.

 

He says he has a 16th century, a 17th century, an 18th century, 19th century, and just about a 20th century lawyer. So he has that sense of history, he has that sense of patriotism, but a sort of simple, clipped tone. So in politics, it's sort of efficiency, it's Municipal boards, but it's a deepness to him a seriousness to him.

 

And also, of course, he loved Churchill, so they have this odd relationship.

>> Andrew Roberts: He was one of the few people who didn't blame Churchill for Gallipoli and he was the last man off the beaches, essentially, wasn't he, in January 1916 and had been very brave in Gallipoli. He thought that it could have come off and it actually strategically was not a bad idea.

 

 

>> John Bew: No, completely right, he blamed the generals and he blamed the logistics and he thought it was the right strategic conception from Churchill, poorly delivered upon by the sort of upper echelons. So he was Major Attlee in the First World War. He has a bit of a dad's Army, first of all, so he's carried off the battlefield three times.

 

The first time is a Gallipoli through dysentery. And he goes back to Gallipoli and as you say, he's the last man off the beach, he desperate to get out with his men. Then in Mesopotamia, he's actually hit by artillery shell and his back and buttock quite badly damaged by friendly fire.

 

And then finally he's hitting by falling log in the Western Front in 1918. Brave, deeply patriotic and crucially, and here's the difference, two journeys of the British left in the early 20th century. He falls out with his brother very badly, his brother's a pacifist. His brother actually goes to prison very nearby the Attlee family home for his pacifism.

 

And Attlee views his brother's politics as anarchic individualism. For Attlee, citizenship is rights, but also responsibilities to the state and the nation. So deep, deep patriotism, admiration for Churchill and it's very hard to see who could have been Deputy Prime Minister to Churchill. Very hard to see he could beat Churchill in 1945 in such a peaceful fashion.

 

To be honest with you, there's a kind of remarkable story between the two of them.

>> Andrew Roberts: Didn't just beat him, thrashed it, didn't he? I mean, it was one of the great landslides of modern history. So you've written these three extremely well received books and what then gets you into number ten, three years after Citizen Clem's published?

 

 

>> John Bew: So partly through the Kissinger Chair and partly through coming from an academic but highly political family. So my dad was intimately involved in the Good Friday Agreement and was an advisor to David Trimble.

>> Andrew Roberts: It's also worth pointing out that he's the most respected member of The House of Lords on Irish history as well.

 

 

>> John Bew: And the second most respected after you. In general, but so a sort of political family. And then I was doing quite a lot of writing on foreign affairs, I was also a specialist in the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, which is a sort of bipartisan academic expert.

 

So I was involved in a political world, but really I was minding my own business in King's College London, when a colleague of mine there, Munira Mirza. Who was to be the head of the Policy Unit, sort of stopped me in the corridor and said, do you want to come into government in 2019 in remarkable, tricky circumstances.

 

So if you remember, Boris Johnson was replacing Theresa May, but had an effective sort of minus majority. I wasn't sort of particularly party political or partisan. And then so I said no for two weeks and then finally I wilted and did it, and best decision I ever made professionally.

 

It's very hard to say no to these things, but it's been a remarkable privilege to be involved.

>> Andrew Roberts: What was it like working for Boris?

>> John Bew: So I worked for him for three years and we worked together intimately and I worked extremely closely with him on issues like Ukraine, and it was during the Ukraine period, inspirational to work with him, it was a real privilege.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Can you remember where you were on the 22nd of February, sorry, the 24th of February 2022?

>> John Bew: Yeah, I remember vividly. So the military assistant called up Boris, I think Boris writes about that in his book, or said this. So it was obviously something we expected predominantly that the invasion would start.

 

But the military assistant called me first before he called the Prime Minister and said, this is going to happen now. So, yeah, I'm a member of it.

>> Andrew Roberts: Why did he call you before the Prime Minister?

>> John Bew: To make sure that sort of the team that we're gonna respond and be there for the Prime Minister were sort of well set to be able to sort of click into gear.

 

We had very close working relationships, so I remember it very, very vividly.

>> Andrew Roberts: You must have been game planning what you were going to be doing anyhow, considering that the intelligence services had said this was going to happen.

>> John Bew: So we'd done a lot of sort of diplomatic travel.

 

We'd had a series of calls between the Prime Minister and President Putin, actually, before Christmas. From memory I remember one vividly from the Prime Minister's Parliamentary office. So, yes we had been-

>> Andrew Roberts: What, just warning him not to do it?

>> John Bew: We were all sort of international leaders were hitting the phones basically sort of recognizing the buildup, sort of teasing out the position.

 

Actually, the visit I remember as I traveled with the Defense Secretary, Ben Wallace, to Moscow, I think just Only a week before the war. And a Secretary of Defense, Ben Wallace, met his opposite number, Shoigu and Gerasimov, in the Russian Ministry of Defense. So I remember that sort of vividly.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: What are they like, Shoigu and Gerasimov?

>> John Bew: I mean, granite like.

>> Andrew Roberts: As you'd expect.

>> John Bew: As you'd expect. And the atmosphere was sort of crackling, and there was so much sort of noise about what might happen. We also traveled to the Munich Security Conference, where Boris Johnson made a speech there, we met other international leaders.

 

So the truth is we were sort of all gearing up internationally and working out how to respond in what format and what group. But it was a pretty unprecedented situation. There's no obvious copybook for it. And I think the UK did respond very well.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yes, no, absolutely.

 

But within the first few hours, were you worried that Kiev might fall?

