This month’s US National Security Strategy underlines an ongoing shift away from liberal values into a new age of empire. In this new long read, Larry Attree discusses how – by rethinking alliances, defence posture, peace and conflict policies, and international cooperation – the UK can oppose these dangerous trends and promote a more peaceful future.
Just eight years ago the UK was the world’s biggest peace donor. For over a decade, conflict prevention and peacebuilding had cross-party prioritisation, and the defence community supported their inclusion in the UK’s national security toolbox. This year, in a much more unstable world, the defence establishment under a Labour government has written conflict prevention and peacebuilding out of the UK’s National Security Strategy, which calls Britain’s people to get behind a more ‘lethal’ military and a strong NATO alliance to counter the Russian threat.
To meet military spending targets, afraid to cut elsewhere, the Treasury has ruthlessly slashed budgets for aid to alleviate crises and tackle their causes, and for peace diplomacy. The UK’s highly skilled conflict prevention and peacebuilding community is demoralised and – with UK peace funding at under 25% of its 2016 level – hanging by a thread financially. In a world where the chief architects of UK strategy believe Russia is already at war with the UK, peacebuilding has a branding problem – no one’s buying what we’re selling.
Yet if war has arrived, or looms on the horizon, peace and conflict experts still have a vital strategic perspective and role. To understand this it is important to reflect on four megatrends shaping present and future instability.
Four defining trends
Technological change: Military thinkers readily perceive how cyber, drones and AIare changing the character of war, the battlefield, and the balance of power between fast and slow adopters. The socio-political effects of new tech are just as important. We are witnessing breakneck cultural change. People’s means of connection are also the sites of their disorientation, disaffection and dislocation. The outrage profit model and politics via tiktok feed are eroding literacy, destroying a shared, globally connected national experience and narrative, and bringing vulnerability to disinformation, propaganda, simple solutions and snake oil salesmen. People feel disconnected and lost; societies, dysfunctional and polarised. People in many countries are hungry for political alternatives, and in many countries, autocratic, nationalist leaders are claiming power.
Climate and environmental crisis: In country after country, the intensifying climate crisis is manifesting as flooding, drought, agricultural shocks and resource pressure, migration, violence and conflict. These trends will intensify as the planet warms. At the start of this year, CARE staff published a brief on crises to look out for. Droughts had left 2.2 million people in need of aid in Angola, while severe hunger was affecting millions of people in Burundi, Central African Republic, Malawi, Madagascar and Zambia. Such crises have been erased from public consciousness in a way that was unthinkable a quarter century ago. Yet there is little prospect of smart, effective collective action to tackle the emergencies unleashed by climate and conflict, due to the following two trends.
Concentration of power: The new report Legitimacy in a fragmenting world takes stock of trends in how inclusive, pluralistic, and accountable political systems are all over the world, and whether they are delivering public goods and sharing wealth equitably. All over the world, almost every data-set relevant to legitimacy shows a downward spiral over the past 1-2 decades. These were the trends before the world’s most powerful nation this year cut off its massive global support for peace, democracy and development, got Voice of America to start pushing far-right content, and began urging German and Polish voters to elect far right parties, parroting Putin’s demands as a ‘peace’ plan, and attacking major liberal media and research organisations like Harvard and the BBC. This week’s US National Security Strategy will accelerate this trajectory.
Concentration of wealth: Corporations and oligarchs play a key role in the consolidation of power. Global growth began accelerating in 1993, and incredible wealth has been generated in the tech, finance, energy and military industries. But the share of income (8.5%) and the share of wealth (2.3%) of the poorest 50% of the world’s people are both lower today than in 1950. The tiny stake of most people in the economy, public goods and social protections remains at rock bottom.
In autocrat-oligarch coalitions, the wealthy exchange political and economic support for protection and rents. They capture legislatures, campaign finance and media, attack judicial independence, distort political debates and rig elections. This is no longer merely the pattern in places like Russia and Türkiye – but increasingly everywhere. And by hatcheting the rule of law in the United States, and espousing a brazenly acquisitive foreign policy, Trump is unleashing yet more corruption on a staggering scale, and making transactional, exploitative and bullying behaviours the new normal in international relations.
The consequences of rising far-right autocracy in an age of imperialism
The ascendancy of populist-nationalist autocrats heralds not strength and stability, but haphazard, dangerous policy decisions. To persecute internal ‘enemies’, such leaders favour a permissive international environment – and weaker multilateralism; internationally, nationalists espouse isolationism when it suits – potentially enabling aggression by other powers; but more than other types of leader, nationalist autocrats also tend to demonise external enemies to galvanise their base, vociferously assert national claims with disregard for international norms, and end up defaulting to belligerence internationally. For these reasons, their rise is increasing division and repression domestically and both war and ecological destruction internationally, and is likely to continue doing so.
