A new paper from Policy Exchange urges the Government to put supply chain resilience at the centre of economic, defence, and foreign policy planning.

The UK, as an island nation dependent on free and open maritime trade, has been rocked by repeated disruptions to globalised world systems since the late 2010s – from Brexit, to Sino-American decoupling, to the COVID-19 pandemic, to the Ukraine War, to Houthi attacks on Middle Eastern shipping checkpoints. The return to protectionist political economies around the world means that, in the short-to-medium term, the globalised trade system will continue to fragment.

This paper calls for a far-sighted supply chain strategy which is sensitive to these geostrategic developments. The authors provide a slate of recommendations – which range from machinery of government, to strategy, to individual policies – which the Government could implement in order to bolster the UK’s supply chain resilience in an age of disruption.

In a Foreword endorsing this intervention, Sir Crawford Falconer KCMG – former UK Chief Trade Negotiation Adviser – writes that the report “is the first attempt by any major think-tank to address the challenge head-on, situating British policymaking in the context of major-power friction and economic competition. It brings a sober sense of realism to the real-world consequences of events that are, alas, far from implausible.”