This Is This! Decoding Labour's new National Security Strategy

Britain now has a geo-strategy. The point is to execute it...

Developments in British defence, security and resilience policy have come thick and fast in past month. We’ve had the Strategic Defence Review, the National Security Strategy, the unpublished China audit, the decision to buy F-35As and join NATO’s nuclear mission, the pledge to co-ordinate nuclear weapons and research with France and a commitment to spend 3.5% of GDP on defence by 2035 - plus the proscription of Palestine Action.

In this edition of Conflict & Democracy I’m going to attempt a shoot-from-the-hip survey of these policy announcements, focusing mainly on the NSS and raising questions of coherence and deliverability. As always this is written for a non-specialist audience, with a minimum of specialist language, and based on open source information only.

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The background to this flurry of policy statements is clear. Labour came to power committed to do a narrow SDR because it wanted to avoid a long, philosophical thumb-sucking process in Whitehall, giving primacy to the MOD to answer a single, pressing question: what is the nature of the threat and what capabilities do we need to meet it?

However, despite creating an independent commission to answer that question, Labour constrained the outcome within a Treasury-imposed 2.5%/GDP spending limit until 2030. While useful for enforcing hard choices, this proved wholly unrealistic – as many of us argued – and was overtaken by events.

Once Trump announced he was deprioritising the conventional defence of Europe, and raised the threat that he would walk away from supporting Ukraine, Starmer overrode Treasury objections and committed to 2.5% by 2027, injected cash into the Ukraine effort and then committed to 3.5% in 2035.

On the same day as he announced the 2.5% target, Starmer commissioned the NSS. There were, at this point, moves to make the SDR “advisory” to a broader National Security Review – exactly what Labour had sought to avoid when planning its first year in government. But as it turned out the NSS process was kept under control and has produced a highly focused “on the fly” reorientation of British foreign policy.

Starmer has, in the meantime, worked hard to keep Trump invested both in NATO and the defence of Ukraine, and to limit the impact of the US president’s mercurial tariff war. At the same time, faced with the sudden Israeli attack on Iran, Starmer adopted a policy of refusal to participate or condemn, which has left his ministers looking at times with little to say, but has deprived opponents of NATO within the Trump administration of further grievances.

One vignette of the tightrope Labour is walking in global politics came last week with Politico’s revelation that, in routine discussions with the Pentagon, Elbridge Colby tried to countermand the deployment of the Royal Navy’s Carrier Strike 25 mission to the Pacific. Politico reports:

“He basically asked them, ‘Is it too late to call it back?’” said the person familiar with Trump administration dynamics. “Because we don’t want you there.”

Carrier Strike 25 has been years in preparation, and is designed precisely to test the reactions of friend, neutral and potential foe alike - so Colby’s reported outburst was, to say the least, unwelcome.

If we ask: “what’s missing?” from the list of published plans, there is the long-promised Defence Industrial Strategy and the new MOD Equipment Plan that it will require; and a concrete execution plan to translate the priorities of the NSS into regulation and legislation.

Nevertheless, looked at as a combined series of actions, the Starmer administration can now be said to possess a geostrategy. To understand it, it is worth decoding the continuities and the changes.

Decoding the NSS

Continuities: As before, Russia is the main threat and China is classed as a “systemic competitor”. As before, the interconnection between the two global theatres – Atlantic and Pacific – is recognised and built in. As in the 2023 Refresh of the IR, the “Indo-Pacific Tilt” is judged complete, and therefore not mentioned.

As to the changes, they are significant – and are outlined much more forcefully in the NSS than SDR. Basically, the multilateral system is recognised as not only frayed or decayed, but no longer reliable for the delivery of UK national security.

The best way to explain the position in detail is to quote relevant passages and attempt a rough de-euphemisation:

“NSS 2025 represents a hardening and a sharpening of our approach to national security across all areas of policy”.

