Gilmore, Jonathan. "The Uncertain Merger of Values and Interests in UK Foreign Policy". International Affairs, Vol.90, No.3 (2014): 541-557.

Gilmore, Jonathan. "The Uncertain Merger of Values and Interests in UK Foreign Policy". International Affairs, Vol.90, No.3 (2014): 541-557.

• The Tony Blair government explicitly tied British national interests, and British foreign policy, with humanitarian concerns and international norms. This has been continued under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government that replaced him (541). 
• The adoption of a moral foreign policy was tied heavily to the appointment of Robin Cook as Foreign Secretary in 1997. Under his tenure, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office created a department for international development, pledged to end arms sales to countries involved in internal repression, and published a report on international human rights. Secretary Cook also endorsed activist humanitarian inventions, like the British invasion of Kosovo in 1999 (543).
• Although national interests are subjective social constructs, they have normally come from estimations of the interests of citizens, not non-citizens. Tony Blair's emphasis on a foreign policy of values rather than national interest makes a shift towards basing foreign policy on the perceived concerns of non-citizens as well as citizens (541-542, 544).
• National interests and humanitarian values are sometimes linked, but not always so, and pretending that British national interests always align with international values is likely to lead to incoherent policy decisions that will fail to advance either national interests or international wellbeing (542).
• The author recommends that Britain retain a foreign policy based on both national interest and international values, but that it recognize that these are often in conflict and decide its policy approaches based on weighing rival approaches from these different perspectives. This will make foreign policy more coherent and more popular (556-557).
• The linkage of international values and British national interests in the statements of the Blair government were very similar to those made by Australia's Foreign Minister Gareth Evans. Both linked national interests to the preservation of an international order based on liberal values (544).
• The linkage of national interests and international liberal values constitutes a form of offensive liberalism, which contends that liberal values are universal and must be applied universally, by force if necessary (544). This perspective culminated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when the UK overthrew a foreign government and occupied a country in order to spread liberal democracy (545).
• Critics say that Britain's 'ethical foreign policy' remains unaccountable to non-citizen and thus remains entirely for domestic consumption. The result of this is that many decisions made under an 'ethical' foreign policy, like sanctions on Iraq, look good to domestic audiences while actively harming non-citizens (545-546).
• In 2010, the David Cameron government promised to return Britain to a more pragmatic foreign policy, while still incorporating many of the key linkages between British national interest and international liberal values established by the Blair government, including policies restricting arms trading and foreign aid towards stabilizing weak states (546-547, 555).
• This change was partially motivated by a 2012 survey that 47% of British citizens felt that foreign policy should be determined by the national interest, even if doing so required actions that were unethical (546).
• A major difference in the Cameron government from the Blair government is that Cameron does not accept the universal applicability of liberal democracy and thus resists its forceful application (548-549).
• This tendency has not entirely disappeared under the Conservative government, as demonstrated by Britain's key role in the NATO intervention in Libya and its advocacy for more forceful moves against Bashar al Assad in Syria (549).
• The Cameron government continues the understanding of foreign aid as a tool of national foreign policy established by the Blair government, seeing the distribution of humanitarian aid as a key part of British foreign policy (548).
• The presentation of national interest and international values are compatible and mutually reinforcing appears to be a political ploy to attract support on foreign policy from the broadest possible segment of the population by appealing to those who want an ethical foreign policy and those who want a pragmatic foreign policy (555).
• The two main policies where British national interest and international values are supposed to interact are British arms export restrictions and aid to stabilize weak states. The author seeks to prove that these goals are incompatible in both policies and that they have remained incompatible throughout both the Blair and Cameron administrations (550).
• Stabilization of fragile states seeks to avert conflict by providing resources and aid to key areas to improve human security in foreign countries. It is seen as simultaneously helping non-citizens through development and avoiding the creation of more failed states, which pose a security threat to the UK (550-551).
• The core claim that failed states breed instability that affects the UK is difficult to prove. Failed states certainly affect their neighbors, but not necessarily the UK (551-552).
• Some missions to support failed states involved military support missions. Since these missions expose British military personnel to danger and do not directly improve British security, they are not in the national interests. This shows that national interest and international values are in conflict (552).
• Under the Blair government, the 1998 EU rules on arms exports were expanded into a comprehensive national regulation in 2000 that prohibits the export of arms to areas where they might be used to provoke or escalate armed conflict or internal repression (552).
• This policy was immediately lambasted as having failed to prevent the issuance of 22 permits for the export of arms to Indonesia that were later used in suppressing the independence movement in Timor Este. The response of the Blair government demonstrated the difficulty of distinguishing between sales for legitimate national defense purposes and those for internal repression, since most weapons have dual capacities (552-553).
• Arms sales, including those to regimes with long histories of severe human rights abuses, are in British economic self-interest. There is thus a clear conflict between national interest and international values in the case of the arms trade (553). Contrary to the claims of the Cameron government, trade and human rights are not mutually supportive, if anything these priorities are in conflict due to the importance of arms sales to countries like Libya and Saudi Arabia for the British defense industry (553-554).
• The linkage of national interest and international value in British foreign policy is a bad idea partially because it has become increasingly unpopular as Britain becomes less powerful, less influential, and its population no longer has the same expectations of British foreign policy (556).