There's a poem written by a very famous English poet at the end of the 19th  century. It was said to echo in Churchill's brain in the 1930s. And the poem  goes: "High upon the idle hill of summer, lazy with the flow of streams, hark I  hear a distant drummer, drumming like a sound in dreams, far and near and low  and louder on the roads of earth go by, dear to friend and food to powder,  soldiers marching, soon to die." Those who are interested in poetry, the poem is  "A Shropshire Lad" written by A.E. Housman. But what Housman understood,  and you hear it in the symphonies of Nielsen too, was that the long, hot, silvan  summers of stability of the 19th century were coming to a close, and that we  were about to move into one of those terrifying periods of history when power  changes. And these are always periods, ladies and gentlemen, accompanied by  turbulence, and all too often by blood And my message for you is that I believe  we are condemned, if you like, to live at just one of those moments in history  when the gimbals upon which the established order of power is beginning to  change and the new look of the world, the new powers that exist in the world,  are beginning to take form. And these are -- and we see it very clearly today –  nearly always highly turbulent times, highly difficult times, and all too often very  bloody times. By the way, it happens about once every century. You might argue that the last time it happened – and that's what Housman felt coming and what  Churchill felt too – was that when power passed from the old nations, the old  powers of Europe, across the Atlantic to the new emerging power of the United  States of America – the beginning of the American century. And of course, into  the vacuum where the too-old European powers used to be were played the two bloody catastrophes of the last century – the one in the first part and the one in  the second part: the two great World Wars. Mao Zedong used to refer to them  as the European civil wars, and it's probably a more accurate way of describing  them. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we live at one of those times. But for us, I  want to talk about three factors today. And the first of these, the first two of  these, is about a shift in power. And the second is about some new dimension  which I want to refer to, which has never quite happened in the way it's  happening now. But let's talk about the shifts of power that are occurring to the  world. And what is happening today is, in one sense, frightening because it's  never happened before. We have seen lateral shifts of power – the power of  Greece passed to Rome and the power shifts that occurred during the European civilizations – but we are seeing something slightly different. For power is not  just moving laterally from nation to nation. It's also moving vertically. What's  happening today is that the power that was encased, held to accountability, held  to the rule of law, within the institution of the nation state has now migrated in  very large measure onto the global stage. The globalization of power – we talk  about the globalization of markets, but actually it's the globalization of real  power. And where, at the nation state level that power is held to accountability  subject to the rule of law, on the international stage it is not. The international 

stage and the global stage where power now resides: the power of the Internet,  the power of the satellite broadcasters, the power of the money changers – this  vast money-go-round that circulates now 32 times the amount of money  necessary for the trade it's supposed to be there to finance – the money  changers, if you like, the financial speculators that have brought us all to our  knees quite recently, the power of the multinational corporations now developing budgets often bigger than medium-sized countries. These live in a global space  which is largely unregulated, not subject to the rule of law, and in which people  may act free of constraint. Now that suits the powerful up to a moment. It's  always suitable for those who have the most power to operate in spaces without constraint, but the lesson of history is that, sooner or later, unregulated space -- space not subject to the rule of law – becomes populated, not just by the things  you wanted – international trade, the Internet, etc. – but also by the things you  don't want – international criminality, international terrorism. The revelation of  9/11 is that even if you are the most powerful nation on earth, nevertheless,  those who inhabit that space can attack you even in your most iconic of cities  one bright September morning. It's said that something like 60 percent of the  four million dollars that was taken to fund 9/11 actually passed through the  institutions of the Twin Towers which 9/11 destroyed. You see, our enemies also  use this space – the space of mass travel, the Internet, satellite broadcasters –  to be able to get around their poison, which is about destroying our systems and our ways. Sooner or later, sooner or later, the rule of history is that where power  goes governance must follow. And if it is therefore the case, as I believe it is,  that one of the phenomenon of our time is the globalization of power, then it  follows that one of the challenges of our time is to bring governance to the  global space. And I believe that the decades ahead of us now will be to a  greater or lesser extent turbulent the more or less we are able to achieve that  aim: to bring governance to the global space. Now notice, I'm not talking about  government. I'm not talking about setting up some global democratic institution.  My own view, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, is that this is unlikely to be  done by spawning more U.N. Institutions. If we didn't have the U.N., we'd have  to invent it. The world needs an international forum. It needs a means by which  you can legitimize international action. But when it comes to governance of the  global space, my guess is this won't happen through the creation of more U.N.  Institutions. It will actually happen by the powerful coming together and making  treaty-based systems, treaty-based agreements, to govern that global space. And if you look, you can see them happening, already beginning to emerge. The World Trade Organization: treaty-based organization, entirely treaty-based, and  yet, powerful enough to hold even the most powerful, the United States, to  account if necessary. Kyoto: the beginnings of struggling to create a treaty based organization. The G20: we know now that we have to put together an  institution which is capable of bringing governance to that financial space for 

