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An argument for a new approach to foreign policy in the United Kingdom.

What should the future of British foreign policy look like? For too long, successive governments have shied away from acknowledging uncomfortable truths about the decline of Britain’s military capabilities. As we approach the middle years of the twenty-first century, a new set of urgent and daunting challenges lie ahead, including climate change, technological development, the rise of AI, and a growing threat from China. The need for us to reconcile ourselves with our position in the world has never been more acute. In Beyond Britannia: Reshaping UK Foreign Policy, Simon McDonald persuasively argues that the United Kingdom’s significant soft-power strengths can be harnessed to expand its international influence. Such a shift will only be possible, he says, if we first acknowledge the challenges of Brexit and the need to reduce our unrealistic hard-power ambitions. Excellence in areas that other countries care about will keep the United Kingdom internationally relevant in the second half of the century in a way that nostalgia for a lost pre-eminence will not.
 

An argument for a new approach to foreign policy in the United Kingdom.

What should the future of British foreign policy look like? For too long, successive governments have shied away from acknowledging uncomfortable truths about the decline of Britain’s military capabilities. As we approach the middle years of the twenty-first century, a new set of urgent and daunting challenges lie ahead, including climate change, technological development, the rise of AI, and a growing threat from China. The need for us to reconcile ourselves with our position in the world has never been more acute. In Beyond Britannia: Reshaping UK Foreign Policy, Simon McDonald persuasively argues that the United Kingdom’s significant soft-power strengths can be harnessed to expand its international influence. Such a shift will only be possible, he says, if we first acknowledge the challenges of Brexit and the need to reduce our unrealistic hard-power ambitions. Excellence in areas that other countries care about will keep the United Kingdom internationally relevant in the second half of the century in a way that nostalgia for a lost pre-eminence will not.
 

A British diplomat shares lessons on leadership gained over his expansive career. 

Simon McDonald argues that we should reflect on the nature and strategies of leadership before entering a leadership role, and we should look to examples of others to help us in shaping our own approaches.

Over nearly four decades in Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service, McDonald worked for four permanent under-secretaries and a dozen senior ambassadors before becoming a permanent under-secretary himself and leading the Service—which has over 14,000 staff members in 270 countries—for five years. He also worked directly for six foreign secretaries and under five prime ministers. Observing these people undertaking such important and difficult work, McDonald saw the behaviors which helped them achieve their objectives, as well as those which hindered them.

In this book, McDonald synthesizes the skills he’s learned through his many years working in diplomacy, offering an insightful contribution amid heightening debates over the leadership of the United Kingdom. Considering the future of British leadership, he makes a case for the reform of the monarchy, the cabinet, civil service, and, in particular, the House of Lords, of which he has been a member since 2021.
 

Special investigates the unique, but increasingly weak, relationship between the US and UK and contemplates how it might develop in the future.  

Many relationships in international affairs are singular, but the United Kingdom’s relationship with the United States has always been different. For a time, what Churchill dubbed the "special" relationship had consequences far beyond the borders of the two countries—a closeness that has provoked envy, curiosity, and bewilderment.

In this new volume, Simon McDonald takes stock of this special relationship and speculates about its future. Starting with its sixteenth-century origins, he takes a longer look at the twentieth century and the two nations' relationship today, before looking forward at how, and if, it may develop in the coming centuries. Just how important are ties in defense, intelligence, language, and culture? What can we make of the United States’s ambivalent relationship with the Royal Family? Has the US ever acted benevolently towards the UK, or has it always taken decisions in its own interest? 

Today, the relationship is weaker than Churchill, Thatcher, or even Blair understood it; much that made it special belongs to a rapidly receding past. Though it can no longer be claimed that the relationship is central to international relations, McDonald asks if recent events represent a temporary cooling of what remains a vital relationship to the UK and an important one to the US; or a rift that will only grow wider.