This essay, written by three former senior Ministry of Defence officials, contributes to the debate about Britain’s defence preparedness, following the publication of The Say-Do Gaps in Defence by Policy Exchange Senior Fellow Air Marshal Edward Stringer CB CBE earlier this year.  

In Defence and National Security: Fixing the Machine, the authors argue that the institutional machinery intended to protect Britain is not prepared for an increasingly volatile landscape, nor has there been a serious effort to explain or confront the unprecedented combination of short, medium and long-term challenges. The essay contends that, despite the ambitions of the Strategic Defence Review and the National Security Strategy, the Government is yet to make national security and defence the “fundamental organising principle of government” as it pledged. The resulting gap between rhetoric and readiness has become a strategic problem in its own right as Britain faces a significantly more dangerous environment than in the last decade, with war in Ukraine, intensifying grey-zone threats and growing uncertainty around long-term American engagement.

In the face of numerous stalled initiatives spanning procurement and planning to the nuclear deterrent and non-military capabilities, the answer is not sweeping reorganisation. Instead, the authors suggest that the Government should make better use of the machinery it already has – particularly the National Security Council, the National Security Adviser and planning expertise within the Ministry of Defence. The essay makes the case for clearer leadership from the centre, underwriting a more disciplined and purposeful use of existing institutions so that policymaking and strategic planning work in lockstep to ensure delivery. It concludes that, above all, ministers must begin to explain the scale of the challenge more honestly. Without the sustained political leadership and communication needed for a genuine whole-of-society effort, Britain will remain underprepared for the risks it now faces.