>> John Bew: So there was a sort of lively debate about what would happen if the invasion went ahead. And actually, one of the roles I was able to play sometimes in government, and there's always openness to this, by the way, and sometimes academics outside get very frustrated that government's not listening.

 

Actually, there's real appetite for external expertise, particularly in the era we are in right now whereby the kaleidoscope has been shaken, to borrow phrase from another prime minister. When some of our assumptions about the world are uncertain and where there's so much complexity, you need to reach for that external expertise, the state can't do it.

 

So I organized something which Boris talks about in his book, and there's a subject of a Twitter discussion the other day, a seminar with a group of experts, cuz we had our assessments. But also, that didn't quite tell you. Intelligence assessments tell you so much about what's going on, about intent, about trajectory, all those different types of things.

 

I think the Prime Minister was pretty clear himself, having traveled around Ukraine a lot and having had a feel for the place. His strong view was that Ukraine would fight, and Ukraine had a stronger sort of sense of nationhood than was being presumed in Moscow. So I think he was sort of confident in that.

 

We also traveled to Kyiv just a few days or just a couple of weeks before the war as well and saw Zelensky there. So we'd have assessments, but his view was sort of partly based on history, partly based on sort of instincts that came from histories of biography of Churchill as well.

 

And unquestionably, that's all in the swirl. And we did think of historical.

>> Andrew Roberts: And there was a personal chemistry between Boris and Zelensky as well, wasn't there?

>> John Bew: Yeah, and it went back somewhere, I remember a meeting in the UN General Assembly, I think 2020 or maybe in 2019, in which there was a kind of.

 

Yeah, they found each other sort of interesting sort of political figures. So there was definitely a rapport there that pre-existed, yeah.

>> Andrew Roberts: And Britain actually was the first to do lots of things, wasn't it? To send lethal equipment to, then send more and more bigger equipment, and he was the first head of government to visit Kyiv after the invasion.

 

I mean we were in a sense leading the way, weren't we?

>> John Bew: Yeah, it felt like that. I mean, maybe the slightly boring answer, but it's a truthful answer, it's always better to act in concert. And the real story, I think there's a number of big stories about the response to Ukraine, is actually sort of what you might call allied unity or Western unity held up far better than a lot of people predicted.

 

And if you think of the extent of US support, it's vast and dwarfs anything the UK did in terms of size and commitment. So that sort of unity did actually hold up well and people were presuming it would sort of collapse. It still holds up pretty well, by the way.

 

And every year someone says, it's getting weaker and weaker. That was not our lived experience. But then there was a series of debates around certain capabilities and defensive equipment was the big one, or lethal aid as it was called. We were very cautious about our language, about the decision making process around that as well.

 

But that was actually in the lead up to the invasion. So it was before the invasion when there was a debate about N laws, the anti-tank weapons. And then after the invasion a series of other debates about whether or not we should send tanks, our own tanks, whether or not we should train pilots or send our own aircraft, etc.

 

So succession of debates and each of those, yes, The UK was sort of on the-

>> Andrew Roberts: What about the latest, actually allowing Ukrainians to use missiles within Russia?

>> John Bew: I thought you'd go there. Mercifully, I've been out of government for long enough to sort of recuse myself from getting into that.

 

But I think what that belies alongside the individual capability decisions, there's got to be a sort of broader strategic approach which involves a lot of different dimensions. So helping Ukraine broad in terms of broad financial stability.

>> Andrew Roberts: And you're still doing that here at Hoover. You're interested in how to unfreeze those Russian assets and help Ukraine with Russia's money?

 

 

>> John Bew: Yes, I'm working here in a project on urgent security choices, which is kind of a 6, 12 month timeframe, which is an argument for sort of brain power. And by the way, there's plenty of people, particularly in the national security state. And I made sure to say this, I was leaving government with a letter I sent everyone to say thank you.

 

And there's highly, highly capable, thoughtful, impressive people on these national security subjects. But we are in an era where we can always do with more thinking, more analysis, more reflection. And we're at another inflection point because of the US presidential election as well. So in 2025, the question we're asking ourselves is what can be a sort of a durable strategy for Ukraine that adapts to the new realities, but puts Ukraine in the best possible position?

 

And again, there's openness to hear more about that.

>> Andrew Roberts: And when President Trump says he can solve the war in an afternoon, presumably that isn't the way that the British Foreign Office is looking at things either.

>> John Bew: I mean, lots of things are said in presidential elections, right?

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: You've been saying it since long before this election, John.

>> John Bew: I mean, this stuff is complicated, that's the only thing I'd say, right? So it requires sort of a multifaceted approach. I go back to what I said about Castlereagh, right? The achievement of Castlereagh is to mobilize the British army, mobilize a coalition.

 

Think about the peace that follows the war as well, and the whole way through the Napoleonic wars, as you well know. British ministers are trying to implement a peace plan that's really kind of hatched by the late 1790s, right? So to think about all these things in concert is absolutely vital.

 

So there's no sort of diplomatic switch or military switch that solves these sort of complex problems. So, all ideas welcome, but the complexity is enduring an unavoidable.

>> Andrew Roberts: Keeping alliances together was also quite key to your integrated review, the one that people, the sort of big picture is that we were gonna tilt towards the Indo-Pacific.

 

Was it the way in which AUKUS started to become a real thing? Tell us about AUKUS and about the review and the way in which it was intended to, and did indeed, keep alliances fresh and active.

>> John Bew: So I was involved in two reviews. I never quite say I was the pen holder, because these things are done by ministers and agreed by ministers with lots of different departmental inputs.

