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British National Security Strategy Aimed at ‘Russian Aggression’

June 29—On June 24, the British government released its “National Security Strategy 2025: Security for the British People in a Dangerous World.”

The world has changed, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared in the document’s foreword. “Russian aggression menaces our continent,” he claimed. “Strategic competition is intensifying. Extremist ideologies are on the rise. Technology is transforming the nature of both war and domestic security. Hostile state activity takes place on British soil. It is an era of radical uncertainty, and we must navigate it with agility, speed and a clear-eyed sense of the national interest.”

The report draws on what it claims are three lessons that are fundamental to British national security today: “First, that foreign policy should answer directly to the concerns of working people,” secondly, “that collective security, led by NATO, remains the cornerstone of our strategy;” and thirdly, “that nations are strongest when they are bound together by a shared purpose.”

“Therefore, it is no longer enough merely to manage risks or react to new circumstances,” Starmer writes in the PM Foreword. “We must also now mobilize every element of society towards a collective national effort.” The idea behind the strategy is “a hardening and sharpening of our approach.” In combination with other policy documents produced by the Starmer government, including the Strategic Defense Review, the strategy puts Britain on a war footing and sells it to the population as a jobs program. War, but against who? The document spins that answer to be in Europe, Russia and in the world, China, as well as Iran and possibly North Korea.

“Protecting the U.K. and promoting British interests is becoming increasingly hard, however,” the document says in the introduction, in very war-like language. “Threats are proliferating. We are entering a period in which we are likely to face indirect and potentially direct confrontation with adversaries, the intensification of strategic competition—including the increasing salience of nuclear weapons in the policies, doctrines and approaches of our adversaries—and a radical renegotiation of the terms on which we cooperate with allies and other partners, with major implications for how and where we invest our resources.”

The purpose of the strategy is “to identify the main challenges we face as a nation in an era of radical uncertainty; and to set out a new Strategic Framework in response, covering all aspects of national security and international policy.” The main target of that framework is Russia, though it doesn’t neglect China, Iran or North Korea. The strategy is based on a “threat focused paradigm” which “places particular importance on the role of our armed forces, intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies. The SDR has identified the most acute threat as that posed by Russia and prescribed a ‘NATO first’ but not NATO-only plan for the modernization of our military—with a more integrated, digitally-enabled and lethal force.” In response, the U.K. “will adopt a campaigning approach to: minimize the ability of others to coerce us or undermine the foundations of our national strength; and maximize opportunities to enhance our security and prosperity, sometimes acting alone but mostly acting in concert with others.” 

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