At the London Defence Conference in May, Keir Starmer said security and defence are “central to the endeavour of the government”. The words above mean that has to be translated beyond the boost to the MOD’s budget, with national security informing decisions in – literally – all areas of policy. I believe the decision to proscribe Palestine Action, though presented as law enforcement issue, is one of the first results of this new emphasis.

“We will need to be more unapologetic and systematic in pursuit of our national interests. These interests will be defined as the long-term security and social and economic wellbeing of the British people.”

This represents a decisive change. All previous governments, while noting the decay and fragmentation of the multilateral system, have expressed national interest primarily in terms of that system. Here Starmer is saying that the domestic security – from crime, anti-social behaviour and threats to the rule of law – together with Labour socio-economic programme of redistribution – will begin to guide all policymaking.

“Multilateralism and institution building will not be enough. Our statecraft needs to adapt to a world in which there will be fiercer competition and a more transactional approach on migration, defence, trade, energy, technology and raw materials.”

The keyword here is “transactional”. The UK will be looking for quid pro quo in all these areas and its diplomats will have to concentrate more on the accumulation of leverage over individual countries – allies, neutrals and adversaries – rather than amorphous soft power. And here’s the payload:

“However, NSS 2025 is also clear that taking a defensive crouch – in which the primary activity is to manage risk – will not be sufficient to deliver on the government’s agenda, including the Plan for Change. Instead, as NSS 2025 lays out, we will adopt a campaigning approach to: minimise the ability of others to coerce us or undermine the foundations of our national strength; and maximise opportunities to enhance our security and prosperity, sometimes acting alone but mostly acting in concert with others.” [my emphasis]

This means, in short, Britain will be prepared to act offensively to shape the geostrategic environment, in ways it has not done since the Second Gulf War Basically, there will be a lot more emphasis on sovereignty, and a lot less tolerance for dependency - not just in terms of military kit but diplomatic and geostrategic power.

It continues:

“This will require ingenuity, creativity and calculated risk, as well as consistency, perseverance and effective implementation. It will be built around a long-term goal to build the necessary sovereign capabilities and competitive edge that ensures we take control of our own future in an uncertain world. As such, when we come out of this period of turbulence, the net assessment of our position should be that we are in a stronger position - economically, militarily, diplomatically and in terms of overall resilience and national well-being – with respect to adversaries and competitors than we were before.”

The keen eyed reader will note that, while an end to the period of turbulence is envisaged, a date for it is not. We are in an open-ended period of crisis in which every action has to strengthen the UK’s national power, or what policymakers have also called “strategic advantage” - but where we cannot predict the outcome.

“A shift to 5% of GDP on national security requires us to align our national security objectives and plans for economic growth in a way not seen since 1945. Therefore, the essence of our approach will be: to harness the nation’s productive, industrial, technological and scientific strengths more closely to our national security objectives to an extent not seen since wartime; and to do more to answer the concerns of everyday British working people through a more systematic approach to pursuing national interests.”

Translated: the era of making our science and universities reliant on Chinese students and postgrads, and leaving the higher education sector to become a free market divorced from national objectives is over.

The NSS pledges to:

“Introduce an explicit prioritisation of NATO in our defence planning as part of our efforts to bolster collective security, alongside the delivery of major capabilities like AUKUS and GCAP that complement but are not tied to NATO alone.”

This is, necessarily, geostrategic cake-ism. Labour has fought hard to bring the maritime-versus-continentalists in Whitehall round to its “NATO First” position, but is well aware that Trump’s vacillations over Ukraine, and Colby’s sudden decision to call in AUKUS for review, means it has to do two things at once: hug the Americans tight, but create strategic freedom of action, and indeed retain true sovereign capability, with programmes like AUKUS (which may have to survive a US pull-out) and GCAP, which may have to expand the number of partners.

The stark reality of the new situation is buried but clear:

“Warfare between major powers, an international security crisis, or a situation with multiple-contingencies across different regions, is an active possibility.”

