Over at The Times, former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown has co-authored an article with former Labour defence secretary George Robertson – they were co-chairs of the IPPR’s Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, whose report was published today – arguing that old-fashioned thinking is hampering British security policy today. Here’s their all-encompassing introduction:
The global recession is likely to worsen the international security environment considerably. It is already making many weak and poor states weaker and, as both 9/11 and recent events in North Korea have shown, the consequences flowing from weak, fragile and pariah states are now a greater potential threat to national and international security than the actions of strong, competitive ones.
Climate change is arguably a far graver threat to our long-term security than terrorism and probably a greater challenge to humankind’s ingenuity and leadership than anything else ever faced. Terrorist groups are extending their reach and destructive potential, thriving in the largely unregulated global space in which they enjoy the benefits of new communications technologies, and can deploy ever more lethal weaponry. Meanwhile, the global flow of people exposes us to disease outbreaks that can spread far more quickly than ever before. Swine flu spread around the world in just a few weeks, Sars spread to four continents in 48 hours.
The trouble is we are not altering our approach or our thinking fast enough to keep up with this pace of change. The security of Britain is no longer just the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence — it now impacts on all government departments and requires them to work together in ways they have neither the structures nor the cultures to do. We still find it much easier to continue spending on old priorities than to invest in meeting new, less familiar ones. But the sheer scale of the resource constraints we now face means it is going to be increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to fund what we are already trying to achieve, let alone face the new threats that confront us.
Business as usual is not an option. Government needs to work smarter. We urgently need a wideranging strategic security review, including but going well beyond defence. We also need a framework that enables aid, diplomacy, defence and other security policy instruments to work together in a single approach, rather than pull against each other as different parts of government jealously defend their patch.
You can read the article in full HERE.
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7 Comments
I would agree, except having just visited Moscow I am concerned what is happening in Russia. Putin seems to be playing lots of Cold War games.
While I accept the fact that his view has probably be caused by the Bush regime being unpredictable and dangerous, eg the Iraq war and unnecessary provocation in many areas of the world. For example the Axis of Evil speech weakened the position of the moderates in Iran and not helped with North Korea.
The situation does suggest that it is in Britain’s interest to strengthen its links with Europe, at the same time be more assertive in our relations with the US and work with Europe to reduce the risks of Russia remaining isolated.
I feel we should work to stop the US ‘Son of Star Wars’ missile system in Poland and The Czech republic. At the smae time work with Russia in trying to calm down conflict areas such as Iran, Middle East etc.
Trident should definitely be postponed and up on the table as a way of minimising the nuclear threat.
“…consequences flowing from weak, fragile and pariah states are now a greater potential threat to national and international security than the actions of strong, competitive ones…”
It could be argued that the consequences from the actions of the United States, Britain etc over Iraq in particular, have far more gravely threatened national and international security and further distablised “fragile” states.
Also, if a smarter approach merely means dropping “smarter” bombs on countries whose regimes we don’t like and more invasions “to stop rogue states”, it’s really the same old same old.
“a framework that enables aid, diplomacy, defence and other security policy instruments to work together in a single approach” – I was taught by former Foreign and International Development officers that this was already happening after 9/11! Do we really want this extended so that allies in some future war we oppose suddenly recieve floods of aid and development assistance in exchange for our overlooking their human rights abuses? Equally do we want the spectre of political opinion deciding who eats and who starves when apportioning humanitarian aid?
I also find it very, very interesting that a few other people were on this panel too – Shami Chakrabarti, Mary Kaldor, Tom Daschle, and Francesca Klug – and they all resigned during the process. As it stands I’m not surprised that this is essentially the Ashdown show and biased towards his own personal views, which however right they may be in some of these, does nothing for his, ours, or this report’s credibility.
The report’s general thrust is an excellent start, and something on which can be built a optimistic view of the future.
It could go just that little bit further. The biggest threat to man is not war, famine or environmental change. It is disease, and in particular, the diseases of ageing.
We fret and worry about terrorist incidents like 7/7 or 9/11, when these are a pin prick to the utter devastation on a global scale of something as common and every day as neurodegenerative disorders.
The scales are so utterly incomparable as to be beyond comprehension, yet almost all of us are blind to it.
In this report, I sense at least a modicum of rational thinking. Get real, we are told, re-think what are the true threats to our societies, our families, our friends and ourselves. I say go further, and think about what could be, if only we tried. The failure to avoid a negative future that the report highlights would only be as bad as a failure to create a positive one.
Very large amounts of effort and money were spent on countering the risk of Russians marching in with snow on their boots. It would have made more sense to have worked out all the possible risks of catastrophe in our society and allocated the money proportionally according to their likelihood. It was silly to consider just one big possible, but by the 1980s already highly unlikely, risk, and to almost ignore all the others. A little bit of risk analysis in the 1980s would have shown then that global warming was a big enough danger to take seriously, and had we spent a few percentage of what was spent on armaments instead on countering global warming, well, the world would be facing much better future prospects now, wouldn’t it?
On Cold War games, Putin has his hands on the gas taps. So, there we are – all that money spent on stopping the Russians come marching through the front door in the Cold War, but we left the back door open, and the Iron Lady herself put down the “Welcome” mat by her lack of concern for this country’s long term energy needs and willingness to put its infrastructure up for sale to the highest bidder, foreign powers welcome.