Security must be a strategy in more than just name

Every US Administration is required by the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act to publish a National Security Strategy.  The document has often appeared late, and sometimes not at all; the latest edition appeared in May 2010.  The United Kingdom is a more recent convert to the idea but has been producing a National Security Strategy at the rate of one per year; the first version appeared in March 2008 and the second a little over a year later.

Two weeks after the May 2010 general election the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government published its Programme for Government; an unusual document reading a little like a post-election manifesto. In it the government promised that the newly established National Security Council (led by the new National Security Adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts) would ‘develop and publish a new National Security Strategy’.  

The task is to be undertaken while the new Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) is underway, which is also to be ‘commissioned and overseen’ by the new NSC.  Some might consider this a great deal of novelty for a relatively short time in government.  It might also seem rather hasty to promise a third NSS in three years before the idea has become fully established in government.  What should be expected of NSS 2010 and how might it improve upon earlier versions?    

The publication in spring 2008 of the first National Security Strategy of the United Kingdom was long awaited; then prime minister Gordon Brown had announced the initiative in July 2007, intending to publish a strategy document just a few months later in the autumn.  

NSS 2008 set out in some detail the various threats and hazards with which Britain is likely to be confronted in the near future; everything from terrorism and weapons proliferation, to organised crime, to global poverty and underdevelopment, to climate change and natural disasters.  

The NSS argued that the various man-made threats and natural hazards were not only identifiable, but also interconnected and it was particularly firm on the need to challenge the ‘violent extremism narrative’.  The document referred to the UK’s ‘core values’ — human rights, the rule of law, legitimate and accountable government, justice, freedom, tolerance and opportunity for all — and advocated multilateralism and a ‘rules-based approach to international affairs’.   

NSS 2008 was admirably candid about the scale and complexity of the threats and hazards which Britain must confront.  Yet a cynic might say that it described everything without saying anything, that it offered all things to all readers without providing much in the way of vision and motivation — or strategy, in other words.  

Too much of the document was consumed with describing the myriad security challenges and the government’s response.  But activity and strategy are not synonymous.  At the highest level, strategy requires intellectual and moral leadership.  In the case of national security, leadership requires a vision of a way of life which is not merely to be guarded jealously but which is to be encouraged and developed.  

Strategy should also be about establishing priorities and objectives, as well as benchmarks by which to measure progress.  Neither of these two components was much in evidence in NSS 2008.  The best that might be said of the National Security Strategy of the United Kingdom was that a start had at least been made: questions could now be asked, gaps in policy could now be identified, and the British public could become more engaged in the ideas and demands of national security.  

NSS 2009, Security for the Next Generation was published in June 2009.  It is explicitly an ‘update’ of the 2008 version; to have written a wholly new NSS might have given the impression that NSS 2008 was so weak that it needed to be replaced.  

The revised strategy reiterates the 2008 list of man-made threats and natural hazards, all of which demonstrate the ‘interconnectedness of global security challenges’ and require ‘concerted global action’ in response.  In other respects the 2009 strategy takes a different line from its predecessor.  

One major shift in language concerns the nature and level of strategic threats to the UK.  While the 2008 document had declared confidently that ‘for the foreseeable future, no state or alliance will have both the intent and the capability to threaten the United Kingdom militarily’, the 2009 strategy is rather more cautious: ‘As a nation, we cannot rule out the return of a direct state threat to the UK.’  

A similar reappraisal had evidently taken place concerning the threat of terrorism.  The first edition of the NSS acknowledged that terrorism ‘represents a threat to all our communities, and an attack on our values and our way of life’ but insisted that terrorism ‘does not at present amount to a strategic threat.’  The 2009 edition, however, describes the threat of terrorism as ‘severe’ and a ‘constant and direct threat to the UK and our people’; al Qaeda and its affiliate organisations are unequivocally ‘the pre-eminent threat to the UK and our allies.’

The second edition of the NSS is an intelligent and useful document. It provides one of the best available descriptions of the scope and complexity of international security in the early 21st century, and offers a sophisticated methodology for assessing security challenges to the UK.  

But the document is concerned as much with the description and analysis of security threats as it is with the organisation of government.  Warning against the creation of ‘silos of activity’ within government, NSS 2009 is clear that it should be the concern of the Cabinet Secretariat, supporting the National Security, International Relations and Development Committee of the Cabinet, ‘to ensure that these strands of work are considered strategically, balanced, and prioritised to best effect in pursuit of our overall national security objective.’  

The 2009 strategy goes much further than the 2008 edition in presenting a strategic outlook, but is still arguably more of a guide for strategy makers than a strategy in its own right.  The requirement is for the NSS to serve as a cross-government capstone document for national security.  This is where the real strategic ambition of the NSS process lies and it is a challenge which the 2010 edition should take up.  Ideally, all government departments with an interest in national security — including the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for International Development — should be able to extract something of their core mission from the NSS.  

It is inconceivable that these departments of state could ever become functionally and politically subordinate to the Cabinet Office and the NSC, but it should be possible for them all to act in ways which are consistent with a  government-wide picture of national security.

In its analysis of security threats and challenges, NSS 2010 should try to build upon the methodology developed for the 2009 document, rather than start again from scratch.  But the minds behind the 2010 edition are unlikely to be content merely to endorse the work of their predecessors.  

This is, after all, an important chance for the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat government to set out its view of international security: how and where it sees the UK being challenged and where, conversely, the opportunities might lie to secure and maintain the UK’s national interests; and what should be done.  

In the clarity of its message, the May 2010 National Security Strategy of the United States is an example of a strategic vision which the British government might reflect upon.  The US document is also valuable in one other respect; it insists that a ‘sustainable, results-oriented national security strategy’ will require ‘effective co-operation between the branches of government’.  Precisely the same judgement could be made in the United Kingdom.

The 2010 edition of the UK National Security Strategy should offer a strong analytical framework and a clear strategic vision.  But just as important is the process by which strategy is shaped and implemented.  By summer 2010 revision of the NSS is underway and the SDSR has begun.  Yet it is still not clear how the key personalities in government, and their departments, will interlock in the production and implementation of the NSS.  

The government’s initial assumption might have been that the NSC would be the overall driver of national security and defence, embracing both the NSS and the SDSR.  But with the complexity and urgency of national security becoming ever more apparent, the better arrangement is for the NSC to become a clearing house for the best ideas in national security, working to build consensus among the relevant departments.  

The Cameron government has an opportunity to improve the delivery of national security and defence in the UK; if the MoD’s strategic review can reflect the NSS without being governed by it this would mean real progress in national security policy-making.  If the 2010 National Security Strategy is to be worthy of the name it should certainly offer strategic analysis and vision in its pages, but must also guarantee the effective delivery of strategy by government.

Dr Paul Cornish is Professor of

Interntional Security, Chatham House.