National Security Strategy: RUSI Reaction

Neil Melvin, Director, International Security, RUSI

The National Security Strategy (NSS), which comes hot on the heels of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR), and folds in several other reviews launched since Labour came to power – including a China audit and a review of AUKUS – presents a dizzying picture of the UK facing a world of increased threats, far-reaching global economic, political and technological changes, growing risks, and with many of the certainties of the past under question. The Strategy warns starkly that the UK must prepare for the possibility of direct attack.

In response to these threats, the document is a clear assertion that for the government, defence and security will be a focal point, and a key issue upon which they should be judged. The NSS lays out – building on the comprehensive approach to national security that was developed already in the Integrated Review of 2021 and the IR Refresh of 2023 – a well elaborated and broad understanding of what national security depends on in this new world, notably including societal resilience and economic competitiveness. The NSS asserts the important message that the measures it sets out are intended to lead to ‘a hardening and a sharpening’ of the government’s approach to national security but that success will require a whole-of-society response.

Yet beyond the welcome analysis of the serious challenges that face the UK and the recognition that improving national strength and developing key capabilities will be vital to negotiate an increasingly volatile and hostile world, important questions remain. Crucially, while the NSS acknowledges that the UK will face difficult choices and trade-offs, the text is light on what this will mean in practice. The resource issue inevitably looms large here. With the government already under pressure to answer how the defence commitment of 5% of GDP will be funded and how to manage an exceedingly tight public expenditure situation, the NSS leaves open how the UK will prioritise across the expansive range of commitments, responsibilities, and engagements detailed in the Strategy.

Setting priorities – but also drawing limits – for the UK on where it can realistically act to ensure national interests will be crucial. However, in a world where there is uncertainty even about where your closest ally is heading, the temptation can be to hedge rather than to lead when that will involve difficult choices. As the SDR highlighted, and is echoed in the NSS, the UK is clearly NATO first… but not NATO only. In the NSS, China crystallises this dilemma where Beijing is seen for the UK as simultaneously a threat requiring a security response, an economic opportunity and a country that needs ‘direct and high-level engagement’. Caught between its various allies and lacking a clearly articulated national interest, the UK was recently left flat-footed and on the defensive as the Middle East conflict escalated. The NSS provides a valuable guide to the kind of world that the UK is confronting, but whether the UK is able to navigate this successfully will, inevitably, be all about political leadership.

Matthew Savill, Director of Military Sciences

As the NSS was – unusually – preceded by the SDR, there are few surprises here for defence-watchers. What the NSS does is place that SDR in the fuller context of the whole UK national security system, including its links to all elements of the new ‘Strategic Framework’. This is welcome, insofar as it represents the latest reminder that Defence needs to work with many different departments to be successful – and in this it follows previous initiatives like the ‘Comprehensive Approach’ and ‘Fusion Doctrine’.

But the dark tone of the NSS, placing the UK in a world with more potential for ‘direct confrontation with adversaries’, and a commitment to spend 5% of GDP on national security (including 3.5% on defence) is not matched with the urgency of investment that might be expected. If the government is still aiming at 2.5% for Defence by 2027 (with an additional 0.1% from other sources) then the rate at which the Armed Forces will be transformed for this new world is likely to be very gradual.

Moreover, for all the talk of the UK needing to be ready for war, and improving its resilience, there is still no sign of what could be called a ‘national defence plan’. For all the language in the NSS about a call to action and for some kind of military re-invigoration, the jury is still out on whether the Ministry of Defence will be able to respond at the pace required.

Tom Keatinge, Director, Centre for Finance and Security, RUSI

Finance runs as a thread through the NSS, but two issues are particularly striking. First, previous UK governments have flirted with the role of illicit finance in national security, but the latest iteration places this challenge squarely at the centre of the government's response, recognising that ‘All elements of our security are supported by our ability to tackle illicit finance’, not only as relates to non-state threats such as criminal activity and terrorist networks, but also ‘hostile state actors’.

And second, the government recognises that economic strength and an ability to confront economic coercion are central to national security and that ‘Effective deterrence in the future will require more incorporation of economic measures into [the UK’s] defence and security toolkit.’

If there were ever any doubt that economic security is national security, this strategy makes clear that for the foreseeable future, this relationship, underpinned by an ability to resist the financial dimension of hostile state activity, will be central to the future security of the UK.

Dan Marks, Research Fellow in Energy Security

In his forward to the NSS, Prime Minister Keir Starmer argues that investing in economic resilience is ‘clearly a crucial component of our defence’. Infrastructure, energy and climate get top billing, touching on many of the key security challenges in these areas, and follows the publication of both infrastructure and industrial strategies, with many more sectoral strategies still to come. However, the NSS is light on these various strategies will reinforce each other to improve overall economic security and measurable objectives and timelines.

The document talks about ‘addressing the threats from the climate and nature crisis to our national security and economic prosperity,’ but does not provide a strategy, budget or timeline to achieve this. It does not set out a plan for integrating climate risks into security planning comparable to, for example, the US Department of Defense’s Climate Assessment Tool.

The new Supply Chain Centre, echoing a similar US initiative launched under President Joe Biden, is welcome. More details about its objectives were released in the industrial strategy published on 23 June, but it is not clear how it will add to the work of the Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre or the role it will triangulate between and influence the many government and private stakeholders involved in supply chain security.

