The UK’s Strategic Defence Review brings a welcome focus to boosting societal resilience in the face of global threats. But success will rely on policy and resources beyond the traditional realms of defence and security, writes Robin Potter.
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The UK government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) makes clear that we are in a new era, where the UK is directly threatened “by other states with advanced military forces” and must strengthen national readiness for the “no longer unthinkable circumstances” of war. This requires a “national effort” by the British public to build resilience to threats above and below the threshold of armed conflict, and to prepare to support the military in a time of war.
The argument to deliver this “whole of society” resilience is strong. A country obviously well-prepared to endure crises and challenges is less likely to be attacked in the first place. This “whole-of-society” approach, where members of the public are prepared for conflict and ready to volunteer, support the military, and endure challenges, has been developed in the Nordic states. But these states are smaller than the UK, with some of the highest living standards and lowest income inequality globally thanks to the Nordic socioeconomic model. Giving back to society through voluntary and civic work is a long-observed feature of their social contract.
UK rates of volunteering, civic and democratic participation remain in consistent decline, while trust in government is among the lowest of the OECD advanced economies.
These concepts may not be as easily transferable to the UK, the most unequal large economy in Europe, with its high housing costs and poorly performing public services. Even after a spike during the COVID-19 pandemic, UK rates of volunteering, civic and democratic participation remain in consistent decline, while trust in government is among the lowest of the OECD advanced economies.
British Ministers speak of a “NATO first” approach to defence, and the SDR highlights the UK’s obligations to NATO under Article 3 of the treaty, which commits countries to “maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack”. It is this, NATO says, which underpins the alliance’s expectations for robust national resilience to withstand and recover from disruption or conflict in every member state.
The Spending Review commits to 2.6 per cent of GDP on defence and intelligence spending by 2027, with an ambition to reach 3 per cent in the next Parliament. But at the upcoming NATO summit, allies may agree a higher target of 3.5 per cent on defence, plus 1.5 per cent on defence related expenditure by the 2030s. That means the UK government may yet be under pressure to spend more on defence in this Parliament. But if this means reallocating money from other budgets, it may prove a false economy if it results in harms to national resilience.
What makes communities resilient?
Societal resilience means the capacity for individuals and communities both to withstand shocks, crises, and sustained campaigns of destabilisation, but also to recover from them. Communities that entered the pandemic with “established social infrastructure were best placed to respond – they were more resilient and benefited from strong community support and relationships”. Fiona Hill, one of the lead reviewers for the SDR, recently highlighted the importance of greater resilience and cohesion for the UK’s national security, in order to counter disinformation, subversion and physical sabotage from hostile states.
While the UK relies on the armed forces as its backstop for civilian authorities and public services in crises, most other European states maintain some form of civil protection organisation.
In Poland, volunteering strategies have been developed not solely confined to aid or resilience work, but also for arts, libraries, and youth settings. These created social networks and hubs that were “dual use” – building trust, cohesion, and civic engagement in cities, before becoming critical in the crisis responses of COVID-19 and reception of large numbers of Ukrainian refugees. In the UK, cohesion policy has been perceived by local government as “nice to have but not essential”, while pubs, youth centres and libraries have closed in large numbers since 2010, and disinformation, conspiracy theories and extremism proliferate on social media.
As well as social networks, public services are important to sustaining resilience, predominantly local government, health providers, and the emergency services. However, in order to respond to major incidents, these services require an extra layer of resilience beyond their regular resourcing. For example, the English NHS had less spare capacity to deal with the surge in COVID-19 patients compared other countries, which some suggest led to worse outcomes, while also needing to find and mobilise large numbers of volunteers from scratch.
While the UK relies on the armed forces as its backstop for civilian authorities and public services in crises, most other European states maintain some form of civil protection organisation. These provide an extra layer of resilience for incidents that could overwhelm the regular emergency services. Italy, a country with a population 10 million smaller than the UK’s, can call on 300,000 trained civil defence volunteers in 8,000 groups, who not only respond in crises, but lead on prevention, mitigation and preparedness in their communities.
For the UK, not only has the army shrunk in recent years, but England now has 12,000 fewer firefighters than in 2000. The National Fire Chiefs Council has warned of their lack of capacity to handle the increased storms, flooding and wildfires expected as our climate changes – let alone readiness for war.
The Spending Review and the National Security Strategy
A new National Security Strategy is expected to be published before the NATO summit, and is likely to include policy and resources on domestic resilience and countering extremism. However the largely flat or falling settlements in the Spending Review for departments likely to be involved in resilience and cohesion building suggest any allocations aligned to the National Security Strategy may be slim.
The Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, responsible for volunteering policy, arts, and culture, received an overall 1.4 per cent cut to 2029 in the Spending Review. For local government, a 1.1 per cent annual increase in funding will still leave councils under severe financial pressure. Rising demand for legally mandated social care and SEND provision often results in cuts to discretionary spending on perceived “nice to haves”, while fire chiefs have highlighted the omission of fire and rescue services as “concerning”.
Efforts to improve societal resilience can also be stymied by deeper socioeconomic problems. People living in the least deprived areas are more likely to volunteer than those living in the most deprived areas. Research on the UK’s social fabric has identified a strong correlation between the most deprived areas and the lowest scores across civic, economic and social measures.
As Poland moves to spend 0.3 per cent of GDP on civil resilience, and NATO looks to set a target of 1.5 per cent of GDP on defence related spending, including “getting the whole society basically prepared for disasters”, improving the UK’s societal resilience will not only require whole-of-government strategy, but resources too.
All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image credit: cunaplus in Shutterstock
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