 

It also means I can recruit myself for anything I don't agree with. So there's sort of two processes, both of which led to increases in defense spending. We can have a debate about whether that's enough, and you'll be surprised to hear I'm on the side of increased defense spending.

 

Both of them did lead to significant increases in defense spending. One was under Boris Johnson in 2021. The other was the refresh of the review, reflecting the fact that the international environment had got worse in 2023. So the 2021 review was basically the sort of first big post-Brexit review actually published.

 

It coincided with the trade and cooperation agreements of the Brexit deal, which meant it was sort of self-denying in some areas which were sort of part of negotiations or cut from negotiations. Like all these things, Andrew, we're historians. Everything is a product of time and place and discourse and language and different types of political leadership.

 

So there's no sort of eternal truth to be uncovered in a national security strategy. Also, we were very clear, while we said we need to be more involved in Indo-Pacific, the document is extremely clear-eyed about the Russia threat. In a way, actually, we were sort of criticized for being too hawkish on the Russia portfolio.

 

So it says in 2021 that Russia is the most acute threat to the UK and its security. And it says, therefore, the priority should be Euro-Atlantic security through NATO. So one of the things we're doing through Brexit is sort of constantly emphasizing renewing our NATO vows. And as I was writing that document, I was also part of the NATO Secretary General's reflections group.

 

So we were also simultaneously working on the sort of new NATO strategic concept. So those are supposed to be synchronized. Sometimes there's a presentation often by in the FT. This is a kind of a big, huffy lurch to the Indo-Pacific, Brexit Britain. It's actually much more nuanced than that if you read the text.

 

And then on AUKUS particularly, so there's a couple of examples of where we sort of talk about-

>> Andrew Roberts: So it is about AUKUS and also the QUAD and the way in which the sort of ideas for a NATO down in the Southeast Asia.

>> John Bew: So the way we sort of approach this as well is to say, look, we're renewing our marriage vows on the kind of fundamental key relationships.

 

So strong investment in the US-led alliance system, no hedging from the UK. Sometimes US partners seem to hedge on these big questions. So the document is also known for being more robust, or a shift of tone on, for example, the China challenge. The second thing we said is, and also NATO is an example of that, but we need to be far more dynamic and imaginative and creative about the types of alliances we are able to create or partnerships we're able to create.

 

And there's a number of examples of that. So one is what we did with lethal aid to Ukraine and other things, which is the Joint Expeditionary Force, which is the UK and nine other Nordic Baltic nations. And what we did with that is to sort of turn it into a leaders summit, use it as a kind of mobilization of support for Ukraine.

 

Those are the countries that in the European context are, broadly speaking, the more robust on the challenges of that. And we did work on undersea cables, maritime security, energy security, etc. So we lit that up, there's other examples as well. And the other example is AUKUS, which basically, is the best encapsulation of what we were trying to do with our national security.

 

Which is to invest in defense, invest in the capabilities of the future, reimagine our alliances and partnerships, engage in deterrence. And the whole point about AUKUS is it provides that deterrence, get ahead technologically. So that was all done in sort of immense secrecy, but it's a kind of a real sort of pride moment in government to be involved in that.

 

And that will endure in different years. So those are two sort of prime examples of how we engage in these questions. And for the UK, we think it important that we maintain that global perspective. And sometimes that's seen as grandiose or vainglorious. To my mind, it's absolutely crucial to recognize where our partners and allies, including successful and important partners and allies who have things you want to be part of, like good education systems, technological development.

 

Let's think of our close relationships with the Republic of Korea or Japan, which have never been stronger than they are at the moment. That's all part of the picture. It is not to run away from Europe at all. That's a complete misconception of that as well. We've managed to reset a lot of our European relationships.

 

So all those things together is in a world where the West and the G7 has declining share of global GDP, you have to reach out to new partners and allies. You have to rethink and deepen some of your partnerships. And I think we've done a kind of relatively successful job of that, even as the world gets more challenging and forbidding.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: And the new government is bringing out a new strategic review. How's that going to be different from what you did?

>> John Bew: So actually, I was a little bit involved with the launch of this review, and there's some excellent people on it. So General Richard Barrons, George Robertson-

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Who's been on the show, in fact, George Robertson.

>> John Bew: Okay, so the former Secretary General of NATO and a former Labor defense minister, and Fiona Hill, the UK-born, but someone who served in a number of US administrations in the national security space as well. Three people I admire and rate very highly.

 

So I'm very supportive of what they're trying to do. It's a slightly different exercise, Andrew, in the sense that this is a defense review, so it's not sort of litigating or relitigating the sort of broader strategic posture. And the reviewers are very clear, for example, on things like AUKUS, they're deeply invested, and things like NATO, they're deeply invested.

 

So it's a reflection of the fact, and all our allies and partners are going through this. That there's anxiety about defense modernization, the relative balance of forces, size of the army is one of the big debates as well, the capabilities that we have, what we deliver to NATO.

 

And also, I think crucially, the most dynamic and interesting area is the defense industrial base and defense industrial production. Because none of our NATO defense industrial bases are in sufficiently ripe or strong conditions to sort of, at the moment, to face the types of challenges we think we might be facing.

 

So I kind of welcome and support it. I think it'll report over the course of the year. A lot of it will come down to the money, as they say, and it always does. But the reviewers are all on the right track, and they recognize and are very supportive of the things we have done, such as strong support for Ukraine, such as AUKUS.

 

So I welcome it. And you know what's happened in British politics as well, Andrew. There's been a return to a kinda, broadly speaking, bipartisan consensus on most of the fundamental security issues. I think that's good for the country, right? That's something quite unique to Britain since 1945. It's the Attlee-Churchill logic.

