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UK's National Security Strategy needs radical change, says independent all-party commission of experts at ippr

30 June 2009

• Report fills vacuum in thinking on security challenges facing the UK
• 2 year independent expert review makes wide-ranging policy proposals

Leading think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr)’s Security Commission report published today (Tuesday 30 June) recommends:

• The UK needs to adapt its national security strategy for the post 9/11 and post recession world. The emphasis must be on responding to the shifting geopolitical landscape, and unconventional threats like climate change, energy shortages, nuclear proliferation and neo-jihadi terrorism.
  
• In place of a Strategic Defence Review, we need a fundamental and wide-ranging Strategic Review of Security, incorporating but going wider than defence, and the exercise should be repeated every five years.
  
• A major overhaul of the Whitehall policy-making machinery is needed, to include the introduction of a Single, cross-departmental, Security Budget, and a new National Security Council.
  
• UK reliance on the United States is complacent and it is delusional to believe the UK can go it alone. We need a major increase in European defence and security cooperation to strengthen NATO.
  
• Within the context of a strategic review, major innovations in defence policy are necessary, through investments in cyber-warfare capability, command and control and the creation of a civilian-military Stabilisation and Reconstruction Force.
  
• Priority should be given to a range of UK specific risks, such as major civil contingencies, and a Mumbai-style terrorist attack in the UK.
  
• Other defence equipment programmes totalling at least £24bn should be reviewed with a view to making cuts.
  
• The UK, with others, should pursue the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. Reliance on nuclear deterrence for long term security is increasingly unsafe given concerns over proliferation to both state and non-state actors.
  
• In prevailing world circumstances, however, the UK should maintain a minimum credible independent deterrent but a full and transparent review of the existing deterrent is needed. This will include whether there are possible alternatives to Trident renewal, the opportunity costs of Trident on the rest of the security budget, and consideration of further extending the life of the Trident system.
  
• A major increase in strategic gas storage is needed to decrease exposure to energy blackmail, along with rapid adoption of renewable sources of energy.
  
• Deportations of terrorist suspects to other countries on the basis of MOU’s should cease unless matched by robust, independent, and additional monitoring to make sure torture is not taking place. 

Following a 2 year review of national security challenges facing the UK, an Independent all party Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, hosted by the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) co-Chaired by Lord Paddy Ashdown, former leader of the Liberal Democrats and High Representative to Bosnia and Lord George Robertson, former Secretary of State for Defence and Secretary General of NATO, warns that we are now in a new era and that national policies must change radically.  

Lord Robertson Co-Chair of ippr’s Commission on National Security said:
“In the post 9/11, post financial crisis world, we must be smarter and more ruthless in targeting national resources at the real security risks and be more willing to make difficult national choices. But we also can’t delude ourselves. When it comes to security national self-reliance is a dangerous fantasy. European cooperation is the only viable way forward in many areas. We need to make it work. This groundbreaking report explains how and why.”

Lord Ashdown, Co-Chair of ippr’s Commission on National Security said:
"We cannot carry on as we are. We need to change the way we think and change not just what we do but also how we organise ourselves to do it. In a world where power is no longer the sole preserve of nation states, and where security is no longer only about defence, we need new joined-up machinery in Whitehall, a truly integrated strategy that links all of our policy instruments together, and a much greater focus on how we link the UK effort to the efforts of others around the world. The most important part of what we do today is what we do with others.”

Ian Kearns, Deputy Chair of ippr’s Commission on National Security said:
“There is currently a silence where the needed debate on national security should be.  Politicians of all parties should use the run up to the general election to put choices before the people rather than behave as though there are no difficult choices to be made. This report offers solutions to challenges we face today and is realistic about what it will take to pay for them.”

Noting the emergence of new powers and threats globally, and the long term fiscal consequences of the financial crisis and recession, the Commission sets out radical proposals for a UK response that is well targeted and affordable. In its final report, published today, the Commission recommends:

PROPOSALS IN MORE DETAIL

CHANGES TO THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT

The Commission recommends:

• A fundamental Strategic Review of Security which would assess the entire security terrain, all the threats, and all capabilities needed to respond, whether these be defence or non-defence capabilities.
• The creation of a National Security Council, chaired by the PM or another Cabinet heavyweight, supported by a beefed up national security secretariat.
• The creation of a Single Security Budget, incorporating but going well beyond the defence budget to include everything related to security.
• Changes to the remit of DfID, to integrate it more effectively into wider UK efforts to address national, regional and global security issues. 
   

DEFENCE

Within the context of the Strategic Review of Security, the Commission recommends the government prioritise:

• Greater capability specialisation in the UK Armed Forces, within the context of the Alliance structures of which we are a part. We should invest in core areas like high quality personnel training, tactical ground-air support, and Intelligence, Surveillance, Targeting and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) assets, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.
• A strengthening of Special Forces to deal with a Mumbai-style attack in the UK.
• The creation of a civilian-military Stabilisation and Reconstruction Force, to operate in dangerous post-conflict environments.
• Scaling back some conventional capability. The commission points to £24bn of future defence equipment spending that should be reviewed with a view to making cuts, and says the aircraft carriers, joint strike fighter, Type 45 destroyers and Astute class submarines should all be in the frame.
• Pursuit, with others of the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. Reliance on nuclear deterrence for long term security is increasingly unsafe given concerns over proliferation to both state and non-state actors.
• In prevailing world circumstances, maintenance of a minimum credible independent deterrent, but a full and transparent review of the existing deterrent is needed. This will include whether there are other possible alternatives to Trident renewal, the opportunity costs of Trident on the rest of the security budget, and consideration of further extending the life of the Trident system. 

