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Hello, and welcome to Humanities Matter, brought to you by Brill. I am Emily Tankin, and this week we will be looking at key issues in the field of humanities. No, today I am speaking with Giles Scott Smith. He is a professor of diplomatic history at Leiden.
And Dr. Scott Smith is one of the co-editors of Diplomatica, which is on a new journal on diplomacy. The journal covers a truly wide range of subjects, history, social science, past and present. But one subject to which it devotes a few articles is Brexit, which is obviously a- well, it's fascinating for many reasons, but certainly the diplomatic implications are one sort of compelling thing about it.
So Dr. Scott, if we could start out looking specifically at Brexit, do you think that for the United Kingdom and the European Union, if Britain leaves the EU, you know, so much about this has seemed undiplomatic, right, from tweets from European leaders to the new prime minister of Boris Johnson sort of, you know, Bruce went to demand a better deal, can diplomacy sort of help show help maintain civility between Britain and the European Union? Absolutely. And I sincerely hope it will.
I mean, I think Boris Johnson now, of course, is assembling his cabinet. To be honest, at this moment in time, I don't know if Jeremy Hunt will continue as foreign minister or if someone else will be selected. But clearly taking Britain forward as we look towards a situation where a deal is imminent. I think diplomacy is going to be increasingly important.
I mean, we know that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has increased its personnel around capitals within the EU. A definite sign that everyone knows that a deal does not mean the end of complexity and the end of problems quite the opposite. It's going to mean all hands on deck to make whatever this deal might be actually function. So I think diplomacy is actually going to increase in importance in the coming, especially the coming couple of years, where we are in completely unknown territory.
This is the first time a nation is left at EU. And it's quite clear from both sides, whatever the rhetoric and whatever, sometimes the overheated language that is used, neither side can do without the other. They both have to work closely together for their mutual benefit and diplomacy is going to be crucial for that. I'd like to ask you specifically about some of these articles.
The first that caught my eye is by Andes and I'm saying that correctly. Yes, that's right. So Andes writes that EU is is terror in Canada for diplomats. Can you explain a bit what that means?
Yes. So what Andes is writing about here is the fact that basically no country has left the EU. The EU has gone through a whole process of enlargement since 1973. And that the whole process of disentangling a nation state from a very complex set of institutions and regulations has never been done before.
So there's no diplomatic experience in leading a clear path through that process. And that's really what what her terror incra-mitre comment is all about. And we're certainly not there yet. I mean, it's we still don't know what's going to happen.
This has been the story of the last three years. So yet, as related to the previous comment, diplomacy is going to become more and more important. And I would like to add one thing very important about this is that there can sometimes be a sense that Britain has never been in the EU as if the impact of being in the European institutions since 1973 has had absolutely no impact whatsoever on British opinion. Now, I think it's important to realise that there's a separation here between the body politic of Britain and the diplomacy of Britain.
In the body politic of Britain, it's quite clear over the last decade or so, certainly since the Black Brown government, so the 1930s, 2000s, is that there's almost no political capital to be gained from being pro-European Union. And this is really a sad reflection on British politics, but it's true. So this is escalated and escalated to the UK, Brexit, party, et cetera. On the diplomacy side, there you do have a crowd who have worked within Europe over many, many years.
They've probably circled around different departments in foreign office, been appointed to different embassies around Europe. They know a tremendous amount about it. Those people are largely behind the scenes. They're going to be increasingly important as Britain does move into a post-EU phase.
And there's no sense, I think, amongst that crowd of an increasing anti-EU sentiment is quite the opposite. So I think the two elements of what Britain is and where it's going to go are going to be increasingly important. Well, one way in which that might be true, because I agree with you, we haven't really heard from the diplomats in part by design, in part because this has been so guided by politics. But one way in which we're going to need to see where we may see disentangling, we may not, is between the EU and NATO, right?
The EU, obviously, there's some talk about building up European defense, but so much of that has been left to NATO and by extension of the United States. There are British diplomats who come to Washington and say, you know, without the United Kingdom and the United States, some like tiny percentage is paid for, a percent, a defensive paper by the EU, right? So how, and this is also addressed in the journal, but I was hoping that you could speak a bit about Brexit's impact on the EU-NATO relationship. Yeah, that's a very big one.
And I think you're absolutely right that Britain has occupied a very important position, one might say, the Atlantic Bridge, the closest partner to the United States over many years, and at the same time, the partner within the EU without, within the EU, without whom no credible European defense infrastructure or capability can be built. So, and Britain has been very careful in maintaining both paths to make sure that it doesn't clash, that its EU interests don't clash with its NATO interests. I think at the end of the day, NATO has always been primary for the UK. Obviously, the special relationship, so a gold special relationship, maybe we should say these days with the US has been fundamental, and that the Britain has always been very careful not to push European integration in defence and security affairs in a way that would conflict with its NATO commitments.
