BRITAIN:The first clear signs that Gordon Brown will reorder Britain's foreign policy emerged last night when one of his closest cabinet allies urged the US to change its priorities, saying a country's strength should no longer be measured by its destructive military power.
Douglas Alexander, Britain's trade and development secretary, made his remarks in a speech in Washington, the first by a cabinet minister abroad since Mr Brown took power a fortnight ago.
The speech represents a call for the US to rethink its foreign policy, and recognise the virtues of so-called "soft power" and acting through international institutions, including the UN.
In what will be seen as an assertion of the importance of multilateralism, Mr Alexander said: "In the 20th century a country's might was too often measured in what they could destroy. In the 21st century strength should be measured by what we can build together. And so we must form new alliances, based on common values, ones not just to protect us from the world, but ones which reach out to the world."
With some neocons in the Bush administration nervous at the direction of Mr Brown's foreign policy following the appointment of the former UN deputy secretary Lord Malloch-Brown as a foreign office minister, Mr Alexander went out of his way to underline the "special relationship", but challenged the US and its partners "to recognise the importance of a rules-based international system".
Mr Brown is expected to fly to Washington shortly, and the groundwork for the trip is being prepared, with officials recognising that his relationship with George Bush will be different from Mr Blair's.
A source said: "It will be more businesslike now, with less emphasis on the meeting of personal visions you had with Bush and Blair."
Last month the outgoing foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, raised eyebrows in the Bush administration with a speech calling for total nuclear disarmament. It was made in consultation with, and with the approval of, Mr Brown. A British source in Washington said the Brown team was asserting its independence "one policy speech at a time", adding: "It's a smarter way of doing it than have a knockdown argument."