There is also a risk that the new centre focuses too narrowly on materials and does not account for the impact of various policies on the full supply chain. Feeding analysis into the British Business Bank’s priorities is a positive move in this direction. However, the Centre is coupled with investments set out in the industrial strategy for supply chains more generally and wind supply chains in particular, which will have an impact on the ground.

In similar vein, important links are made between economic security and industrial, trade and critical minerals strategies, but a clear vision for how these strategies will improve security is absent. Not examined is how these strategies will address the disruption of global trade due to tariffs and protectionism, geopolitical competition and challenges at critical chokepoints such as the Panama Canal, Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz.

This points to one of the central challenges in the government’s economic security strategy: that while different policy areas are acknowledged as being involved in improving resilience and gaining competitive advantage in a challenging environment, there is no compelling critique of the current pillars of economic security – the roles of the state, private actors and open markets – and whether these should change. Without this critique, alongside clear objectives, outputs, budgets and timelines, the material impact of the strategy may be limited.

But despite these challenges, the NSS remains an important step forward for the UK and puts in place some of the institutional elements that will help make incremental gains and may ultimately contribute to development of an overarching framework for economic security. Acknowledgement of the importance of a problem can be the first step to finding solutions, but the UK needs to walk faster if it is to be ready for the challenges it wants to prepare for over the next decade.

Louise Marie Hurel, Research Fellow, Cyber and Tech

Earlier this year, the UK government reiterated that cyber incidents are among the most serious national security risks. The newly released NSS, while framed around the UK’s ambition to meet the 5% NATO spending commitment, offers little new direction for cyber policy.

Despite ‘cyber’ having been referenced in all NSS since 1998, all documents present a similar broadness in its approach – a reflection of the nature of the document. The only exception being the 2015 NSS since it had been combined with the SDSR.

Instead, the NSS reinforces and complements key points raised in the SDR. It reaffirms the role of the GCHQ and MoD dual-hatted National Cyber Force (NCF) in delivering responsible cyber operations and supporting wider military activity. It also reiterates the importance of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in helping businesses strengthen their cyber resilience.

It is, however, unsurprising that the NSS does not add more to the cyber discussion other than acknowledging developments in the UK’s cyber governance. Since 2009, the UK’s National Cyber Strategy is effectively the guiding document that outlines a more detailed vision and language for cybersecurity – and which is set to have a new version released later this year.

With that said, two points stand out. First, the NSS it adopts the language of ‘hardening and sharpening’ national security, calling for a more proactive ‘campaigning approach’ – a concept echoed by the SDR and recent speeches from US Cyber Command. This includes, presumably, a greater emphasis on sustained, forward-leaning cyber operations as part of broader deterrence efforts. While the UK’s NCF has published a paper on Responsible Cyber Power in Practice, it is yet to be seen how more the government might articulate (or not) that campaigns-driven language in other official documents.

Second, the NSS highlights the link between cyber threats and economic security – an increasingly relevant framing in light of the human and financial costs of ransomware attacks and the objectives of the Labour government. It shows continuity of previous NSS’s around ‘ensuring a secure and resilient UK’ but speaks more directly to a context where cyber is part of achieving economic prosperity and is also topical following ransomware attacks against British retailers like Marks & Spencer and Co-op.

This year marks 16 years since the publication of the first National Cyber Security Strategy, nine years since the official establishment of the NCSC, and holds the promise (or at least the hope) of a clearer connection between ‘saying and doing’ in the National Cyber Strategy – presumably to be released later this year. Not to mention, the Cyber Security Resilience Bill is expected to set a baseline for the defences of digital services and supply chains.

Elijah Glantz, Research Fellow, Organised Crime and Policing

The recognition of serious and organised crime (SOC) as ‘the most corrosive, day-to-day threat to most UK citizens’ is a welcome inclusion to the NSS. RUSI analysis of the top SOC threats to the UK has indicated serious increases in the prevalence of drugs, fraud, child sexual abuse and their associated social and economic harms. However, despite the Government’s focus on generating whole-of-society resilience, the Strategy omits clear commitment to making the UK public and economy more resilient to these high-frequency and corrosive SOC threats. Amid increasing economic harms triggered by serious increases in serious acquisitive crime and cybercrime, securing key national economic sectors – from the High Streets to the automotive sector – requires innovative, cross-sector action.

The Strategy’s focus on supply-side, enforcement-driven security without deliberate mention of demand reduction and societal resilience amounts only to a half of a security strategy for countering SOC. It is crucial the Government recognise that law enforcement and repressive means alone will not secure the public or its economic growth. This is best evidenced by the Government’s narrow focus on tackling organised immigration crime by disrupting SOC groups and smashing criminal gangs, an approach recently critiqued as incomplete by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration.

The NSS’ recognition of SOC as a key national security threat is a vital step towards turning the tide on rising criminality and its pernicious effects on wider society. However, countering SOC requires deliberate focus on addressing drivers and demand. In placing human and economic resilience at the fore, the Government can alleviate the excessive burdens on law enforcement and harden the UK against its most commonly encountered threats.

© RUSI, 2025.

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