What we're seeing now is with Brexit looming, is how Britain is going to try and continue that key central role. And that really comes down to the kind of agreements they're going to be made in terms of information sharing, joint projects, to what extent the EU is willing to keep its close relationship with Britain. And there have been signs that there could be more of a stronger break than those in Britain were anticipating. The Galileo satellite, excluding Britain in the future, was something of a surprise from the British perspective.
So it could be that in the medium to long agenda that NATO actually takes on a greater importance for Britain, having said that, Britain can't afford on a whole array of security issues. It can't afford a great deal. There's no way. So, yeah, there's going to have to be some serious negotiations there.
Well, the other side of that, right, is that there have been some British politics who have said, well, we'll break with the EU, but we're going to get closer to the, even closer to the United States. As you said, the closest partner in the EU, to the United States, is the UK. But that, and this is also addressed in the journal, we've really seen that tested over the past three years, right? So, you know, there's been talk about this UK trade deal.
I don't know if watching other trade negotiations with the United States and the Trump administration, that still has appealing to the people who sort of touted it in the first place. You know, there's certainly Trump's tweets about Theresa May, speaking about going, you know, speaking about things that are maybe not so diplomatic. It's been sort of tested, a special relationship. How do you see Brexit as playing into this or as impacting your rather?
Will, you know, will tomorrow from the low, actually the special relationship be even more special? Or are we going to see a bend if not break under the pressure of Brexit? Yes, I mean, there are certainly elements in the current Conservative Party who would be delighted if Brexit could be turned into a closer US-UK alliance. I mean, there's always been a right wing of the Tory Party who, in regard to, you know, the Anglo-American alliance is not simply security, but we get a cultural ties language that they both share a century-long purpose in maintaining global order, that when it comes down to it, they're the only powers who are prepared to back up that global order.
And I think there was definitely a sense among some of that crowd that, yeah, this is the moment. This is, you know, no more baggage from the EU. Now we can finally kind of create the kind of Anglo-American alliance that we're always destined to have. And I think they are heading for a very, very cold shower.
I do fear that, as you say, the initial signs under Theresa May was that Trump has no particular love for the European Union, but neither, he's got no patience with all respects. And he simply didn't understand, didn't want to know about the complexities of the Brexit negotiations, didn't understand the pressures that Theresa May was under to try and get some kind of deal, not only in Brussels, but through Westminster as well, and had no sympathy when that failed. Now, is that going to change with Boris Johnson? Well, yes, the Twitter feeds tell us that there might be some hope that these two people seem to regard each other with a certain amount of respect, and that maybe Boris Johnson is going to push the right buttons in terms of saying, OK, hard Brexit and then onward into a global Britain, that is exactly what the Trump and the Trump administration might be in a might warm to.
At the same time, yeah, I mean, the Trump administration, it's America-furnished. It's any deal that they strike. He's going to be to the benefit of the United States. There is no sentiment there of a special relationship.
I really don't think so. And I think the foundations that the right wing of the Tory party would love now to realize in terms of Anglo-American relations, I don't think are reciprocated on the other side in Washington. So it's going to be it's going to be hard-nosed interests, only type negotiation. And they'll put a lot of well-meaning rhetoric on top.
But yeah, I would be very realistic, slash pessimistic about what the outcome will be. On that, and before I let you go, I think there are some who would look at, you know, we have Trump, there's Boris Johnson, there's Brexit in Brexit, and sort of diplomacy is behind us in this. Brexit is not dramatic, and neither are the leaders. And diplomacy is that sort of the last decade's song, right?
But listening to you today, it sounds like really the role of, I mean, correct me if I'm misinterpreting, but it sounds like this is where you need diplomacy and you need diplomats to come in and do hard day-to-day work that will sort of see these different countries and partners through why First Lands might look like a deeply undiplomatic kind. Yeah, I would fundamentally agree with that. I think the danger now is we move into an increasing era of political nationalist populism. Short-termism, the inward-lookingness, the sense that the international or the global is only a threat and only an arena where you can lose or win rather than building long-term relationships.
I think all of that is fundamentally clashing with the purpose of diplomacy itself, which is to try and keep this disparate, varied, often antagonistic global relations states together in some kind of ragtag of norms and regulations and institutions that mean we can all work together. And if you take that diplomacy out, yeah, the system would really grant to a halt and then we'd really know what the value of diplomacy truly is. So I think, yes, when we've been discussing Brexit, we've been discussing a whole new era of transatlantic relations, intra-European relations, and we still don't know what the outcome is going to be. And I think in this era, surprisingly enough, I think diplomacy is going to be more and more important.
It may often be put to one side and regarded as just simply per se and something that gentlemen in old school ties and gentlemen's clubs would be part of. But basically, we need those people and we may not always hear about what they're up to, but I think a lot of it is trying to keep this quite crazy diverse world together and good luck to them from my opinion. I've been speaking with Giles Scott Smith, a professor of diplomatic history at Leiden and co-editor of the New Journal on Diplomacy called the Blackout. Dr.
Scott Smith, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you very much. It was my pleasure. The article we discussed today is really accessible for a limited time in the Journal of Diplomatica.