Britain weighs up security and growth
The Cable | No. 26.2025
Welcome to the 49th Cable, our weekly roundup of British foreign and defence policy.
This week, Britain’s World celebrates its one year anniversary on Substack. The Council on Geostrategy would like to thank all our subscribers and readers for their continued support. We look forward to continuing our work to provide a forum for discussion on the United Kingdom’s (UK) international posture, how the world affects and sees Britain, and how Britain sees and affects the world.
Last week, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit held in The Hague saw the alliance agree to increase defence spending to 5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in response to the worsening geopolitical environment and pressure from the United States (US). However, for cash-strapped European nations, the increase will be a difficult challenge to rise to. It is therefore unsurprising that creative suggestions as to what counts as defence spending have already started to appear. In April, the Spanish Government unveiled a €10.5 billion (£9 billion) plan to increase military spending to 2% of GDP, but almost half of this figure is set to be spent on telecommunications, cybersecurity, emergency and natural disaster management. Likewise, Italy is reportedly considering designating a proposed €13.5 billion (£11.5 billion) bridge between the mainland and Sicily as military expenditure by highlighting its strategic value to NATO.
While Italy and Spain are leading the way in such creative accounting and expansive definitions of security, we should expect other nations to follow suit. Whether this will draw the ire of Donald Trump, President of the US, remains to be seen.
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On 24th June, David Lammy, Foreign Secretary, gave a speech to the House of Commons on the release of the ‘China Audit’, which laid out His Majesty’s (HM) Government’s acknowledgement that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is both a strategic threat and a source of economic growth. Lammy described the ‘full spectrum of threats – from espionage…to attacks on the rules-based order’ as key challenges Britain faces from Beijing, and the recommendations which the Audit lays out to enhance and extend protection against these threats. He reiterated that the UK’s approach to the PRC must ‘...stay rooted both in international law and deterrence’. However, the Foreign Secretary highlighted the fact that the PRC is Britain’s ‘third largest trading partner’ and will ‘continue to play a vital role in supporting the UK’s secure growth.’
Lammy also travelled to Turkey on 30th June for his first bilateral visit to the country. While in Ankara, Lammy met with Hakan Fidan, his Turkish counterpart, where he called for deeper defence and economic ties between the two countries, with Turkish newspapers reporting that HM Government is supportive of Turkey’s bid to acquire Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets. The meeting on Monday comes as Britain and Turkey begin negotiations over a new Free Trade Agreement. Lammy also highlighted Turkey’s centrality to the security interests of Britain and Europe, given its strategic location at the crossroads of the Black Sea, Caucasus, Middle East and Africa.
Last week, BAE Systems opened a major new shipbuilding hall in Glasgow. Officially called the Janet Harvey Hall, the facility on the River Clyde will allow two Type 26 frigates to be constructed side by side for the first time – fully undercover. This new shipbuilding hall is part of a wider £300 million BAE Systems investment programme. The Type 26 is the next-generation frigate set to replace the Type 23 as the Royal Navy’s primary anti-submarine warfare vessel.
On 30th June, the UK-US trade deal came into effect. This will see British auto and aerospace manufacturers’ preferential access to the US market, in return for greater access to British markets for American ethanol and beef. However, 25% tariffs on British steel and aluminium remain in place, and could double if a deal isn’t reached between London and Washington by 9th July.
Operation INTERFLEX, the UK-led training mission for Ukrainian soldiers, has celebrated its third anniversary, with the Ministry of Defence (MOD) stating that more than 56,000 Ukrainian troops have been trained as part of the operation since its inception. Originally conceived as a five-week infantry training course, Operation INTERFLEX has expanded to include counter-drone warfare, urban combat and trench warfare simulations. Similarly, the operation includes leadership and instructor training programmes for Ukrainian officers.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) released its annual progress report on 25th June, providing an overview of HM Government’s actions to reach the UK’s emission targets. The report states that the CCC is ‘more optimistic’ that Britain can meet its 2030 target of reducing greenhouse emissions by 68% relative to 1990 levels due to ‘credible policies’ in place to make 38% of the emissions cuts needed, up from 25% in 2023. However, the report notes that 80% of required emissions savings between now and 2030 come from sectors other than energy generation, and calls for policies to reduce the price of electricity as well as a rapid expansion of the electricity system to enable widespread electrification of industry, transport and space temperature control (i.e., the heating and cooling of buildings).
How competitors frame Britain
The Chinese Embassy to the UK rebuked the China Audit released alongside the National Security Strategy last week, stating ‘We firmly oppose the erroneous remarks in the UK’s statement and report that make groundless accusations against China…’ The statement went on to add: ‘China’s development does not pose a challenge or threat to any country; rather, it brings opportunities for shared development to countries around the world’. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has rightfully been highlighted as a threat to the UK due to its revisionist objectives, support for Russia’s war effort against Ukraine and constant cyber attacks on Britain.
Russia Today released propaganda focused on the news that the grandfather of Blaise Metreweli, the next Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), was a Nazi collaborator during the Second World War, where he carried out atrocities in occupied Ukraine. The article goes on to link so-called ‘Western’ governments to numerous Nazi collaborators. No surprises that Kremlin mouthpieces are promoting this story to further their claims that Ukraine and its allies are neo-Nazis.
Last Tuesday, HM Government released the new National Security Strategy (NSS) to provide the intellectual framework it intends to use to secure and promote British interests in an increasingly dangerous world. The document, 55 pages in total, builds on the tradition of the national security strategy introduced during the Labour government of 1997-2010. Back then, Gordon Brown, then Prime Minister, released a 64 page document to explain how his government would confront a number of cross-sector threats, especially from Islamist terrorism.
At the same time, the new NSS is not a departure from the previous Conservative government’s ‘integrated reviews’, in that many of the themes and concepts of those have been carried forwards – or even taken towards their logical conclusion. The problem of ‘economic statecraft’ and the significance of ‘productive power’ – largely, though not entirely, absent from the integrated reviews – is more of a focus in the new NSS. But the NSS does not seem to think that the UK needs new agencies or institutions to engage in such statecraft, beyond the new Industrial Strategy.
Where the strategy nudges the dial further in the right direction is in its ‘strategic framework’: securing the homeland, projecting strength abroad, and developing sovereign capabilities. This is an evolution of the strategic framework of the integrated reviews. It is much more sober and hard-headed than its predecessors. Particularly significant is the concept of ‘asymmetric advantage’: the idea that Britain needs to focus on areas where it can outsmart or outmanoeuvre its adversaries to secure its interests.
In short, the NSS is a helpful document which provides a glimpse into how HM Government’s strategic discourse is evolving. Now comes the hard part: implementation. The NSS has the potential to redefine British national strategy for a new era, but only if it is projected and installed across and through all departments and ministries of state. This is now the National Security Secretariat’s challenge.
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