Thread by @JohnOBrennan2

Anybody interested in international relations should read the diaries of Ivan Maisky, Soviet Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, 1932-43. They seem particularly relevant again as the UK exits the EU today. (A short thread) 1/

Despite the vast ideological gap between Maisky & his British interlocutors, he was a superlative diplomat & managed to pull off an unbelievable balancing act in the 1930s. He played roulette with Stalin’s purges and threw all his energy into developing a UK-USSR-FR alliance. 2/

Maisky could see the existential threat that was Nazi Germany and did everything possible to bring London and Moscow together. The current of appeasement made his job vastly more difficult. But he persevered. 3/

How is this relevant to Brexit? Because Maisky’s diaries open up a window into the world which pre-dated the European Union, a world of ‘hard power’, shifting diplomatic alliances, the complete breakdown of collective security on the back of Fascist aggression&League weakness. 4/

One could well make same argument about the pre-1914 period in Europe, when the giant tectonic plates of rival alliances co-existed in nervous tension & eventually collided in enormously destructive conflict. The absence of a ‘Leviathan’ is of course the common denominator. 5/

Maisky (& Churchill) spent an enormous amount of time and energy trying to bridge the diplomatic gap. Mutual suspicion rather than mutual trust is the hallmark of this model of international relations (especially amongst the Great powers).
The EU turned that model on its head. 6/

The EU model is, for some, a kind of ‘post-historical’ model of international relations. It constitutes a ‘Leviathan’ for the member states and its internal arc bends toward trust and mutual cooperation rather than suspicion and paranoia. 7/

In leaving the EU, the UK has opted to depart that ‘post-historical’ world of cooperative transnational relationship. It does so at a time when the flourishing of so-called ‘strongman’ regimes (Russia, US, China, Turkey) suggests the world may be headed ‘back to the future’ 7/

By this I mean that the pendulum of international relations may have swung decisively away from EU-style pluralist internationalism and rules-based international organization and back to a depressingly familiar, some would say cyclical, pattern of the Great Powers chessboard. 8/

It is difficult to say where the UK will settle in this new/old order. For one thing, the relationship with US makes this unpredictable. What if a re-elected Trump opts to take the US out of NATO?
The UK would face some fundamental questions about its global positioning. 10/

The European Union would similarly face a new crisis. If free-riding on the back of the American security order is over, can or should the EU gravitate towards a ‘harder’ form of security union? Pres. Macron has opened a discussion about European security and it is divisive. 11/

France and Germany are clearly divided on how ‘deep’ a future EU security and defence capacity might go. Neutral states like Ireland are discomfited by the apparent direction of travel. Nobody much wants to increase defence spending with so many other demands on budgets. 12/

So maybe the EU will be forced to re-visit that Robert Kagan nostrum: that, in matters of internl. security, ‘Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus’. Are Europeans destined to become (again) Martians?
Or will the model of so-called EU ‘normative power’ survive? 13/

History suggests that, absent the kind of intense, institutionalised forms of cooperation inherent in the EU model, it will be v diff for the EU-UK to remain partners in internl security. The default British historical posture was to try&balance the Great continental powers. 14/

Even if there is sufficient goodwill in both EU/UK, will be v diff to prevent drift. The UK will be busy trying to find a new role in the intnl order while the EU grapples with the challenge of evolving into the kind of security order that can contain adversary powers. 15/

So, finally back to the wise Ambassador Maisky.
He failed spectacularly in his mission for long periods with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact being perhaps the lowest point in his tenure. But for the USSR that ‘deal’ came about because of realist necessity. 16/

The challenge for the EU and UK is to hold each other close, but to do so outside of the dense structures of multilateral, rules-based order which has characterized the European model for 7 decades. Without the Leviathan it is an almost impossible task.
ENDS.
17/