The Ambassador Series: An Introduction

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In this series of interviews, Teer Strategy explores the future of the Netherlands in a rapidly changing geopolitical arena. I ask four former ambassadors posted respectively in New Delhi, Washington, Moscow and Beijing: 

How can the Netherlands remain a prosperous country with an open society and democratic political system in the 21st century?

Today, the post-Cold War era is coming to an end. The rules-based liberal world order it produced has proven profitable to us. Since the end of the Second World War, the Netherlands has grown wealthy. Throughout, it maintained its open society and democratic political system established a century earlier. During the Cold War, the more powerful of the superpowers professed the democratic values on which the Dutch political system is based. Meanwhile, the Netherlands was safely anchored in the Western alliance system. After the fall of the Soviet Union, only that superpower - the United States - remained.

When I first visited China in 2014, friends and colleagues had heard vaguely of a rise in East Asia of almost mythical proportions. A few even had suspicions this might challenge the world’s multilateral system. Most did not care.

Upon my return to the Netherlands in 2019, all of this had changed. Geopolitics took center stage in public debate again. An assertive and quickly rising China, an agitated and insecure Russia, the wavering and unilaterally acting United States, a divided and inward-looking European Union and an increasingly sectarian India make the headlines. They do so even more during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The world is in flux. Small and mid-sized countries are challenged in this movement. In The Ambassador Series, Teer Strategy explores what foreign policy The Netherlands – and by extension European countries in similar positions – should pursue to remain successful in this more uncertain world.