Britain needn’t be a second-rate power

The upcoming Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy is an opportunity to fashion Britain’s place in the world post-brexit and post-covid. It’s also the chance to answer Sir John Major’s question as to whether we should resign ourselves to being a good but second-rate power.

As with the last strategic review in 2015, we should be clear about the threats we face. Russia has killed in one of our cathedral cities. China steals our technology and undermines the rule of law that we jointly bequeathed to Hong Kong. Iran sponsors terrorist attacks across the Middle East and in Europe. North Korea develops intercontinental missiles within range of London.

Their weapons aren’t just missiles, bombs or poisons. Russia interferes with transatlantic cables. Chinese firms collect data for the state. Iran and its proxies direct cyber attacks against our institutions. In the so-called grey zone, these enemies operate with impunity, without attribution and below the threshold of military response, using misinformation to undermine our democratic processes.

Then there is the erosion of the rules-based order. Treaties that were signed by all of us are breached, abused or disregarded. Russia committed not to develop or store biological weapons, then uses them to try to murder its own citizens. China signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea but refuses to abide by court rulings on the South China Sea. Donald Trump undermined the World Trade and World Health organisations.

Look at the response to Covid. Ten years ago the world came together to tackle the financial crisis. Today we see the opposite: China failing to notify on the virus early enough; the EU threatening to block vaccine exports.

Terrorism is still with us. Islamist terrorism – directed or inspired by groups such as Daesh – doesn’t discriminate between its victims. The official threat level is “substantial”: an attack in the UK remains likely. Finally, there’s regional instability. Conflicts in the Middle East threaten our energy supplies and trigger migration to Europe. Russia continues to fuel the seven-year war in the Donbass in Ukraine. Insurgencies in the Sahel and elsewhere in Africa threaten European security. Territorial disputes in the Indo-pacific endanger our trade routes.

In this context, the review should first prioritise our geo-economic security. That means strengthening our resilience, ensuring our supply chains are more robust and that we retain sovereign capacity in industrial sectors such as biopharma and cyber. We should use both development aid and export finance to underpin our economic security. The military must be encouraged to better harness our defence in all five domains – land, sea, air, cyber and space – with British industry, building stronger partnerships in the new technologies.

Second, we should commit to reinvigorating global institutions. That means enforcing the membership rules, calling out breaches, sanctioning offenders and tackling corruption in the allocation of key posts. Nato needs modernising: it lacks policy on China, a coherent approach to Africa and is too fragmented in cyber deterrence.

Third, there’s our ambition. The 2015 review reversed some of the more damaging cuts necessary in 2010, and we increased the budget again. With the welcome further boost in defence spending we remain the fifth or sixth biggest military power on the planet. So our reach should exceed our grasp. Instability in Africa, Russian aggression in Europe and the North Atlantic, the spawning of transnational terrorism in fragile democracies, Chinese behaviour in the Indo-pacific – all these directly affect our own security.

More than 70 countries came together to join our fight against the horror of Daesh. Our military can support our allies around the globe, showing a more permanent British presence in every region. We should work now with President Biden to build broader coalitions of the willing.

Finally, there are values. Democracy is running short of defenders: recent Freedom House surveys chart more countries becoming less democratic each year than the reverse. British experience in institution building, strengthening newly independent judiciaries, tackling corruption and increasing accountability should all be part of a much more imaginative deployment of our aid budget.

So we don’t need to be nostalgic or complacent about our place in the world. The review is our chance to show that Britain needn’t be a bit player. With the right ambition and the new funding, it can reset our role as a rebuilder of the international order, a muscular champion of democratic values and a very useful ally of the free.