 

Of course, there's big debates over certain interventions, or in Attlee and Churchill case, over India. Today's case, there's obviously debates, but sort of fundamental-

>> Andrew Roberts: Like giving the Chagos Islands back to-

>> John Bew: I knew you were gonna go to that.

>> Andrew Roberts: Giving them back to Mauritius. That's not bipartisan, is it?

 

 

>> John Bew: No, it's been quite a fraught issue. But if you compare it to sort of the big sort of structural things on the sort of fundamentals like support for Ukraine, on belief in the alliance system. Those are kind of, compared to a lot of countries, there's a strong bipartisan consensus.

 

History will always punch you in the face with thorny and unexpected challenging issues. I'm definitely not getting sucked into that Chagos debate.

>> Andrew Roberts: COVID, you were there in place in this job when COVID hit. How did that affect global politics?

>> John Bew: Yeah, I mean, in ways, we were all sort of gaming this.

 

And the kind of one of the interesting things about COVID is it was a rare period in government where sort of, particularly in the foreign affairs space, the sort of pattern of business was so disrupted. So the usual bilaterals or summits. I remember doing a NATO summit from the cabinet room.

 

Amusingly, by the way, someone's always gotta sit in the chair, and when the Prime Minister went to the bathroom in the midst of this in the cabinet room. I, for one moment, was the UK's representative at NATO with these other international head of government for a short and glorious period of time.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Hope he wasn't away for long.

>> John Bew: I almost tended to lock the door and announce a coup. So because of that, we sort of did some deep thinking. It does strike me in that, I've made a pitch to you at the start of this podcast for thinking and dealing with complexity.

 

But sometimes thinking isn't particularly enlightening, so we all had a set of predictions about how the world would change after COVID, or the way things would go. Do you remember, for example, there was a period in which everyone said the authoritarian states were far better at dealing with this?

 

This was the kind of de rigueur idea, and that was certainly an anxiety or the things that we went after at the start. I mean, this massive. There was vaccine diplomacy, but there's also a real battle for ventilators as well, which turned out to be less useful in the kind of fight for COVID and sort of allies and partners.

 

Almost having punches up on runways, getting this kit as well. So it was so unprecedented that we sort of scrambled for a whole set of answers. But it was a kinda period of reflection and thinking as well. Because you're out of the spirit. I don't think sort of, there's any sort of massive insights to come out of it, to be honest with you.

 

I mean, I think there's probably two enduring nagging lessons. The first is that there are things that nation states have to do for themselves. Because when it comes to the crunch, international cooperation can get very fraught and limited when it comes to civilization of your citizens. So, there are sovereign capabilities you need.

 

And then the second is if you can't kind of hoard or have all those sovereign capabilities, you've got to make damn sure you have your place in the supply chain. Or that you provide something of use to others to trade and deliver. So there's something both the sort of narrow national lesson, which is get your act together very quickly, but a second one, recognizing there are no simple nation state answers to problems.

 

You've got to be able to react very quickly and offer something to partners and allies in a multilateral space. So those two things, and that's the kind of, to my mind, the big foreign policy lesson, that duality of those two things. Because the market wasn't gonna deliver everything you needed at that moment in time.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Was it a pain that we weren't able to find out exactly how it started early enough?

>> John Bew: Yeah, I mean, but also probably in government, the focus was so much on the response that people sort of kicked the question on origins a little bit down into the future as well.

 

And without any kind of obvious, immediate, clear answer, many theories and lots of analysis, it seemed better to focus our energies on making sure we responded so quickly. It was a fraught, a highly difficult period.

>> Andrew Roberts: Which brings us onto the blood sugar theory of history, what's that?

 

 

>> John Bew: Yeah, so just to reflect, Andrew, we talked a little bit before we came on the podcast about statecraft. And I said to you, one of the great things about statecraft, so I think it's a brilliant word for government. But our books, what do we write about? We write about statecraft, right?

 

So we write about literally, the craft of politics, the art of success, and we write about how individuals or groups of individuals or nations try and either navigate historical forces or channel historical forces.

>> Andrew Roberts: And you said that you didn't think that AI was gonna be able to muscle in on this.

 

 

>> John Bew: No, I think that that's prudence and wisdom, right? If I can do prudence and wisdom, I was talking to someone about-

>> Andrew Roberts: It clearly can't.

>> John Bew: Maybe it can day, I imagine that there's gonna be a hologram of Churchill we can ask questions like, would you have been pro the Brexit position?

 

And we know this is allowed a bit. Maybe there's two forms of AI as well, there's a version of that. So, prudence wisdom, historical reasoning, I think that's quite hard to teach. And my confirmation bias is that those are really valuable things in government. And it brings you, sometimes you feel helpless in the face of historical forces.

 

Sometimes, through sort of banging your head against the wall or different forms of leadership, you can kind of change the course of history. So I think, again, the UK's position on Ukraine, I think I'd had a genuinely galvanizing effect for a lot of circumstances. And then there's just the strong human element to it, and it's particularly visible in number ten.

 

There's periodic attempts to move people out of number 10 to sort of conference center, much more sort of modern office space attempts. Every time they do it, people rush back in within a couple of weeks as well. There's a tide goes out, and the tide comes back in.

 

Because the truth is, in politics, the human element, proximity, conversations that the Americans would say, water cooler, I'm not sure, or-

>> Andrew Roberts: Cup of tea.

>> John Bew: Cup of tea, those conversations actually really matter. And also, the human element, literally, the time of day in which decisions are made.

