Look around the Western world. Which country’s politics seem the most shambolic? In the past, your eyes might have headed instinctively toward southern Europe. The politicians in Athens, Madrid and Rome are certainly trying hard, but if you want dysfunctionality, there are only two places to go: Washington and London.
America’s government was shut for a long stretch of this year — and now President Donald Trump is stuck in a row with Congress over whether there is a national emergency on the southern border of the United States. Britain’s government is meandering toward Brexit with all the discipline of a drunk on an icy road. If nothing changes, the United Kingdom will topple out of the European Union in five weeks.
Is this the end of “the Anglosphere”? For nearly four decades, America and Britain have touted the benefits of open markets, globalization and personal freedom. Now that voice has either shrunk to a murmur, or is singing a very different tune. It is not silent yet, but the faltering partnership that has set the mood music for much of the world is something that matters far beyond the English-speaking world. You may not like pontificating Anglos, but everybody who cares about liberty and the rule of law should pray for them to be heard.
By “Anglosphere,” this pontificating Anglo means something narrower than the fifth of the world that speaks English; this is about the US and Britain. And yet it’s a definition that is also meant to encompass something much more powerful and evangelical than the tweedy “special relationship.”
A half-century ago, Britain was certainly America’s closest ally, with strong historical, military and personal ties and a shared aversion to communism and the Soviet Union. Still, it was hardly evangelical. In the 1970s, Britain was both farther left and far less successful than America; not that the United States, limping through Vietnam and Watergate, looked especially inspirational either.
All this changed in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The Anglosphere broadcast a message that handbagged the world: Words like “privatization” and “deregulation” became commonplace, first in the West and then in the emerging and ex-communist realms. As Victor Hugo once pointed out, “Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come,” and globalization jumped forward, driven by technology as well as ideology. Tony Blair and Bill Clinton; Blair and George W. Bush; David Cameron and Barack Obama — a succession of youngish prophets walked the world, telling people what to do, with various degrees of smugness.
Again the United States was the bigger and more influential partner; Britain’s economy is smaller than California’s and its total defense budget is less than half the size of the US Navy’s. But the fact that America had a partner that spoke the same language (on many different levels) made the alliance greater than the sum of its parts. Britain gave the Anglosphere a voice in the European Union. Britain also brought a lot of soft power. It came to the table with an unusually global media, Oxbridge, and, of course, London, a commercial entrepôt rivaling New York in finance and cosmopolitanism.
Gradually, the Anglosphere became a presumption. Some countries hated its message; many more wanted to adapt it to their needs, or delay it. Nevertheless, the presumption, even in places as hostile to it as Brussels and Beijing, was a grudging acceptance that most countries, if they wanted to do well, would have to become more Anglo.
Looking back, this presumption was more vulnerable than anyone realized. Although the Sept. 11 attacks initially united the world behind the Anglosphere, the idea that Britain and America were on the right side of history was brutally questioned by the bloody quagmire in Iraq, the illiberal horrors of Guantanamo, and then the credit crunch. What’s more, as China continued to rise, a rival trumpet began to sound that was especially attractive to governments across the emerging world: The “Beijing consensus” promoted the idea that authoritarianism was a better spur for prosperity than “chaotic” laissez faire.
The hope is that the Anglosphere will recover. If a recovery is to happen, it has to happen soon. History does not wait for dysfunctional countries to sort themselves out. An idea whose time has come can soon become one whose time has passed. The Anglosphere changed the world for lots of reasons, but one was because it had sustained momentum. Let’s hope it recovers it soon.
Bloomberg View
