The future of UK foreign policy: Sir Jeremy Greenstock

The world has changed, but how? Those who sat at the top table of the previous era are finding it hardest to readjust to the new geopolitical environment, because they have the most to lose and they are psychologically resistant to adaptation. It is especially difficult for those countries whose power and influence, stemming from the technological and organisational advantages of the West in the 19th and 20th centuries, was disproportionate to their population size. The world of the new millennium is returning to a more natural order of population size and resource availability, because economic opportunity is more evenly distributed by globalised communications, trade and the spread of freedom. It is economic capability that has become the primary criterion of global weight nowadays.