The National Security Strategy the peacebuilding sector hoped for vs the one the UK delivered

There was much hope within the conflict prevention community and beyond that the new UK National Security Strategy (NSS) – published last week – could be a much more comprehensive response to the international security environment, update the UK’s approach to preventing and resolving proliferating conflicts, and plug the gaps in the considerably narrower Strategic Defence Review.

Ideally, there would have been a policy process with clear public terms of reference, open consultation and coherency between the security challenges identified, goals established, proposed responses and real-life actions of the government. Alas, the gulf between the new UK NSS and this vision couldn’t be bigger.

An attempt to make a comprehensive definition of security

The NSS goes halfway to setting out a comprehensive definition of security. The strategy states that the national interest ‘will be defined as the long-term security and social and economic wellbeing of the British people’. In the document the government makes an effort to expand what this entails: ‘National security today means so much more than it used to – from the health of our economy, to food prices, to supply chains, from safety on the streets to the online world’. Elsewhere, there are some mentions of climate change, living standards, the impact of war on supply chains and the risk of pandemics. There is a fleeting mention of gender.

However, the overall threat assessment is still limited. The 2025 NSS makes little assessment of the impact of conflict and disorder whereas the 2021 Integrated Review connected conflict to increased displacement, transnational armed groups and serious and organised crime. What’s more, a more comprehensive gender-sensitive analysis could have illuminated how many security challenges affect different people: from understanding how AI is used in serious and organised crime to target women, to how deepfake sexualised images have been used by state actors to undermine the legitimacy of Ukrainian, Finnish or Georgian politicians.

A lack of follow through

Unsurprisingly, the lack of gender considerations in the threat analysis leads to little discussion of future gender-responsive plans. This is the same pattern across many of the expanded areas of security: there are few details on what the UK is going to do about them. The 2025 NSS approach to climate change – the government’s ‘number one international priority’ at the time of the 2021 Integrated Review – is focused on weening off Russian oil and gas and on international efforts on green energy, rather than a more encompassing strategic framework involving mitigation and adaptation domestically and overseas.

As others have argued, before the NSS was published the Strategic Defence Review set the tone for the UK’s approach to national security challenges. Defence is the area where the UK government has done the most work. The only major headline announcement from the NSS was the adoption of the NATO target to spend 5 per cent of GDP on security. Other areas are less developed, and the NSS seems to be passive in what it sees as the erosion of international norms. The NSS ignores the UK’s own role in this trend, from arming Israel and Saudi Arabia during their military offensives in Gaza and Yemen respectively and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, as well as support to repressive security forces during the ‘war on terror’. The NSS could have done much more to strengthen the UK’s adherence to international norms and the development of new norms on issues like AI. The UK could have become more of a champion to rally the many states that still see value in the security these norms provide.

UK conflict prevention policy in need of an upgrade

The world has changed, and UK conflict policy needed an upgrade. It’s been seven years since the UK government last published its Stabilisation Guidance, nine years since the Department for International Development’s (DFID) Building Stability Framework (and five since DFID closed), and 14 years since the Building Stability Overseas Strategy. The NSS could have been an opportunity to clear the way for a new strategic framework for addressing conflict. Clearly, updates in the UK’s thinking are needed to better understand and respond to developments in the relationship between conflict, geopolitical competition, climate change and environmental destruction, serious and organised crime, displacement and rising authoritarianism, repression and the anti-gender equality movement.

Yet, the NSS makes only two mentions of conflict, including the UK’s diplomatic skill in conflict resolution and the role of multilateral organisations in conflict prevention. This is a far cry from the 2015 NSS and the 2021 Integrated Review. The lack of conflict focus is also at odds with the call for a more explicit focus on preventing and resolving conflicts from 60 leaders across military, intelligence, politics and faith communities, who wrote to the Prime Minister earlier this month. The letter also called for a reversal of the decline in aid spending on conflict prevention and resolution. Such a move would not be a panacea for contemporary conflict but could restore the government’s tools for addressing the root causes of local conflict dynamics and support locally led responses – something diplomacy would have limited impact on.

‘A whole of society approach’

The NSS also continues the government’s trend of expanding involvement in national security beyond the preserve of diplomats, intelligence, police and soldiers to all of UK society. The Strategic Defence Review elaborated on this in terms of more routes to join the military and expanding participation in defence production. The NSS has a more expansive vision of societal resilience.

This includes issues such as supply chains and protection from cyber-attacks; however, there are also explicit and implicit warnings of bigger shifts in society and politics peppered throughout the document, which should prompt probing questions by the public, journalists and politicians. This framing appears in the context of preparing the UK for an attack on ‘the homeland’. In response, the government would like ‘a new social contract between government and the British people, spanning across every corner of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland’, without explaining what is required from the public in this new national security-driven political settlement. It also talks about further tough decisions in the wake of the cuts to the international aid budget to pay for defence. This should be read as potential further shifts in either cuts to other government departments and services, or other budget decisions like tax rises or borrowing increases to pay for defence.

Conclusion

For those focused on conflict prevention, the recent disappointing slew of strategies raises the question of what is next for the UK’s approach to conflict prevention.

The outlook does look bleak – but there are potential hooks. The government is clearly still interested in conflict and its impact on UK interests and, to a lesser extent, international security. Its approach to conflict prevention and resolution needs updating. Thise should involve a range of tools from dialogue to addressing root causes through diplomacy, development and conflict and gender sensitivity in the UK’s defence engagement.

There are also options for considering the contribution of social cohesion and peacebuilding initiatives to strengthening resilience, and possibly (although fraught with risks) the UK’s approach to national security both in the UK and overseas. In the UK’s development priorities, reducing conflict should be a key aim – as Saferworld has long argued for in the case of Sudan.

Through the NSS, the UK has attempted to take a comprehensive approach to security. However, led by the Strategic Defence Review, and with a much shorter timeframe, it has failed in that aim. The UK’s efforts on gender-responsive conflict prevention and resolution are left deprioritised and incoherent at a time when they are needed more than ever – but there are ways the UK could turn this around if it chooses.

This blog was originally published on the Saferworld website.