The Language of Diplomacy - Why 'State Threats' Matter

 

In the latest efforts by the Foreign Office to show that they’re terribly ‘woke’ and cuddly PC friendly, the Times has reported that the Mandarins have banned the phrase’ hostile states’ from the government lexicon. Its all part of efforts to improve links with China, in case we offend them terribly by describing them as a ‘hostile’ power. This is, apparently a bad thing and proof that Whitehall has lost touch with reality. Or is it?

Whitehall language is precise and used for effect and purpose. Phrases can be extremely powerful and can have connotations and meanings that go far beyond their intended purpose. The phrase ‘Hostile State’ (HS) sounds punchy and effective – it implies that His Majesty’s Government has decided that you are, to all intents, hostile to the interests of the British State. The phrase seems to apply to the ‘usual suspects’ of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, which should surprise few people. However, is ‘hostile state’ really the right phrase to use, or is ‘state threat’ a better phrase?

Hostile State implies that a nation is using all the means and tools of statecraft to actively undermine and have an effect that is damaging to our national interests. It indicates that these States see the UK as a target and that in turn, the UK regards itself as a legitimate target of them. It also implies that all the interactions of these states is seen as hostile in nature, and that there is no ambiguity in the relationship. Yet this label can itself be both inaccurate and unhelpful in shaping thinking.

For starters it is very hard to find a clear-cut case where a regime is actively hostile to the UK to the extent that all aspects of the relationship are damaged to the point where no credible diplomatic or other engagement is possible. Perhaps the only nation that meets this threshold is Russia, where through a series of appalling choices and behaviours by the Russian regime, the bilateral relationship has collapsed to its lowest ebb. There is no doubt that Russia is, and will remain, a power whose interests and policies do not align with the UK  (or the wider West). The criminal activity by the Putin regime in both its illegal and unprovoked actions in conducting assassination attempts in the UK as well as its wider efforts to destabilise through use of social media trolls to interfere with and shape the outcome of the Brexit referendum, as well as act in a deeply unprofessional manner in military interactions with UK forces points to a nation whose State machinery sees us as a hostile target, not a counterpart.

It would be easy to designate Russia as a ‘Hostile State’ but that language is counterproductive for as the UK has long maintained, our disagreement with the Putin regime is not a disagreement with the Russian people, who suffer under his tyrannical reign. The UK has long been clear that the Russian people, who have suffered greatly under various ideological ‘isms’ are a proud, cultured people with a long history of bringing good to the world. By describing them implicitly as a ‘hostile state’ the language helps build the perception that the UK sees all Russia in this way – a fact that only helps reinforce the narrative of the Putin regime that the world is united against Russia. By using the language of ‘state threat’ it is much easier to describe clearly and easily how Russia poses a threat via its state level actions, but without personalising it to target the Russian people. This may sound like a minor linguistic matter, but language does matter. When dealing with regimes like those of Putin, they hold power through weaponizing words and building a world view that indoctrinates listeners into the perspective that others hate and fear them. The language of ‘hostile state’ makes it easier for the Russian regime to extend their hold on power.

Similarly ‘hostile state’ implies that there is no opportunity for the UK to engage in meaningful relationships with these nations. But consider China for a moment. There is no doubt that China is a clear threat to many issues that the UK sees as important. Its support for Russia, its unwillingness to tolerate dissent and to threaten Taiwan, crush the peoples of Tibet or the Uighurs and to aggressively threaten other nations through its policies in the South China Sea. Its highly assertive programme of economic espionage and a willingness to conduct cyber attacks on nations that it is supposedly on good terms with (for example witness some of the Chinese hacking attempts on UK companies that occurred during a so-called ‘golden age’ of bilateral relations) means that China is definitely a state threat to British interests. But the challenge with China is that no matter how much of a threat it poses, it also poses economic opportunity. Whether we like it or not, China is a power whose economy will drive the engine of global trade for decades to come, even if over time, as the Chinese population shrinks, it will cease to be as powerful as it is now. China is a challenge that the UK and other partners need to be able to engage with for decades to come.

For the UK, China represents interesting economic opportunity – as the Chinese population have grown richer (well, at least until Covid restrictions), they have gained money to spend on discretionary products – the so-called ‘middle class tat’ that the UK excels at making. There are many opportunities for the wider UK economy to do business with China in a way that improves the British economy, provides increased revenue for the treasury and increases the ability to spend more on Defence and national security at a time when British trading opportunities are reduced thanks, once again, to the act of national self-flagellation that is the current Brexit fiasco. Trade opportunities with nations like China are vital to keeping UK industries afloat at present. Again, the phrase ‘hostile state’ is an unhelpful label that damages bilateral links – if you want to exploit opportunities on offer, at a time when you’re in competition with many other powers, why stand out from the crowd with language that will weaken bilateral links? It is easy to see China as a state threat to some UK interests, but equally it poses an opportunity too – this nuance is lost when phrases like ‘hostile state’ are used and could come back to damage UK interests in diplomatic talks.

A wider point is that labelling gives nations an ability to shout back at us and shape the bilateral engagement. Calling Iran a ‘hostile state’ may be correct in that elements of the Iranian regime can, and do, conduct hostile activities against British and allied interests. But does the IRGC really represent the whole of the Iranian regimes view on the UK, and does labelling Iran as a ‘hostile state’ help or hinder the ability of the UK to open doors and engage with Iranian representatives? If you want to negotiate, build links and shape a better long-term relationship, then its helpful to not have to go to talks and be harangued by that nations diplomats who will use your language against you. We all know Iran is a state threat, we know that its activities are not aligned to our own interests, but if we want to try to nudge Iran into working with us to reduce the risk of their acquiring a nuclear weapon or threatening our allies in the region, then doing so is much easier if they don’t have easy diplomatic ammunition to use on you.

A final thought is that we are in danger of seeing this debate through a one way mirror. We see these nations as hostile to us because of their activities against our interests – particularly in intelligence and espionage terms. Yet you only need to read publicly available information about the activities of our own intelligence services to realise that the UK is actively operating against these nations too in the murky world of intelligence operations. To many states, the activities of the UK, as a globally leading intelligence power and key member of the 5-Eyes alliance, a key military power and one with strong diplomatic links able to shape how other nations act, could be seen as being ‘hostile’. There is no doubt that much British intelligence effort is put into doing things to some nations that we are rightly miffed that others are trying to do unto us. We should be wary of too loudly using the phrase ‘hostile state’ for fear that others will designate us in a similar way one day, with all the challenges that this would pose.

Changing the language doesn’t mean Whitehall has gone ‘woke’ or that it somehow fails to recognise the clear threats that some nations pose. What it does do is try to capture in a way that both reflects threats and reality a phrase that elegantly sums up the challenges we face.  That’s the problem with words – it can be easy to use phrases in a careless way that sound good in speeches or media soundbites, but which can undo years of hard-won diplomatic influence in an instant. In the rarefied world of diplomacy and high-level engagement, phrases matter, words matter and poorly uttered words can, and do have dangerous consequences. It is important to use language that is both accurate, but which also doesn’t make life harder than it needs to be to support British interests.