financial speculation. And that's what the G20 is, a treaty-based institution. Now  there's a problem there, and we'll come back to it in a minute, which is that if you bring the most powerful together to make the rules in treaty-based institutions, to fill that governance space, then what happens to the weak who are left out? And 

that's a big problem, and we'll return to it in just a second. So there's my first  message, that if you are to pass through these turbulent times more or less  turbulently, then our success in doing that will in large measure depend on our  capacity to bring sensible governance to the global space. And watch that  beginning to happen. My second point is, and I know I don't have to talk to an  audience like this about such a thing, but power is not just shifting vertically, it's  also shifting horizontally. You might argue that the story, the history of  civilizations, has been civilizations gathered around seas – with the first ones  around the Mediterranean, the more recent ones in the ascendents of Western  power around the Atlantic. Well it seems to me that we're now seeing a  fundamental shift of power, broadly speaking, away from nations gathered  around the Atlantic seaboard to the nations gathered around the Pacific rim.  Now that begins with economic power, but that's the way it always begins. You  already begin to see the development of foreign policies, the augmentation of  military budgets occurring in the other growing powers in the world. I think  actually this is not so much a shift from the West to the East; something different is happening. My guess is, for what it's worth, is that the United States will  remain the most powerful nation on earth for the next 10 years, 15, but the  context in which she holds her power has now radically altered; it has radically  changed. We are coming out of 50 years, most unusual years, of history in  which we have had a totally mono-polar world, in which every compass needle  for or against has to be referenced by its position to Washington – a world  bestrode by a single colossus. But that's not a usual case in history. In fact,  what's now emerging is the much more normal case of history. You're beginning  to see the emergence of a multi-polar world. Up until now, the United States has been the dominant feature of our world. They will remain the most powerful  nation, but they will be the most powerful nation in an increasingly multi-polar  world. And you begin to see the alternative centers of power building up – in  China, of course, though my own guess is that China's ascent to greatness is  not smooth. It's going to be quite grumpy as China begins to democratize her  society after liberalizing her economy. But that's a subject of a different  discussion. You see India, you see Brazil. You see increasingly that the world  now looks actually, for us Europeans, much more like Europe in the 19th  century. Europe in the 19th century: a great British foreign secretary, Lord  Canning, used to describe it as the "European concert of powers." There was a  balance, a five-sided balance. Britain always played to the balance. If Paris got  together with Berlin, Britain got together with Vienna and Rome to provide a  counterbalance. Now notice, in a period which is dominated by a mono-polar 

world, you have fixed alliances – NATO, the Warsaw Pact. A fixed polarity of  power means fixed alliances. But a multiple polarity of power means shifting and changing alliances. And that's the world we're coming into, in which we will  increasingly see that our alliances are not fixed. Canning, the great British  foreign secretary once said, "Britain has a common interest, but no common  allies." And we will see increasingly that even we in the West will reach out,  have to reach out, beyond the cozy circle of the Atlantic powers to make  alliances with others if we want to get things done in the world. Note, that when  we went into Libya, it was not good enough for the West to do it alone; we had  to bring others in. We had to bring, in this case, the Arab League in. My guess is Iraq and Afghanistan are the last times when the West has tried to do it  themselves, and we haven't succeeded. My guess is that we're reaching the  beginning of the end of 400 years – I say 400 years because it's the end of the  Ottoman Empire – of the hegemony of Western power, Western institutions and  Western values. You know, up until now, if the West got its act together, it could  propose and dispose in every corner of the world. But that's no longer true. Take the last financial crisis after the II World War. The West got together – the  Bretton Woods Institution, World Bank, International Monetary Fund – the  problem solved. Now we have to call in others. Now we have to create the G20.  Now we have to reach beyond the cozy circle of our Western friends. Let me  make a prediction for you, which is probably even more startling. I suspect we  are now reaching the end of 400 years when Western power was enough.  People say to me, "The Chinese, of course, they'll never get themselves  involved in peace-making, multilateral peace-making around the world." Oh yes? Why not? How many Chinese troops are serving under the blue beret, serving  under the blue flag, serving under the U.N. command in the world today? 3,700. How many Americans? 11. What is the largest naval contingent tackling the  issue of Somali pirates? The Chinese naval contingent. Of course they are, they  are a mercantilist nation. They want to keep the sea lanes open. Increasingly,  we are going to have to do business with people with whom we do not share  values, but with whom, for the moment, we share common interests. It's a whole new different way of looking at the world that is now emerging. And here's the  third factor, which is totally different. Today in our modern world, because of the  Internet, because of the kinds of things people have been talking about here,  everything is connected to everything. We are now interdependent. We are now  interlocked, as nations, as individuals, in a way which has never been the case  before, never been the case before. The interrelationship of nations, well it's  always existed. Diplomacy is about managing the interrelationship of nations.  But now we are intimately locked together. You get swine flu in Mexico, it's a  problem for Charles de Gaulle Airport 24 hours later. Lehman Brothers goes  down, the whole lot collapses. There are fires in the steppes of Russia, food  riots in Africa. We are all now deeply, deeply, deeply interconnected. And what 