 

I'm really struck by that as well. So politicians get tired, they're sort of kicked around a bit on travel. The demand on a Prime Minister is immense, physical demand. The broad subject matter expert. So it leads me to kinda my sort of blood sugar theory of history. You can see when a Prime Minister is tired or a Foreign Secretary is tired, or a leader of another country, I can think of a number I don't wanna name them without causing a diplomatic incident.

 

Because their body clock is out, they're stressed, there's anxiety, and that affects decision making. Sometimes it improves decision making, gives you a sharpness and a clarity and you should reduce the thing. So I'd love to sort of hook people up and do this, there's these things people stick in their arms now for managed nutrition.

 

There's future historians will stick some sort of probe into future prime ministers and chart their decision making patterns against levels of blood sugar as well. So it's a simple way of saying that the art of politics is still an art, with a strong human dimension to it.

>> Andrew Roberts: Physical closeness is important, but how much did that irritate the Foreign Office, which is of course, across the street.

 

Did any of them say, who is this whippersnapper who's, who's much younger than us, who hasn't been in the foreign policy decision making arena and yet he's got the ear of the Prime Minister? Whereas I'm the permanent secretary, and it should be me.

>> John Bew: That's a great question.

 

So I'm pausing as I think about it. Look, everyone's incredibly nice. The advantage of number ten is that by and large people are nice and respectful and open. And I'll repeat it, our sort of, broad national security, diplomatic, military, state. I'm like Clement Atlee, applauding Patriot, and it is the privilege of my life to work with the people I've worked with across the piece and the professionalism and the excellence.

 

Maybe I'm comparing to academia, that's the problem, is very impressive. So, I have nothing but a kind of, positive experience of that. I also think there's something, if you're in our building and government, both people sort of want, they want direction and they want leadership. And then they're remarkably adaptive and respond to it very, very well.

 

So what we did on Ukraine, across the agencies, arms of states, there never felt there was a huge fraughtness across this. Obviously, there was debates about crucial critical issues. So my sort of broad experience is very good, not an easy period against the backdrop of Brexit and those different types of things.

 

I guess, sort of more frustrating thing after, and I made a vow not to do it myself, is that sometimes you turn on the radio in the morning. It's just kind of shoving a bowl of cereal down your face and trying to get your kids out for school.

 

And you hear sort of, former senior figures, often on the Today program in the morning, being sort of rather pious and properist about the complexities of politics. That was a kind of recurring frustration. But those in it are, by and large, to borrow often charge for it.

>> Andrew Roberts: So you're not gonna do that?

 

You're not going to be.

>> John Bew: Well, I said I wouldn't do it, but But I've had a a couple of questions, a couple of interviews about it. But yeah, and it is always deeply complicated, when you're in there and you're always, it's always half measures, it's always complex.

 

So people do get sensitive to that as well, but broad experiences, the state pulls together as a coherence. From externally, I think that sorta the view of the British national security state diplomatic services, military agencies actually is pretty good around the world, right. And we live in a democracy and people respond to their ministers.

 

So it might be grouchy for me to grumble, obviously if they ask some of the foreign office that may feel different.

>> Andrew Roberts: So there`s nothing major that you would change about the structure of how the UK conducts its foreign policy decision making?

>> John Bew: So there's small things I do, absolutely.

 

So I think because there's now an increased openness to external expertise and knowledge, but there's not often incentives to do that. So there's a couple of small things I do that I think would help. Here's one, I would institute a mandatory reading week or maybe two mandatory reading weeks, for sorta mid career national security officials.

 

Because the problem of not having it not being mandatory is if they had that week, they would sorta collapse at the end of the week, and want to go to the gym, and spend some time with their family if they weren't required in the office. But you do this sorta structural reading, I think people would be up for that.

 

There's got to be an incentivization to learn more.

>> Andrew Roberts: Apart from our books, what else would you make, what else?

>> John Bew: Only our books.

>> Andrew Roberts: Hey.

>> John Bew: No, so here's another point, the return of the essay is another feature of what I've seen in government, right, making sense about the world.

 

Sometimes government tries to mimic political science fashions. So you have acronyms for sorta concepts that sorta end up being sorta after a while, unserious. The famous one is the rules based international system, which is a thing in a certain form. As soon as people started calling it Arbus, I was thinking of some sorta rare bird meandering Iran and they'd sorta take the joy out of it.

 

In the period of contra insurgency, there was a sorta political science, and now history is back and history is in our face and the complexity of history and the way nations rise and fall. So more history, less pool say would be my pitch. But there are things you can do in that sense, and then there's a balance between generalism and expertise.

 

So I think in certain senior levels to be credible. I'm struck always when I go to the US, and I've got many close friends in around an administration, or potential different future administrations of different stripes. There's a premium on deep expertise on subject matter expertise. And I think there's a balance between competent generalism, which is a good attribute of the UK civil service, and then sometimes, expertise as well.

 

So sometimes the sorta the incentives structurally in whitehall are around how many people you manage, or what your scores are, in terms of happiness, and then all the things are matter. Morale matters, work, culture matters, but I mean, to my mind, expertise and knowledge has to be the most important thing, and I'd just try and elevate that up a little bit.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: You mentioned rise and fall of empires in some of our adversaries, I'm thinking in particular of China and Iran. They both believe that the west is declining, and that their time is coming. How can we either dissuade them of that, or how can we prevent it from happening if it is happening?

 

 

>> John Bew: So first thing to say is, I think it is an important insight, probably the most important insight from the life and career of Henry Kissinger. If you think about world order, world restored, or that that undergraduate thesis, the meaning of history. It's basically, you've got to understand how the others think of their place in the world, how they think of their own civilization.

