Realising Societal Resilience for a Whole of Society Approach to Defence

While Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty makes clear each member state's responsibility, the UK is lagging. Years of austerity, Brexit, the pandemic and now a cost-of-living crisis have left people inward-looking, not outward-facing. A whole of society approach, as outlined in the Strategic Defence Review, demands more than military readiness. It means investing in the public services and civic infrastructure that build trust and capacity.

From Uppsala to Taipei, others are showing what resilience looks like. In the UK, we’re not there. Until we are, we cannot expect public buy-in on defence, let alone mobilisation in a crisis. Societal resilience must be seen as central, not separate, to national defence.

The NATO Summit in The Hague concluded with a sigh of relief from alliance watchers: the US remains committed, and NATO’s unity held. But the cost was a narrow agenda, fixated on the 5% of GDP for defence-spending target – and within that, a preoccupation with hitting 3.5% on ‘hard’ defence. What fell off the table was a serious discussion about resilience – despite it being part of the remaining 1.5% allies have pledged to spend and fundamental to NATO’s future deterrence and defence.

Article 3 and Societal Resilience

Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty places responsibility on member states for maintaining resilience. Societal resilience is a particular concern, specifically how we prepare our population to withstand future shocks. It also concerns their ability to withstand grey zone warfare or the misinformation and disinformation which our adversaries, including Russia and China have significantly stepped up, including through targeting men, women, boys and girls in different ways. It also has implications for a response should a NATO member state be invaded; we would then need to turn on its head everything we understand about civil-military relations. Instead of the armed forces coming to the rescue of civilian society, as they did during the Covid-19 pandemic, it would mean mobilising civilian capacity such as nursing and logistics to support the military and mount an effective defence. A ‘whole of society’ approach to defence, as outlined in the Strategic Defence Review, is therefore warranted but the societal resilience aspect of this remains underappreciated and less clearly articulated.

Parts of Europe are prepared differently for that. If you are sat in your apartment in Uppsala you are reassured that you know where your emergency pack is. If you are stood outside Corner House in Riga, you know what is at stake. In contrast, if you are stood on Grey Street in Newcastle top of your mind is likely to be when you can get a GP appointment. Until people feel secure in their daily lives, they cannot be expected to feel invested in national defence.

The key question is how we can communicate the current security situation to change that? To bring the population along with the increase in defence spending and the UK in line with its allies in terms of preparedness. And that is a message which should not be scaremongering but one which provides reassurance that the UK is prepared. That this is what NATO is and why it exists. The lesson from Brexit is that we cannot assume the public know what NATO is or why it exists, just as they struggled to comprehend what the EU is and why it exists, and that at a national level we need to be messaging on that. The recent disbanding of NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division further places this responsibility on member states. If we don’t explain what NATO is, what the UK’s ‘NATO First’ policy means in practice, and how the Alliance keeps us secure, that space will be filled by disinformation from our adversaries, sowing discord and ultimately apathy; with a population switched off from what is at stake – our democracy.

For the population to receive such a message, they need societal resilience. Yet in the UK a third of children live in poverty. The leading cause of death amongst young people aged under 35 is suicide. And one in five will experience domestic violence during their lifetime, with women more likely to experience repeated victimisation. This at a time when over a decade of austerity, the impact of Brexit, the covid-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis have taken their toll on people’s purses and capacity to withstand future shocks. Last summer’s riots, which the government has linked to deprivation and immigration, and this year’s unrest in Northern Ireland were driven by racism, stoked by anti-immigration rhetoric echoed by government. These aren’t isolated incidents. They reveal deep societal fractures we will not fix unless we face this head-on. It is understandable therefore that we have a population looking inward, not outward, with little capacity to understand the need to increase defence spending. In other parts of Europe – the cost-of-living crisis, directly attributable to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – is understood as such, in the UK the connection has not been made by your average person on the street.