that means is the idea of a nation state acting alone, not connected with others,  not working with others, is no longer a viable proposition. Because the actions of a nation state are neither confined to itself, nor is it sufficient for the nation state  itself to control its own territory, because the effects outside the nation state are  now beginning to affect what happens inside them. I was a young soldier in the  

last of the small empire wars of Britain. At that time, the defense of my country  was about one thing and one thing only: how strong was our army, how strong  was our air force, how strong was our navy and how strong were our allies. That was when the enemy was outside the walls. Now the enemy is inside the walls.  Now if I want to talk about the defense of my country, I have to speak to the  Minister of Health because pandemic disease is a threat to my security, I have to speak to the Minister of Agriculture because food security is a threat to my  security, I have to speak to the Minister of Industry because the fragility of our hi tech infrastructure is now a point of attack for our enemies – as we see from  cyber warfare – I have to speak to the Minister of Home Affairs because who  has entered my country, who lives in that terraced house in that inner city has a  direct effect on what happens in my country – as we in London saw in the 7/7  bombings. It's no longer the case that the security of a country is simply a matter for its soldiers and its ministry of defense. It's its capacity to lock together its  institutions. And this tells you something very important. It tells you that, in fact,  our governments, vertically constructed, constructed on the economic model of  the Industrial Revolution – vertical hierarchy, specialization of tasks, command  structures – have got the wrong structures completely. You in business know  that the paradigm structure of our time, ladies and gentlemen, is the network. It's your capacity to network that matters, both within your governments and  externally. So here is Ashdown's third law. By the way, don't ask me about  Ashdown's first law and second law because I haven't invented those yet; it  always sounds better if there's a third law, doesn't it? Ashdown's third law is that  in the modern age, where everything is connected to everything, the most  important thing about what you can do is what you can do with others. The most  important bit about your structure – whether you're a government, whether  you're an army regiment, whether you're a business – is your docking points,  your interconnectors, your capacity to network with others. You understand that  in industry; governments don't. But now one final thing. If it is the case, ladies  and gentlemen -- and it is – that we are now locked together in a way that has  never been quite the same before, then it's also the case that we share a  destiny with each other. Suddenly and for the very first time, collective defense,  the thing that has dominated us as the concept of securing our nations, is no  longer enough. It used to be the case that if my tribe was more powerful than  their tribe, I was safe; if my country was more powerful than their country, I was  safe; my alliance, like NATO, was more powerful than their alliance, I was safe.  It is no longer the case. The advent of the interconnectedness and of the 

weapons of mass destruction means that, increasingly, I share a destiny with my enemy. When I was a diplomat negotiating the disarmament treaties with the  Soviet Union in Geneva in the 1970s, we succeeded because we understood  we shared a destiny with them. Collective security is not enough. Peace has  come to Northern Ireland because both sides realized that the zero-sum game  couldn't work. They shared a destiny with their enemies. One of the great  barriers to peace in the Middle East is that both sides, both Israel and, I think,  the Palestinians, do not understand that they share a collective destiny. And so  suddenly, ladies and gentlemen, what has been the proposition of visionaries  and poets down the ages becomes something we have to take seriously as a  matter of public policy. I started with a poem, I'll end with one. The great poem of John Donne's. "Send not for whom the bell tolls." The poem is called "No Man is an Island." And it goes: "Every man's death affected me, for I am involved in  mankind, send not to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." For John  Donne, a recommendation of morality. For us, I think, part of the equation for our survival.  

Thank you very much.



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