As those with economic and military power demand policy change, displays of fealty, resources, and even territory from others, we are entering into a new age of imperialism in which norms and checks restraining transnational coercion and violence are rapidly eroding. United Nations, African Union and other international structures for responding are out of funds and unable to cope. In the shadow of neo-imperial inter-state and proxy warfare, there is no sustained framework for restraining atrocities, developing grounded, owned peace deals, and supporting their implementation.
These trends will keep generating more conflict and less peaceful resolution of it. The weak will either suffer what they must – or turn to protracted, bloody rebellion. In more and more contexts – like Sudan, Mali, Libya or Yemen – the destination may be political ungovernance. Fearing the new instability, major and middle powers are rolling up the drawbridge – defunding relief and peace operations, and plunging into a new arms race.
Clarity on the threat
In a new age of imperialism, with instability on its doorstep, and the far-right rearing its head, the UK has bet big on deterrence and containment through more lethal armed forces and a stronger NATO alliance. The idea that it faces a new Cold War is tempting. If a despotic, inhuman Russia wishes to subjugate Western Europe, surely Britain must arm as rapidly as possible, either to deter it or to prevail in a war against it? Yet this idea obscures the reality – of a more complex and multi-dimensional set of threats.
These threats emanate not only from Russia, but also from Britain’s closest ally – which is driving from Mar-a-Lago the networked rise of far-right movements, parties and leaders. Europe’s role in world history has been exploitative and destructive, but since 1945, its social democracies have brought unprecedented peace and well-being to this continent, while the UN has played a critical role in advancing international peace and security. The authors of imperial aggression, corporate exploitation and environmental collapse see British and European social democracy, and the multilateral system led by the UN, as the enemy. For them, the green transition represents but a dangerous attempt to curtail their rents.
If the UK faces war, this is a hybrid struggle that is as social, cultural, political and ecological as it is conventional and military; and it is as domestic as it is international. The US President and Vice President arguably wish Britain and Europe to lose it as much as Vladimir Putin does.
Rethinking strategy: starting from the end
Henry Kissinger once argued that ‘We should not engage in international conflicts if, at the beginning, we cannot describe an end’. Where does the UK want to be at the end of all this?
- Since war is hell, it must avoid escalation of war with Russia, but without inviting further international aggression.
- However, if escalation is unavoidable then the UK must avoid both defeat and mutually-assured destruction.
- An essential aspect of avoiding defeat, securing its future and protecting people’s rights and well-being is to ensure the survival of social democracy – i.e. a non-autocratic political system that provides for public well-being and contributes to global stability. This is vital for the UK, for Europe, and ideally well beyond.
- At the same time, the UK also needs to survive the ecological crisis by implementing a green transition – mitigating and adapting to climate change in solidarity with others.
Achieving these ends: a pro-peace security strategy
In pursuit of these ends, there are four vital areas in which the UK can move towards a much more responsible and effective security strategy by integrating pro-peace elements: more dynamic alliance policy; a strong, smart defence-oriented posture that also reinforces peace and social democracy; the integration of enhanced conflict prevention and peacebuilding capabilities into its strategy and approach; and rebuilding a cooperative multilateral framework.
1. More dynamic alliance policy
The UK should reflect on lessons from similar episodes in history. In times of belligerent imperial competition, security can be achieved in at least three ways. One strategy is achieving security through deterrence – but this can be dangerous. By removing the crucial distinction between war and peace, displaying a readiness for war, briefing the press that the UK is at war, and vaunting the lethality of our military, Britain can as easily emit signals that provoke an unnecessary war as signals that deter one.
A second option for achieving security is to be part of a winning alliance. Yet victory is never assured, nor cost free, and such alliances come with enormous risks. As I argued in 2022, the period preceding the First World War offers many lessons for statecraft today. Had the UK designed its alliances to avoid being drawn into a war deliberately provoked by its allies (not least a revenge-minded France), it could have kept itself apart from – perhaps even prevented – a war in which winners, losers and their successors were harmed so immeasurably.
Allies also present many other problems. It is unfeasible to prop up weak allies indefinitely. Thuggish allies multiply the ranks of one’s opponents. Unstable allies can quickly turn into adversaries. Even with strong, steadfast allies, in the nuclear age, major power conflict seems unlikely to result in any decisive victory, and miscalculation could mean nuclear holocaust.