ALLIANCES

As a route to strengthening NATO:

• The government should support, fully engage in, and if necessary lead moves to create permanent structured defence cooperation among a pioneer group of European Union countries. This should NOT come in the form of a European Army.
• Deeper collaboration in the European defence industry, particularly as this relates to land and sea systems. There is still wasted research and development investment in small-scale national defence industries in these areas, inflated prices to the European tax-payer, and consequently missed export opportunities for European defence manufacturers.  This all needs to be stripped out, via European defence industry consolidation.
• Greater pooling of European resources and a higher degree of role specialisation among EU states
• Investments, with partners, in increasing the number of EU Battle groups on standby at any one time, and an expansion in the size of support units such as logisticians, engineers, helicopter squadrons, medics and intelligence teams.  Individual countries should also invest more in building deployable gendarmerie; policing and civilian capabilities needed for post-conflict stabilisation and reconstruction operations.
• More fully engage in and support FRONTEX activities at the borders of the European Union and pursue a much enhanced role for EUROPOL.
   

ADDITIONAL COST SAVINGS

The Commission recommends:

• Exploration of a possible merger of the MoD Police, Transport Police, and Civil Nuclear Police Authority, to save costs and secure improved performance from three services which are all responsible for protecting parts of the national infrastructure.
• Examination of whether biometric passports can do the same job as ID cards and, if so, the ID card scheme should be scrapped.
• A review of the overseas operations of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with a view to streamlining them under a single leader figure in each country.
• A strong emphasis on conflict prevention, to save money and save lives.
• A more imaginative approach to spreading costs and effort between public sector, private sector and citizens/consumers in a number of security-related areas (resilience, energy security, maritime security).

LEGITIMACY AND COUNTER-TERRORISM

The Commission recommends:

• The use of the standard criminal justice system to deal with terrorist suspects.
• Government should continue to explore, consistent with the needs of national security, ways of using intercept evidence in court.
• Deportations of terrorist suspects to other countries on the basis of MOU’s should cease unless matched by robust, independent, and additional monitoring to make sure torture is not taking place.  
• To help win hearts and minds, we need a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities placed before Parliament. We need to make it clear to all that our own values and processes are the best weapon for addressing any grievance.
   

ENERGY SECURITY

• In the context of increasing reliance on continental gas supplies, the Commission calls for a strategic gas reserve capacity target to be set, for a target date to be set to meet it, and for investments in strategic gas storage, paid for out of the public purse if need be, and argues that this is the equivalent of stock-piling drugs for pandemic disease and therefore too important to be left to the market.
• Measures to address French and German concerns related to a more integrated EU gas market alone.
• A series of measures to reduce our reliance on gas in power generation, by pushing forward harder on CCS, and renewables.
• The UK should follow the example of California and establish a regulatory structure that genuinely incentivises both supply companies and consumers to save energy and increase efficiency levels in the use of gas.   
   

NOTES TO EDITORS:

The ippr’s independent all-party Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, co-chaired by Lord George Robertson and Lord Paddy Ashdown brings together leading experts from the fields of security, policing, defense, intelligence, academia, diplomacy, science and politics. More information can be found at the ippr website at: http://www.ippr.org.uk/security  

On Tuesday 30 June copies of the report will also be available to order at £15.99 per copy from the ippr website at: http://www.ippr.org/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=676

In November 2008, the Commission published its interim report, Shared Destinies: Security in a Globalised World. This report laid the foundations for a re-think of UK national security strategy in the context of a new global security environment, and provided a constructive challenge to the policies already being taken forward by government.

The Commission panel members are:

• Lord Paddy Ashdown, Co-Chair, former leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and former High Representative for Bosnia.
• Lord George Robertson, Co-Chair, former Secretary of State for Defence and former Secretary General of NATO.
• Dr Ian Kearns, Deputy Chair, ippr. 
• Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Director of the Ditchley Foundation and former British Ambassador to the United Nations.
• Sir David Omand, former security and intelligence coordinator in the Cabinet Office and former Permanent Secretary in the Home Office.
• Lord Charles Guthrie, former Chief of the Defence Staff.
• Lord Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.
• Sir Chris Fox, former Chief Constable of Northamptonshire and former President of the Association of Chief Police Officers.
• Professor Michael Clarke, Director, Royal United Services Institute, and Professor of Defence Studies at King’s College London.
• Professor Tariq Modood, Director of the Leverhulme Programme on Migration and Citizenship, Bristol University.
• Constanze Stelzenmüller, Director of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund.
• Professor Jim Norton, former chief executive of the Radio Communications Agency and now at the Institute of Directors.
• Ian Taylor MP, Chair of the Conservative Party Policy Task-force on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Conservative MP for Esher and Walton and former minister for Science and Technology at the Department of Trade and Industry.

Contacts:

Kelly O’Sullivan, 020 7470 6125 / 07753 719 289 / k.osullivan@ippr.org

 

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