Translated: we may have to go to war, and sooner than anyone is prepared to imagine, because Russian aggression is limitless and Trump does not look committed to containing it.

On top of this, for the first time, a UK government has explicitly linked illegal migration to national security:

“Hostile activity on British soil from countries like Russia and Iran is increasing, threatening our people, critical national infrastructure and prosperity. Illegal migration, enabled by criminal gangs, continues to cause strains on our public services and social fabric, including people’s perception of justice and fairness.”

One result is a signal that there will be an extension of national security legislation to bring in hard measures to counter foreign influence. This what is meant by:

“We are committed to taking forward the recommendations of the Independent Reviewer of State Threat Legislation, and will draw up new powers - modelled on counter-terrorism - to tackle state threats.”

In one of the most explicit pointers to the kind of decisions that lie ahead, the NSS warns:

“The months and years ahead will see difficult compromises and trade-offs on resource allocation and prioritisation, short-term and long-term goals and, potentially, values and interests.”

This choice between values and interests has, in the past, usually been fudged. If Labour has to bring the Saudis in to GCAP, or begin arms exports to Turkey, it will point to this paragraph to state: you were warned.

Again, translated: values are now subordinate to interests. That’s a a tough situation for any social democrat to accept, but one that reflects the gravity of the situation. As former CGS Patrick Sanders told the Telegraph this week: we have to prepare for war with Russia within five years and that means elevating realpolitik over principle.

One of our audits is missing

One of the most frustrating things about the NSS is the decision not to publish the results of the year long China Audit. The SDR described the PRC as a “sophisticated and persistent challenge”: less than a threat, more than a competitor. But what kind of challenge?

It was a little bizarre that the government planned to publish the Audit in the first place, since the moment you upgrade China from “systemic competitor” to “threat” you invite economic coercion from Beijing and – simultaneously – reveal your strategic position on how far you might align with American priorities in its confrontation with the PRC.

Ultimately however, the NSS leaves unanswered the most important geostrategic question of the century: are we cool with China’s aim to become the dominant power on the planet by 2049; or are we not?

There was no answer from any previous Tory government and there is no public answer from this one – because the real problem is not China, which is predictably totalitarian and revisionist – but Trump, whose real objective in the tariff war has not yet crystalised.

David Lammy told the Commons that the Audit could not be released due to intelligence concerns. But:

“On security, the audit described a full spectrum of threats, [my emphasis] from espionage and cyber-attacks to the repression of Hongkongers and attacks on the rules-based order. It made clear that our protections must extend more widely than they currently do—from the security of this House to our critical national infrastructure.”

Decoded: China has been attacking our democracy and CNI and trying to undermine all the alliances we depend on. But we are not prepared to say that out loud, or indeed formally attribute attacks as with Russia. Lammy added:

“I can confirm that, following the audit, we are investing £600 million in our intelligence services. We are updating our state threats legislation, following Jon Hall’s review. We are strengthening our response to transnational repression, introducing training for police and launching more online guidance to support victims.”

Decoded: China is engaged in substantial espionage on British soil, using proxies, and also heavying its own students studying here. He continued:

“We are launching, as announced in the Industrial Strategy, a 12-week consultation on updating the definitions covering the 17 sensitive areas under the National Security and Investment Act.”

Decoded: Hands off our corporate sector, possibly including the finance sector.

This is This

There’s a moment in The Deer Hunter where Robert De Niro turns to John Cazale, who’s been joking around while they hunt, holds up a .30 calibre rifle bullet and tells him:

“You see this? This is this. This ain’t something else. This - is this!”

The NSS is the moment where, in a much quieter way, Starmer did the same to the rest of the government. The deadly possibility of war with a peer adversary must now shape all departmental priorities.

If it were reduced to a checklist, and stuck on the walls of - say - the Home Office, the FCDO, DfE and the Treasury - the NSS would necessarily induce urgent behavioural change.