 

How they think about the trajectory of their civilization, the clock on which they operate, often different than, than others as well, I think that's really important for China. You mentioned Iran as well, so the backdrop of Persian culture, understanding Russia and Russia's current position is not simply about sorta its legitimate or illegitimate security concerns, there's something else driving it.

 

There's history assays that Putin's written, and Ben Wallace famously responded to critiquing some of the ideas. So history again really matters in that process. How can we respond to it? So, obvious example is reaffirming, and strengthening and deepening our alliances. So I think that that whole linkage between the economic security, or economic relationships, or educative relationships ,or technological relationships, the depth, that's the whole point about AUKUS, right?

 

The depth of the alliance is really deep in the alliances, strengthen the alliances. But again, the answer to the west is declining, It's a complicated one, it's an issue, right. So if you'd taken the time, I went first into government more than five and a half years ago, the sort of simple narrative was China rise, US decline.

 

And there was a kind of cottage industry, and picking the year in which China would overtake the US economically over that period of time. And then COVID comes, and everyone says Western chaos, authoritarian genius over this period of time, that's been blown up primarily by US growth, the US has bounced back in terms of overall economic strength.

 

The challenge, I think, in the west more broadly, is that same picture doesn't apply to the other G7 countries. So the G7 share of global GDP is going down. The US share is pretty strong, and probably even going up in some respects. So, I think there's a broader allied question about how you sort of get growth going again, make sure that US partners, or US partners need to make sure for themselves are at the forefront of critical and emerging tools of national power and also the future economy.

 

And here's why we've gotta get much as you and I, Andrew may be kicking and screaming about AI going too far, we've gotta be really at the forefront of things like that as well. So it's competitiveness as well as robustness. And then the strategic challenge, the big one, is to be able to restore deterrence, not to return to a land where we all understand each other better.

 

But basically that would be nice if it happens and understanding is crucial in international politics, but be able to deter against people who are trying to rip up the system or challenge and threat.

>> Andrew Roberts: How important is history in understanding China's attitude towards Taiwan?

>> John Bew: Vital, isn't it, I mean, it's part of the national story, but in two ways.

 

The first way is the history of one China and the history of the story of the Chinese Communist party and broader Chinese civilization. The second is on the question of whatever happens thereafter. Everyone, when thinking about the Taiwan question and potential contingencies, is thinking through the lens of history, both recent Russia, Ukraine, the failure of deterrence there, or arguably in some respects, the holding of deterrence in other ways.

 

Everyone's thinking about those lessons of history, so both in terms of the sense of civilizational purpose and mission, the second is the lessons of history again, in which blood sugar comes in again, by the way, right? The ups and downs, domestic politics, that sorta complex picture. There's no easy answer for these questions, to state the bleeding obvious.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: If Russia seemed to have won in Ukraine, would that increase the danger to Taiwan.

>> John Bew: I think that's a view you hear in a lot of capitals, and interestingly, you hear them in a lot of capitals and places like the Indo-Pacific. It's something that Europeans say and are fond of saying those particularly, on the side of US.

 

And if we need your continuing support on the Ukraine portfolio, something Europeans say in Washington, but I'm really struck on recent travels and discussions. Just how much you hear it in the Indo-Pacific for people who are sort of, the situation is more consequential and immediate in terms of the challenge there.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Moving on to the Middle East, Sinwar died day before yesterday, but we all knew about it yesterday. Do you think this might be a new departure?

>> John Bew: So I just was reading overnight what Netanyahu said in response, which I think it was something like this is a significant moment in the beginning of the end of the war.

 

I think there's probably a scenario a number of months ago, where the removal of Sinwar from the scene may have led to sort of more abrupt end. I think the situation is different and more dynamic. And it's different and more dynamic because of the success that the Israelis have had, particularly, in dealing with Iranian proxy groups and primarily Hezbollah as well.

 

So the situation is different than previously, but the initial Netanyahu response is something significant here. But again, some of the major problems still remain, like the fate of hostages, the role of Hamas in Gaza thereafter. So I said, if watching those comments very carefully, it's the open question here as we're discussing with each other.

 

I don't think anyone who's sort of rushed to the idea, it means end of abrupt end of this chapter, I think is probably misbegotten.

>> Andrew Roberts: You've mentioned Brexit a couple of times, and at the time obviously, we Brexiteers. That is, did talk about the concept of global Britain.

 

Has Brexit damaged Britain internationally?

>> John Bew: No, but it was tricky to deal with. So you say we Brexiteers, I've always kept my cards, like myself yeah, yeah. No, no, I didn't mean you, I didn't mean you, therefore, I'm sorry. I've been described as Brexnostic, which I'm not sure what that means.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: I meant myself as personifying the nation and also obviously, your ex boss. In fact, first three of your prime ministerial ex bosses were supportive of Brexit.

>> John Bew: So there's nothing inevitable about anything in international affairs, and there's nothing inevitable at the fact that Brexit means X or Y.

 

I think that's important, and I've seen the way and how quickly things can change when different types of challenges come along, for example, in Ukraine. I'll come back to that in a moment, I did hear I think it was Alex Younger, former head of SIS, that said the other day is Brexit undoubtedly has damaged Britain standing the world.

 

And having been through some of those issues while doing the foreign policy, I've also involved in some of the elements of Brexit talks. Was it really fraught and difficult and did it cause a lot of sand in the gears of pretty critical relationships ultimately, with the French or in Brussels?

