The soft power of British royalty

When Prime Minister Keir Starmer paid his first visit to President Trump in the Oval Office in February, the stakes were high. Starmer, a stiffly self-righteous human rights lawyer from the progressive left, did not seem to have much in common with the bloviator-in-chief. Yet everyone was aware that the immediate future of the “special relationship” was on the table. For Britain, the stakes could not be higher.

The prime minister had a secret weapon. Capitalizing on Trump’s opening bonhomie, he produced a letter to the president from King Charles III.

“This is a letter from the king,” Starmer explained. “An invitation for a second state visit. This is really special. It’s never been done before.”

It was an uncharacteristically folksy, cracker-barrel performance, but it achieved exactly what the prime minister had hoped for. Trump was delighted. “The answer is yes,” Trump replied. “Your country is a fantastic country.”

No one in London had been able to take Trump’s positive attitude as a given. The meeting between the two leaders had promised any number of traps and hazards, but the opening bid of a missive from the 76-year-old hereditary sovereign of the United Kingdom had been decisive. The state visit will take place in a few days, from Sept. 17 to 19.

It is not entirely accurate that a second state visit has “never been done before.” Certainly, Trump is the first American president to be invited twice, but President Raymond Poincaré of France visited Britain in 1913 and 1919. Six crowned heads of Europe have also made two state visits. But there was enough truth in what Starmer said to make it plausible and persuasive, recognizing that Trump adores setting new precedents.

The British monarchy represents soft power at its peak. It is fashionable at the moment to take cynicism as a touchstone and imagine that realpolitik of a brutal and transactional kind represents sophisticated thought. This is the philosophy that has seen political scientist John Mearsheimer attract a loyal and contrarian following for his argument that NATO and the U.S. are ultimately to blame for the war in Ukraine.

Such a consciously hard-headed, hyper-realist approach to international affairs often dismisses soft power because it cannot be measured, and it does not fit into a conceptual framework in which states are driven by self-interest and the search for advantage. Why, scholars ask, would a leader or a government do something through persuasion if it did not actually suit them?

But presidents and prime ministers, no less than the rest of us, are not always rational actors. We are driven by sentiment as well as calculation, and Trump’s state visit to the U.K. illustrates that. Politically he has little to gain from it, and he would not see it as any kind of legitimation of his own position. Illogically, but powerfully, he is drawn to the royal family.

Trump seems fascinated by the heritage of the monarchy. Certainly, for a New Yorker like him, all of whose grandparents were born outside the U.S., the monarchy is unimaginably old and has extraordinarily deep roots. Charles III can trace his crown back to the first Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the 6th century. The monarchy does not tempt Trump with demonstrations of raw power, as seems to draw him to Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping.

His reverence for the late Elizabeth II did not mark him out. The queen was 96 when she died and had reigned for 70 years, making her an almost mythical figure. But he seems to respect the current king too, despite their widely different views. At the coronation 2023, Trump posted on social media, “Good Luck and Best Wishes to the wonderful new King and Queen of The United Kingdom. You are two very Special People. May your Reign be a Long and Glorious One. GOD BLESS YOU BOTH!!!”

It is also important to recall that Trump himself is half-Scottish, his mother Mary MacLeod having grown up in a poor Gaelic-speaking community on the Isle of Lewis.

Something about the British monarchy generates warmth, admiration and respect. It is unthreatening yet steeped in pageantry, something Britain does well, and world leaders want that photo opportunity with the king and queen. No “hard power” advantage is obtained by taking afternoon tea or attending a state banquet, yet Trump follows President Emmanuel Macron of France, the emir of Qatar, the emperor of Japan and the presidents of South Korea and South Africa in a period of less than three years.

If a three-day visit to a figurehead monarch, staying in a castle, has a beneficial effect on the “special relationship,” there is more to it than meets the eye. The monarchy is a perfect example of soft power: illogical, impossible to measure — but unquestionably influential.

It is an important tool in Britain’s foreign policy armory, with the power to change attitudes and repair or deepen friendships, a kind of diplomatic force multiplier for which British governments should be thankful. It may not be possible to say exactly how this soft power works, but in the U.K. we will see it at work again when the president and first lady arrive at Windsor Castle.

* Eliot Wilson is a senior fellow for national security at the Coalition for Global Prosperity and the co-founder of Pivot Point Group. He was senior official in the U.K. House of Commons from 2005 to 2016, including serving as a clerk of the Defence Committee and secretary of the U.K. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Source: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5501859-the-soft-power-of-british-royalty/