Brown and Atlanticism

Kammo says the best years are behind us:

Under Brown, it's safe to say that rhetoric will remain consistent with the Blair years but the heart will be lacking. Last January, Brown laid down free universal education and climate change as twin tracks of his approach to foreign policy. The subtext was that government must protect and intervene–but in the realm of soft power exerted through multilateral institutions. Brown is close to the Democratic establishment, well read in American political history, and the longest continuously serving chancellor of the Exchequer for almost 200 years: He knows the importance of the American diplomacy that created the Bretton Woods system and the associated institutions. He almost certainly believes, too, in the wisdom of the adjunct to that diplomacy: President Truman's willingness, after 1947, to engage in protracted (and electorally damaging) military commitments to counter totalitarianism. It's doubtful that Brown regards that type of intervention, by us and by our allies, as a model for his own premiership.

He's a cautious wonk, in other words, unlikely to provide the internationalist Red Bull that whatever incoming U.S. president — Democrat or Republican — will desperately need after the lethargy of the final Bush months.