 

Yeah, unquestionably it was very, very difficult to navigate over a period of time. But again, you and I are historians, Andrew, whatever we are, and anything else and that's kind of a fact of life that partnerships. Rise and fall in fortune, and certainly, in the sort of back end of my involvement in government.

 

We'd actually reset a lot of those relationships as well, and then the kind of proof of the puddings in the eating, right? So I'm very cautious not to sort of overstate the UK role on Ukraine, and I was cautious in my response to you. But that having been said, I think the broader Western collective response, which I lionized and said had been really quite effective.

 

Even if I have criticisms here or there, and I'd like to see it be stronger and firmer still, would not have been possible if it wasn't for this unique fact of actually Brexit Britain. Boorish, Brexit Britain becoming momentarily in some people's eyes that this odd creature of the kinda moral conscience of Europe on this subject.

 

And so these European dynamics are quite significant, and then also, if you look at the sort of decisions that we're involved in. If you're saying America and we're here in California with a lot of senior national security figures. If you're an American, you're looking over the course of this administration, let's say you had not favorable view of Brexit at the start of the Biden administration.

 

If you look by the end of it, you look around the world, and you look at your allies and partners, you see in the UK. A country that is increasing in its investment in defense, that when the proverbial hits the fan in certain places is there and very active.

 

Take the Ukraine portfolio, there's a huge debate on Ukraine policy in the US, particularly, Ukraine portfolio. Take the UK's involvement in the defense of Israel on the first wave of the Iranian attacks and secondarily, involvement thereafter. Take the fact that it's only the US and the UK with a couple of other nations providing logistical support who are kinetically involved in responding to attacks by the Houthis.

 

As well, you'd see a pretty activist and also a country deepening ties in terms of AUKUS, etc., and is aligned with you willing to take pain on economic security. You'd look around and say, well, is that a diminished position? Or often by the end of a US administration, you look around as the Brits involved.

 

So from that perspective, significant.

>> Andrew Roberts: Would we have been first in Europe with the COVID vaccine if we'd been in the EU?

>> John Bew: You may know, but this is not my forte. But unquestionably, in the period of government, what we did with the COVID vaccine is a UK success.

 

Who knows, if we'd had a UK success as part of a European project, you might have been in the front and change the dynamics? It's a counterfactual which we've not yet played with. But unquestionably, you cannot doubt that's a significant success of the government, the vaccine rollout, challenging as hell as COVID public policy was.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: One of the reasons that the UK is able to speak with a voice that others will listen to is that, we are still a United Kingdom. You're obviously from Ulster, how is the union with Northern Ireland? Do you think in 50 years time the six counties will be united with the 726?

 

 

>> John Bew: Yeah, yeah, I do, and among the other things I've written about my other books actually. Andrew, the fourth and the fifth, which aren't besides to yours.

>> John Bew: Have been about the union in different forms, and challenging in periods in Irish and Northern Irish history. And that's given me the great pleasure of watching these sort of periodic academic intellectual class predictions of the decline of the union, right?

 

Both in Scotland and in Northern Ireland. And if you take the union, here's a good factoid, this is Robertsonian and its spirit, it's a bit of Robertsonian arithmetic. If you add up the United States of America and the European Union as two sort of entities, different forms of federal entity if you like, they've lasted less long than the United Kingdom and its entity.

 

So it's a pretty enduring form of state by any European Western international standards. And it's enduring because has built into it, a Burkean ability to evolve over that period of time. So when you read these things like Tom Nairn's 1977, The Break-Up of Britain. If you think about that difficult post Brexit period and the sort of surge of Scottish nationalism.

 

If you think about the challenge of dealing with the Northern Ireland question more recently, the sort of fundamentals of the union. Both in terms of levels of democratic support for it and also just the sort of fundamental facts. I once helped Boris Johnson write a piece in the Belfast Telegraph in which we describe the cranes of Holland and Wolff.

 

As sort of the gleaming steel facts of the union, Holland and Wolff is not doing so well now.

>> Andrew Roberts: I was about to say it's a slightly iffy fact.

>> John Bew: But it's been an iffy fact for a period of time and the government comes in. But basically I'm a believer in the stability of the union, right, but the union's got to keep on adapting, responding to this undulating change.

 

But there's a logic to the union that gives it a considerable degree of resilience. No one thought the Northern Irish State, which recently celebrated its centenary, would last that long. My God, it's the people in charge of it have done their best to screw it up in many periods of time.

 

So, yeah, I'm a really quite confident believer in the strengths of the union, but not a complacent one.

>> Andrew Roberts: Any more books in the pipeline?

>> John Bew: I have a book that I was contracted to write before I went into government with our shared editor, Stuart Proffitt. So I was working on that before I went into government, I was having a great time doing it before I got the tap on the shoulder.

 

And it was a book on the kind of rise and fall of Western world order, but I've just spent the last 45 minutes telling you that Western world order is in rude health. So I have to go back to the archives and adapt that but that's the book for which I'm contracted, I'm looking forward to getting back to.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Did you keep a diary when you're in number ten?

>> John Bew: You always asked me this, Andrew, so I didn't keep a diary, I mean, the people who kept diaries scribbling in the corner always regard with immense suspicion.

>> John Bew: But I did cuz I had your sort of the enforced guilt that you gave me when I went in about this on the back of my mind.

 

So I talked to HR McMaster yesterday about this, in the sense that what you do keep is your scheduler and you keep your sort of things to do list for the day. And actually, it's remarkable how much you remember, but the trick is I think, is before it all gets addled away.

 

And eaten away by a return to academic life is to probably sit down and just transcribe those thoughts a bit more, great anecdotes, great stories.

>> Andrew Roberts: You've got to do it immediately.

