Why rethink security?
Security matters to everyone, but much that governments do in its name is making us all less safe, at home and around the world. It’s time for a rethink – here’s why.
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Pulling up the Drawbridge on Fortress Britain
Government policy and practice consistently treat asylum and migration as security issues to be tackled via hard borders and military enforcement. Libby Ruffle describes how, in its Nationality and Borders Bill, the government is closing the door on those risking their lives in dangerous channel crossings in a desperate search for safety from war and repression.
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Open Society, Closed Conversations: External Consultation and the Integrated Review
This briefing paper from Rethinking Security and UNA-UK compares the external consultation processes of the recent Integrated Review with previous UK security reviews. It aims to inform better practice and contribute to Rethinking Security’s Alternative Security Review project.
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The Alternative Security Review
The Alternative Security Review is a civil society-led review of the UK’s security strategy. By asking people in the UK what they feel really matters to them for their security, the Alternative Security Review will create a human security strategy to provide an alternative to failing government policy.
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Why rethink security?
Security matters to everyone, but much that governments do in its name is making us all less safe, at home and around the world. It’s time for a rethink – here’s why.
Rethinking Security is a network of organisations, academics and activists working together for security based on justice, cooperation and sustainability. We invite you to join us.
The Alternative Security Review
The Alternative Security Review is a civil society-led review of the UK’s security strategy. By asking people in the UK what they feel really matters to them for their security, the Alternative Security Review will create a human security strategy to provide an alternative to failing government policy.
Our discussion paper
This 90-page paper provides an evidence-based critique of the UK’s national security strategy. It analyses the features of an outmoded narrative, and suggests the principal reasons for this failure to adapt.
Who pays the price?
Who pays the price for the UK’s approach to national security? Our three short films show its impact on people’s lives.
Playing the Pools: Omicron and Common Security
With the ultra-infectious Omicron variant looking set to sweep the world, Paul Rogers argues that the greatest global security challenge facing us is to heed WHO advice and ensure rapid world-wide vaccination against COVID to reduce the risk of new, more lethal variants of the virus emerging in future.
Making a Noise about the Quiet Return of Arms Fairs
After a year of cancellations due to the COVID pandemic, thousands of arms dealers and military representatives from across the world once again travelled to the UK to attend a string of arms fairs in the autumn. Kirsten Bayes from CAAT, was part of supporting the resistance to them and argues that now more than ever we need to highlight the insecurity they breed.
Heavy lift human security: The UK military and fragile states
In this essay, first published in a new volume by the Foreign Policy Centre and Peaceful Change Initiative, Richard Reeve analyses whether, after an era of catastrophic foreign military interventions and amidst talk of ever wider deployments and campaigns, there are still positive internationalist roles that the British Armed Forces could be fulfilling.
After COP26: Lessons from the World Food Crisis
Will COP26 deliver the political action necessary to tackle climate breakdown? Probably not, says Paul Rogers, but the experience of the 1970s World Food Crisis suggests that its intense highlighting of the climate crisis and the inadequacy of political leadership can and should catalyse much more urgent pressure for radical change in the next few months and years.
Racial Hierarchies and the War on Terror
Paul Higate argues that ‘counter-terrorism’ strategy in Afghanistan and elsewhere has been grounded in persistent ideas of racial hierarchy that value the lives of ‘deserving’ British troops well above those of contracted foreign personnel, let alone ‘disposable’ local allies and proxies.
Invisible Solutions: Embracing uncertainty to prevent violence
Despite a consensus that preventing violence is better and cheaper than trying to cure or contain it, almost all governments persist in vastly over-resourcing coercive responses. Ashley Macmillan argues for proactive and inclusive peace and security policies to be as normal as preventive measures in public health.
Rethinking Security 
Preventing Violence: Lessons from Health and Social Care
Connections between violence and health have been revealed in a number of ways, not least through the World Health Organisation’s recognition of violence as a public health problem. Anna Gillions asks what we can learn from reviewing approaches to violence from the health and social care sector.