Foreign Policy & Security
Latest Foreign Policy & Security Publications
Foreign Policy and National Security in the New Parliament
In a new report published last week, Policy Exchange stresses the vital role of Parliament in shaping debates about Britain’s place in the world, and urges the building of greater cross-party consensus on foreign policy. It stresses the role of the Defence and Foreign Affairs Select Committee in the context of a hung Parliament. The report was published alongside a new database of MPs’ voting records on key issues of national security since 2010, as well as their constituency positions on Brexit — the most detailed resource of its kind ever created. In a Foreword to the report, Tom Tugendhat MP, the new Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee said, ‘Policy Exchange is at the forefront of new thinking about national security and the UK’s place in the world’. The report was covered in The Daily Mail.
After Brexit: Will Ireland be next to exit?
In a flagship new report for Policy Exchange, former senior Irish Ambassador Ray Bassett argues that a failure to reach a benign compromise between the EU and the UK in Brexit negotiations risks seriously damaging the Irish economy. So far, the Irish Government has sided firmly with the EU27, but Bassett believes this may be a mistake given how intimately the Irish and British economies are connected. In the event of the UK leaving the Customs Union and the Single Market, Ireland may be forced to follow suit, potentially even seeking its own “Irexit”.
The UK and the Western alliance: NATO in the new era of realpolitik
A new paper from Policy Exchange’s Britain in the World project, examining the future of NATO. The paper argues that current events, from Russian aggression to the EU’s internal politics, mean that NATO is weakening at a time when security challenges are growing
Latest Foreign Policy & Security Blogs
The collective action to Russia was in part a result of the UK’s firm unilateral response
Policy Exchange’s Professor John Bew, whose essay on the Skripal affair was discussed on the Today programme, argues that the UK’s initial response to Russian aggression paved the way to wider, collective action.
Time for political game-playing over the Irish border to stop
Policy Exchange’s Senior Fellow on EU Affairs Ray Bassett – himself a former senior Irish diplomat – argues that ‘any hard border in the Irish Sea and North/South would hurt Ireland a lot more than it would Britain’ and that Ireland’s interests are more aligned with the UK than EU. Consequently, he says Dublin should drop its efforts to keep Northern Ireland in the Customs Union.
The EU’s own report confirms that the Irish Border issue can be resolved with technology – does this expose other motivations in Dublin and Brussels?
Dr Graham Gudgin – himself a former special adviser to the First Minister of Northern Ireland – finds that the EU’s own research group has identified technological solutions to avoid a ‘hard border’, raising questions about Dublin and Brussels’ intransigence on this issue.
Latest Foreign Policy & Security News
North Korea – Is there a military option?
Leading South Korean General I-B Chun – former head of Korea’s Special Warfare Command – considered whether there is a military solution to the North Korean threat in an event at Policy Exchange. Chun warned that the North’s nuclear capability is not only directed at the United States; that we should all be worried about their cyber capability, indoctrination of children, that China would prefer a nuclear North Korea to a US-influenced state on its border. But he added: “I truly believe that my system of democracy, freedom, respect for human rights is far more powerful than any North Korean nuclear weapon.”
Chief of Defence Staff echoes Policy Exchange warning on undersea cables
The Chief of the UK Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, has echoed Policy Exchange’s warnings about potential threats to the undersea communications cables that are vital to the internet and international commerce in the annual Chief of Defence Staff Lecture at the Royal United Services Institute. Sir Stuart’s comments come less than two weeks after the publication of our report Undersea Cables: Indispensable, insecure, which highlights that 97% of global communications and $10 trillion in daily financial transactions are transmitted by cables – but that those cables are highly vulnerable to attack from hostile states or terrorists.
New Anglo-American project launched with high-level conference in Washington
Policy Exchange launched our new Anglo-American project with a high level conference in Washington to debate US-UK Relations in a Changing World. Both the US National Security Adviser Lt Gen HR McMaster and the National Security Adviser to the British Prime Minister, Mark Sedwill CMG, spoke at the event – the first time the two holders of these positions have appeared together in public. The event attracted widespread media coverage including from Bloomberg, Newsweek, ABC News, Voice of America, Washington Times, The National, Mail Online and the New York Times.
Latest Foreign Policy & Security Events
Security Challenges to the Continent
Jan 23, 2017This event was held at Policy Exchange on 23 January and featured Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, Commander of US Army Europe
The End of the Asian Century? East-West Relations in the Age of Trump
Jan 19, 2017This event was held at Policy Exchange on 19 January, the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration — it featured Michael Auslin, one of America’s leading foreign policy experts
Australian Defence Industry and the United Kingdom
Dec 12, 2016On Monday 12 December, Hon. Christopher Pyne MP — Australia’s Minister for Defence Industry and Leader of the House of Representatives — spoke at Policy Exchange about how, ‘as the rules-based global order faces increased challenges, [our] common values and our shared commitment to defend them are only strengthened’
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