>> John Bew: Yeah, absolutely. Have to do it immediately, let's do it when we get off this podcast.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Put your book on hold and do this, now, talking about books, what history book or biography are you reading at the moment?

>> John Bew: So the biography that I picked up again and I very much admire is actually Fred Lodge's book on JFK. But the last book I was reading, this sounds remarkably pompous, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

 

My most recent trip to Ukraine I reread the Prince by Machiavelli on the way back. And my God, every time you read it, the sort of relevance to the types of things that we're interested in, statecraft really sort of hits you in the face. And particularly the forward, in which he says, in this sort of crouching position before the Prince.

 

I can't give you many gifts, my dear sir, but I can give you the gift of my years of learning and wisdom and historical research in a very potted form. And I can hand it over to you, that's a genius sort of position for the advisor to take.

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Maybe your first words as you entered number ten to Boris, weren't they?

>> John Bew: Actually, my first words were, you wrote a piece in the Telegraph in which you celebrated the wisdom of Boris Johnson for bringing in a fine young historian. I was young then and Boris Johnson, of course was an avid reader of the Daily Telegraph, which he used to write.

 

And walked past with a copy under his arm and said, professor, professor our good friend Andrew Roberts has just been very nice about you. So that's my first memory in number ten, I think I did write down that.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yeah, that's how you've got to start your diaries, tell me, what's your favorite counterfactual, your what if?

 

 

>> John Bew: So I thought about this a little bit and I heard you discuss sort of global affairs in this yesterday, but I'm gonna go for one that's gonna reflects the juncture between our two different bits of writing. And it's an Irish one, and it relates to your hero George III, can I describe him as your hero?

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Yeah, undoubtedly.

>> John Bew: Your hero George III and my hero Lord Castlereagh, Lord Castlereagh born in 1769. Six weeks apart from our other heroes, Wellington Napoleon in that head, what was in the water that summer?

>> Andrew Roberts: And I think Ney as well, maybe Salt.

>> John Bew: Okay, it was a happiest summer of 69.

 

As they think about it, so Castlereagh has just put down the rebellion in Ireland, including in very dramatic scenes. I say this, if any screenwriters are listening, it's a remarkable story, locking up people that voted for his and his father. And their local constituency, fellow supporters of the American Revolution and the volunteer movement.

 

But he's been part of the suppression of the Irish rebellion and he's part of the abolition of the Irish Parliament, which is a kind of great crime against historic nationalism. But actually the whole point about the Irish Parliament that Castlereagh is trying to abolish because Ireland is unruly.

 

Ireland is a weakness to the British state, Ireland is the Achilles heel because the French at any stage can land on it. Even in their revolutionary form and encourage a revolution or even in the Napoleonic form and encourage a kind of anti-British movement to kind of foresight British control of Ireland.

 

So Castlereagh says there's a problem, and the problem is actually partially the Irish landed Parliament. And he wants to get rid of the Irish landed Parliament because a third of the British army in this period of time is Catholic Irish over this period of time. And his argument for the union in getting rid of the Irish Parliament is that this is the best means to deliver Catholic emancipation, full voting rights for Catholics in Ireland.

 

So basically he sees this as a marriage of heart and head between England and Ireland to allow for a greater plurality of religions and views. So if you have Catholic emancipation on its own in Ireland, it's too revolutionary because the landed aristocracy are completely knocked out. Then Catholicism becomes the religion of the state, but if you do it in the United Kingdom, you can have tolerance and liberty.

 

And he's doing it for security reasons, he's a hawk, he's worried about European politics, he thinks Ireland's vulnerable, Andrew, who stops him?

>> Andrew Roberts: George III stops him because he reckons that it is completely contrary to the coronation oath, and if you read the coronation oath he is right.

 

But I can't believe that they weren't able to alter the coronation oath, that somehow the Parliament couldn't have retrospectively change the coronation oath. But George III was a tremendous stickler for things like oaths and promises, essentially this promise both to God and to the people, and so he wasn't going to allow that.

 

 

>> John Bew: So what happens thereafter is that Catholic emancipation eventually comes by 1829. So Castlereagh fails to deliver his part of the promise, this great reconciliation.

>> Andrew Roberts: He's committed suicide by then. He's committed suicide by then. And you've got a new king who does pass it.

>> John Bew: And Wellington is the Prime Minister at that crucial moment in time with great reluctance, so it's done grudgingly and at force.

 

And after mass mobilization of Catholic Nationalist Ireland and you have a unity that used to be the Presbyterians used to be the radical anti British force in the 1790s. And then you have this sense of Irish Catholic nationalism, so these great Anglo Irish writers thereafter described the Union as something that in Castlereagh's head was supposed to be heart and head.

 

But because of George III, ended up becoming sort of an unpleasant forced marriage and which was never truly consummated. And I guess my what if is whether or not that the union had been accompanied by Catholic emancipation. Would the history of Ireland and Britain in the 19th and 20th century have been a happier one?

 

 

>> Andrew Roberts: I think undoubtedly it would have been, yeah. John Bew, the foreign policy advisor for four prime ministers. Who's now thinking deeply about urgent security choices here at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, thank you very much for coming on Secrets of Statecraft.

>> John Bew: Thank you, Andrew.

>> Andrew Roberts: Thank you, John, my next guest on Secrets of Statecraft will be Radek Sikorski, the Foreign Minister of Poland.

 

 

>> Presenter: This podcast is a production of the Hoover Institution, where we generate and promote ideas advancing freedom. For more information about our work, to hear more of our podcasts or view our video content, please visit hoover.org.