Is this really the end of the Anglosphere?
After decades of dominance, Britain and the US are losing influence. The rest of the world shouldn’t celebrate just yet
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 US, 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 “privatisation” and “deregulation” became commonplace, first in the West and then in the emerging and ex-communist realms. 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 US was the bigger and more influential partner; Britain’s economy is smaller than California’s and its total defence 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 made the alliance greater than the sum of its parts. Britain gave the Anglosphere a voice in the European Union.
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 realised. Although the September 11 attacks initially united the world behind the Anglosphere, the idea that Britain and America were on the right side of history was 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.
It wasn’t until 2016, however, that the Anglosphere fell to pieces. First came Brexit, which has silenced Britain almost completely. It is not just the unseemly, all-consuming chaos that it has unleashed. The sense of Britain as a liberal, outward-looking country has been reversed.
The election of Donald Trump has proved a bigger blow. The Anglosphere is now led by a man who dislikes globalisation, wants to quit pretty much every global institution, and yearns to protect his border with a wall. Soft power has no value to him. He shuns the language of liberty. Worst of all, the Anglosphere is no longer very popular with Anglos.
The hope is that the Anglosphere will recover. Note that eight of the world’s 10 biggest companies are American. The Anglosphere still dominates higher education, technology and finance. The Anglosphere’s politics can change, too: Trump could be a oneterm president, and even if Brexit looks unlikely to be reversed, there is a decent chance of avoiding both a chaotic no-deal exit and a Corbyn premiership. Still, 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: Old roads do indeed “rapidly age.” The Anglosphere changed the world for lots of reasons, but one was because it had sustained momentum. Let’s hope it recovers it soon.