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'Tony's war'? Blair, Kosovo and the interventionist impulse in…
'Tony's war'? Blair, Kosovo and the interventionist impulse in British foreign policy (Daddow 2009)
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the officially sanctioned conventional wisdom that the Kosovo intervention was born out of the moral purpose we see guiding Blair’s ‘doctrine of the international community’ speech in April 1999 is
contrasted with what I call a revisionist interpretation which sees Blair’s foreign policy as inextricably linked to developments in British politics at that time.
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Blair after Kosovo- Media management, confidence in leadership, decision making style
Crucial to a successful foreign policy strategy, all over the support of US involvement in Kosovo and Bosnia. Blair needed more confidence in his ability to push through a reformist vision for Britain
Blair-watchers observed a more confident, proactive post-Kosovo Blair compared to a tone distinct from the ‘risk-averse’ approach he had taken up to that point
Kosovo seems to have been the point at which Blair began to be his own man, as it were, more willing to question establishment advice and that coming from his networks of advisers across the Atlantic who had helped him fashion New Labour in the image of Clinton’s New Democrats.
Did not need to rely on Whitehall's decision-making machinery for ideas or strategy, accused of presiding over a 'kitchen cabinet', sidelines the Foreign office and cabinet as a source of policy advice and collective decision taking
Freedman suggests the civil servants in King Charles Street may have been ignored during the Chicago speech-writing process for two reasons.
Powell has said that foreign ministries in general have
been increasingly left out of decision-making cycles as western leaders have taken to conducting diplomacy bilaterally, away from established channels.
had firm ideas about what he wanted to say and often left it until the last few hours to finalise the contents of a major speech.
Given his desire to internalise everything he was saying in order to deliver it in the most compelling way possible, Blair would in those last hours write out the entire speech in long hand to help him memorise the crux of the journey on which he would take his audience during his address.
Conclusion
The evidence from close observers is that, contrary to the public image of New Labour as an all-conquering electoral machine, the project was run by a host of insecure, almost neurotic, characters—notably Blair, Brown and Mandelson—all terrified that they were in imminent danger of losing the faith of the public and governing by opinion poll to such a degree that it suffocated the highly ambitious agenda they had on coming to office
The British doctrine of international community ‘as the best way of defending our interests and the moral way of promoting our values’ is just one approach up for discussion
I would argue that revisiting Kosovo reminds us
there was a Blair before Iraq, one who was genuinely set on building a consensus around humanitarian interventionism.