26 February 2020updated 09 Sep 2021 3:54pm

How British foreign policy lost the art of grand strategy

As the UK emerges blinking into an uncertain post-Brexit dawn, what is its role in the world?

15th September 1947: The 'ops' room at the secret operational headquarters at Uxbridge RAF station, from where the Battle of Britain was conducted, is now the control centre for the fly past for Battle of Britain week. (Photo by Fred Morley/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

In February 1960 the British cabinet secretary, Sir Norman Brook, sent the prime minister, Harold Macmillan, a densely argued 50-page document. This, the Future Policy Study 1960-70, was the result of eight months’ work by senior civil servants and military commanders, and set the standard for assessing the UK’s role in the world.

Having spent 40 years as a senior diplomat and ambassador for the British Foreign Office, I am sceptical about the capacity of modern governments to produce grand strategy, such as that seen in the 1960 study, amid the maelstrom of contemporary politics and the new media.