United Kingdom takes a deep dive into the past to pivot to the East

Asian pivot: Four F-35B Lightning jets land on HMS Queen Elizabeth for the first Carrier Sea Training. — UK Defence Ministry/Jakarta Post/ANN

DURING these unprecedented times when the UK needs to redefine its place in the future of the mid- 21st century, they give the job of designing their Grand Strategy to none other than a historian.

John Bew, a professor in history and foreign policy at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, is not the most obvious choice to lead this great strategy that will shape the post-Brexit era, but irony is after all an unmistakably British custom.