Lord (kim) Darroch speaking at a JLA Speakers Breakfast event.I spent forty-five years in the British Diplomatic Service: four decades of rich experiences and extraordinary memories. To pick out some highlights, I recall accompanying David Cameron on a pre-Christmas trip to see our troops in Afghanistan. We visited an isolated British contingent holed up in a “Forward Operating Base”; in reality a fort in the middle of the Helmand desert. As night fell, the soldiers gathered for a carol concert, and the songs which ring out across every village green and town square over the Christmas period floated up into a clear, chilly and star-studded Afghan sky.
And there were other moments, both dark and light. I headed the Balkans Department of the FCO during the break-up of Yugoslavia, and visited Sarajevo while it was under siege from the Bosnian Serbs, and by contrast, Kosovo after NATO had forced the Serbs to pull out. I went to Libya several times after the fall of Gadaffi, seeing at first hand its collapse into civil war. I went to Gaza while it was still a metropolis rather than a wasteland. I worked for two Prime Ministers, Europe Adviser to Tony Blair and National Security Adviser to David Cameron, and travelled with them so I was “in the room” for an Oval Office meeting with President Obama, a private dinner in Beijing with President Xi of China, and a lunch with Vladimir Putin in his summer residence on the shores of the Black Sea. And I attended forty-three European Councils in succession -to be honest, only a few of them memorable, and nowadays blending themselves in my mind into one long sleepless night.
But across all of these years, I cannot remember ever feeling as uncertain or concerned about the state of the world as I do now. We are more than 1,000 days into a war in Europe which has left close to a million and a half killed and wounded and caused the destruction of thousands of homes and countless lives. The Middle East remains locked in a cycle of violence, with an almost totally destroyed Gaza at the epicentre, a continuing Israeli military operation, intermittent and inadequate food and medical supplies to a beleaguered Palestinian population, and no lasting solution in sight. The United States has joined Israel in bombing Iran; time will tell whether their joint claims of the comprehensive and complete obliteration of the Iranian nuclear programme are accurate.
Meanwhile, the great International institutions of the post-war era, led by the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation, have never been weaker or more ineffective. The days of the great global trade liberalisation agreements are long gone, with protectionism now on the rise. And we are seeing an increasingly assertive China building links with the developing world and constructing alternative international structures: the Chinese leadership believe this century belongs to them.
And then there is Donald Trump. I met him several times and studied him closely while I was British Ambassador to the United States from 2016-2019. He is unique; for better or worse, a once-in-a-generation figure and a force of nature. I personally disagree with much of his agenda, but I have to recognise his extraordinary trajectory – despite never having run for any public office previously, he has won the most powerful office on earth not once but twice. And his second victory was the more dominant; he won a popular majority, indeed did better in every demographic and every state than in 2016.
So Trump now has a team of committed loyalists around him, Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress, and a rightward-leaning Supreme Court. This is Trump Unleashed, a man in a hurry, backed by a large and intensely loyal political base. And in his tumultuous first seven months, we have seen him disrupt to breaking point the world trade system, attack revered American institutions, castigate America’s allies for their inadequate defence efforts, and launch so far unsuccessful attempts to broker peace deals in Ukraine and Gaza. This is, moreover, just the start: there are many more shocks to come over the next three-and-a-half years.
Meanwhile, having left the Diplomatic Service, I sit on the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee; and I talk about geopolitics, the state of the world, with a particular focus on American politics and the current President, to whoever is interested. And here’s the thing: levels of interest are so much higher than I would ever have anticipated, and as the Q &A sessions demonstrate every time, people are so well informed. So there is one unexpected positive out of these uncertain times: who knew foreign policy would become so universally absorbing.
Lord (Kim) Darroch KCMG
Former British Ambassador to the United States, and to the EU
With over four decades of experience at the highest levels of diplomacy, largely centred on national security and European affairs, Lord Darroch has stepped back from frontline service but remains an astute observer of transatlantic relations and the shifting tides of global geopolitics, from trade and defence to democratic stability.
As a keynote speaker, Lord Darroch brings sharp insight, first-hand experience, and a rare candour that offers audiences a compelling perspective on the challenges shaping our world today.
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