Taiwan and Total Defence

Whilst we often look to Ukraine – or more often to Finland and its Total Defence – to understand how we might better build societal resilience, we should also be paying attention to Taiwan, a country facing constant pressure from an increasingly aggressive China which claims its territory and regularly conducts disinformation campaigns and military incursions into its airspace. Unlike NATO members, Taiwan does not have the protection of a collective defence alliance, yet it has recognised the critical importance of strengthening its own internal resilience as a key defence strategy. Taiwan continues to invest in its democracy, through education and building trust in its institutions and has some of the lowest levels of poverty in the world. Its population is also one of the most prepared globally in terms of earthquake response, and those drills and exercises double as preparation for a potential Chinese invasion of the island.

What can the UK learn from this? Investment in defence and deterrence should not be seen as a zero-sum game that comes at the expense of other essential priorities, such as healthcare, education or civil society. Civil society organisations, in particular, have long filled gaps by providing crucial services to communities both domestically and internationally through development spending, yet their capacity has been steadily eroded by successive government cuts since 2010 and the more recent decision to slash aid funding to support defence spending. A sustainable security strategy must recognise that national resilience depends just as much on strong public services and vibrant civil society as it does on military capability. For a population to receive a message, to withstand disinformation, and to be receptive should a crisis ensue through trust in public institutions.

Add to this, the possible future crisis resulting from Russia invading a NATO member state is fundamentally different from the Covid-19 pandemic, first, because it will turn on its head what we understand about civil-military relations. Placing greater reliance on civilian capacity to support military preparedness, rather than the armed forces stepping into support civil society. Second, because public trust in government has been further damaged and requires rebuilding. The government’s handling of the Covid pandemic – and particularly the breaking of its own rules by the Prime Minister and other senior figures – has undermined confidence in political leadership, making it even harder to secure the public support needed in times of national crisis.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Lord Robert Haldane - an early proponent of what is now known as a ‘whole of society’ approach to defence saw the value of Universities to this endeavour. Not only to grappling with complex ideas and challenges but communicating them to the population at large. He created the Officer Training Corps which continue to thrive attached to regional clusters of universities today. They are overseen by the Military Education Committees which provide a vital role for university-military dialogue, and civilian oversight of military education. He also reformed UK Higher Education and set the scene for it to become the world leader it is today.

Yet, today we have a UK Higher Education sector in crisis; at risk of losing its global reputation and ability to produce the graduates a whole of society approach to defence necessitates. Five universities were formally monitored by the Office for Students (OfS) last year for being ‘at risk of closure’, while over half are running significant deficits. The government has not intervened, and it is left to individual universities to navigate their way through the crisis. The result has been cuts to programmes driven by short-term financial decisions, rather than a national understanding of how higher education underpins the UK’s security and resilience. Across the country, provision in critical areas - from languages to physics, history, and even nurse training - has been lost.

While the SDR and National Security Strategy recognised the role of universities for a whole of society approach, they did so through the narrow lens of STEM research and a graduate pipeline to support ‘lethality’. Omitted was a consideration of Universities as often significant regional employers, and as institutions the public trust and look to in order to make sense of crises as they emerge. There was no concern given to the implications of a narrow graduate pipeline in the future. If university graduates are the civilian and military leaders of the future, we will rely on them to navigate us through should a Russian invasion of a NATO member state occur and to push back on the disinformation campaigns our society is currently subjected to. The humanities and social sciences are crucial to developing critical thinking skills, to pushing creative approaches which are needed to navigate any crisis. These disciplines also have a critical role in communicating challenges to the public.

Requirements of a Whole of Society Approach

A whole of society approach to defence, prioritising societal resilience, requires a whole of society approach from government. While the Cabinet Office might lead on societal resilience, other departments need to step up too. It relies on the Department of Education understanding the role of (higher) education, it necessitates leadership from the Secretary of State. University leaders too must also appreciate the place of higher education within this picture to ensuring that research, teaching, and community engagement contribute to strengthening the social fabric and supporting national preparedness. The same extends to other government departments too, from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to the Department of Health and Social Care.

To conclude, while the move to increase defence spending is likely warranted given current geopolitical tensions. It should not come at a cost to investment in strategic resilience, in our health and welfare services, in our schools and universities. This is vital not only for communicating the necessity of increased defence spending, but for ensuring a population able to withstand current and future shocks. The UK must step up on its commitment to Article 3 in support of an effective deterrence and defence strategy.

© Katharine Wright, 2025, published by RUSI with permission of the author.

The views expressed in this Commentary are the author's, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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