The engagement vs isolation debate returns

British foreign policy has always oscillated between isolation and engagement. The division has shaped Conservative thinking over generations. The archetypal icon of engagement is Winston Churchill. In the wake of the Munich Agreement, Churchill made his greatest anti-appeasement appeal: ‘What I find unendurable is the sense of our country falling into the power, into the orbit and influence of Nazi Germany.’ He was for rearmament and, ultimately, for war.

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Churchill had in his sights the isolationists of the right – those Tories who would not ‘die for Danzig’. Victory in the second world war, the western alliance, Nato, America’s nuclear guarantee, the European Union, communist collapse – all seemed to prove Churchill triumphant and correct. 

Churchill’s legacy may yet emerge intact after the negotiations to end Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Donald Trump’s love-in with Russia’s bloody autocrat may not last. Or it may never have been meant in the first place. Or, while meant, it may in the end matter less to the President than his ego – and the shimmering prospect of a Nobel Peace Prize.

This way of thinking foresees Putin banking his gains. Ukraine would be divided, with European ground troops in the western part of it, backed by American air power and a security guarantee, while Trump bags the minerals. 

A just peace? Certainly not. But peace nonetheless. Life appears to return to normal. The media’s febrile bandwagon moves on. Keir Starmer breathes a sign of relief, whatever happens during his Washington meeting with Trump.

However, even if the western alliance endures, it has in the last week been hit by a ‘trustquake’ – according to Edward Lucas, the foreign affairs and security specialist.