Statecraft
Lady Thatcher, a unique figure in global politics, shares her views about the dangers and opportunities of the new millennium.Lady Thatcher's previous books on her political career have been bestsellers, The Downing Street Years went to No.1. She is a unique world figure and this book, containing her views about the dangers and opportunities of the new millennium, will attract great interest both in Britain and around the world.In her own words:"I wanted to write one more book – and I wanted it to be about the future. In this age of spin-doctors and sound bites, the ever present danger is that leaders will follow fashion and not their instincts and beliefs. That was not how the West won the Cold War, not how we created the basis for today's freedom and prosperity. If we wish to make our achievements secure for our children and grandchildren, the West must stay vigilant and strong. In this book it will be my purpose to show that it can – and must- be done.”
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William Collins
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2002
Copyright © Margaret Thatcher 2002
Maps and graphics by Peter Harper
Margaret Thatcher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007150649
Ebook Edition © MAY 2017 ISBN: 9780008264048
Version: 2017-06-01
Contents
6. Rogues, Religions and Terrorism
9. Europe – Dreams and Nightmares
10. Britain and Europe – Time to Renegotiate
At Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale, California, March 1991. (Personal collection)
Receiving an honorary doctorate at Brigham Young University, Utah, March 1996. (Personal collection)
At the launch of Ever Result at the Mitsubishi shipyard in Kobe, October 1994. (Personal collection)
With Jiang Zemin in Beijing, September 1991. (Personal collection)
Being met by Li Peng, Beijing, September 1991. (Personal collection)
Meeting Lee Teng Hui, Taipei, September 1992. (Courtesy Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan)
Graffiti in Kuwait City, November 1991. (Personal collection)
Talks with Yitzhak Rabin, Israel, November 1992. (Personal collection)
Visiting Vukovar hospital, September 1998. (Personal collection)
For as long as there have been states, there has been discussion of statecraft or statesmanship.* The emphasis has changed over the centuries, as ideas of the state itself have changed – from the Greek city-state (or polis) with its narrow (and naturally all-male) citizenship; to the vastness of the Roman Empire with its enthronement of law; to the idealised, if not always idealistic, rulers of medieval Christendom; to the rumbustious politics of Renaissance Italy, home to Machiavelli’s Prince; to the absolute monarchies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the ages of Richelieu and Frederick the Great; to the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleon, the clashing European empires, and the competing nationalisms of the nineteenth century; and to the democratic concepts and the welfare state of the twentieth century. To plot the course of statecraft over so long a period would require skills that I, for one, do not possess.† Yet just the sense of so much history lying behind the tasks and goals of statesmen today is sobering and provides perspective.
The early twenty-first century also has its distinctive features that govern the nature of statecraft now. These can conveniently, if not altogether satisfactorily, be summed up by the expression ‘globalism’. In the course of the rest of this book I shall examine, test and explore the realities behind that term in its application to strategy, international interventions, justice and economics. And I shall do this for different countries and continents.
I must start, though, with the state itself. If you were to heed some commentators you would believe that globalisation spells the end of the state as we have known it over the centuries. But they are wrong: it does not. What it actually does is to prevent – in some degree – the state from doing things which it should never have been doing in the first place. And that is something rather different.
A world of mobile capital, of international integration of markets, of instant communication, of information available to all at the click of a mouse, and of (fairly) open borders, is certainly a long way from that world favoured by statists, of whatever political colour, in the past. It is nowadays, as a result, more difficult for governments to misrule their peoples and mismanage their resources without quickly running into problems. Unfortunately, though, it is still not impossible. Many African governments get away with kleptocracy. Several Asian governments get away with disrespect for fundamental human rights. Most European governments get away with high taxation and over-regulation. Bad policies inflict damage on those who practise them, as well as those on whose behalf they are practised, but bad government is still eminently possible.
