WHAT WILL BE THE GUIDING world view of Liz Truss, Britain’s new Prime Minister? At the time of writing, her time as Foreign Secretary notwithstanding, we don’t know. Aides have, though, briefed that her approach to foreign policy will be “geo-liberalism”. “She divides the world into friends and enemies of liberty,” is the early report. The Truss doctrine, then, echoes the Bush doctrine. If tried, it will likely to suffer a similar fate.
Various specific parts have been sketched out: a “Network of Liberty” of democratic nations; more AUKUS deals; a hawkish line against China and Russia; sanctions and weapons for Ukraine; and a UK-US Free Trade Agreement. Each raises far-reaching questions. A network of liberty at the price of what valued things? More AUKUS deals, but with what industrial policy (a necessity at odds with Truss’s history of laissez-faire economic views)? A hawkish line against Moscow and Beijing, but to what end? With what division of labour with allies? Will it be a two-hemisphere strategy with a one-hemisphere navy?
Will there be sanctions and weapons for Ukraine in the service of any goals Kyiv lays down, or are there conditions and limits, and with what rationale? A US-UK trade agreement would be welcome, but given the imbalance of