Britain’s ambition to be a major power means the third option – having the wisdom and statecraft to avoid or find acceptable off-ramps out of unnecessary, unjust or unwinnable wars – is too often overlooked. It may be time to explore how Switzerland and Scandinavian countries avoided being sucked into WW1, avoiding the trauma and untold costs, or explore how Latin American and South-East Asian countries have largely stayed clear of inter-state wars and military blocs for over three decades. From the Cold War, the UK must recall the value of constructing off-ramps and, through the Helsinki process, a security architecture for confidence-building and de-escalation that dialled back nuclear confrontation.
Whichever options the UK takes in coming years, it must be wary of path dependency and embrace more dynamic and responsive alliance policy. It needs red lines on what it’s prepared to support existing allies to do; crucially, it must not offer security guarantees to partners who precipitate or escalate conflict. To avoid missteps – recalling the Protocol of Sevres, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand or the Gulf of Tomkin incident, it also needs a very careful eye on deception, disinformation and false-flag operations (e.g. who exactly sabotaged Nordstream?).
Perhaps the biggest question is how to play the United States. Trumpism needs to be defeated in the court of US public opinion, and if broadly fair elections go ahead, this could happen soon. Clearly, there are limits on how far the UK can antagonize the United States even under duress, but nor should it faun over Trump, acquiesce in illegal actions, or hand him easy wins.
While Britain may need its old allies to face down aggression, it urgently needs to deepen its strategic relationships with countries committed to like-minded internationalism. With them, it should work to protect social democracy from authoritarian aggression, assault and subversion. This requires investment in working with like-minded governments, foundations, CSOs and movements to prioritise and roll out strategies in states and societies where people’s rights are being stripped away or where there are openings for winning them back.
Some of the UK’s partners will fall by the wayside – into far-right hands – as might the UK itself. The remaining allies must be ready to adapt.
2. A strong, smart defence posture should reinforce peace and social democracy
The UK’s military does need to provide a strong deterrent to potential aggressors, and be ready to stop the UK and democratic allies being defeated by them. As the core of this strength, the UK should have a carefully articulated defensive posture – ready to fight as a last resort, but determined to explore the available alternatives beforehand.
To have the defence capabilities it needs, the UK has to be more radical about zapping corruption, waste and atavism across its defence establishment, which has failed to embrace accountability and change following the strategic reversals of recent decades, and which has a dismal track record of wasting vast sums of money (see here, here and here).
Right sizing and better managing the security budget is especially urgent to buttress domestic vulnerabilities. The current NSS trajectory to spend 5% of GDP on national security by 2035 risks defunding everything else. The consequences – deeper austerity, economic stagnation and social alienation in an already ‘broken Britain’ – could well hand Britain’s far-right – despite all of its disastrous policy agenda, links to fraud, Russian subversion and racist violence – the power to dismantle Britain’s social democracy. Cutting off this path to strategic failure requires reinforcing the social contract and solidarity domestically – by balancing defence spending to ensure socio-economic investment in other areas.
Still, since the security establishment has been handed such vast resources, it should at least do its utmost to embrace its potentially vital role in preventing, arresting, resolving conflict and consolidating both peace and social democracy. As I have recently written elsewhere, with political will and the right strategy, the security contribution to peace can be positive and profound in all phases of conflict.
The UK military must adopt and be comprehensively prepared for its role in conflict prevention and peacebuilding. As part of this, when UK defence and security players work with the security sector elsewhere, their approach should explicitly seek to strengthen democratic security governance, and include significant bottom-up elements (i.e. recognising the great strengths and cost-effectiveness of civil society and civilian actors in the many areas where military leadership is not desirable).
3. Integrating enhanced prevention and peacebuilding capabilities
The Strategic Defence Review and the National Security Strategy envisage the UK and allies engaging in a peer-to-peer conflict in which they prevail through military superiority. Yet they ignore a vital lesson: a peer-to-peer conflict would be a new scenario, but still the factors that confounded military thinkers in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan (how the political economy of conflict really works, how societies react when their needs go ignored and unfulfilled) will not disappear, but still be at play.
Despite all the volatility and change the last decade has brought, it’s important to reassert that the conditions for achieving sustained peace are likely to hold true. The stability Britain needs still depends on achieving the same conditions. Peace and stability depend not only on deterring strongmen from using violence to pursue their aims, but also on establishing conditions where people can access safety, justice, livelihoods, resources and services, and where there is inclusive, fair, honest and responsive governance, within an enabling and cooperative multilateral environment.
Working to bring about these conditions in the UK and its neighbourhood is essential in any viable strategy for protecting the UK. Military containment strategies – however well resourced – have shown poor results in bringing them about. The UK also needs the statecraft and diplomatic know-how to pursue detente and build sustainable security frameworks wherever it can.
Recall the second Bush administration and its total disinterest in nation-building until it realized that strategic defeat beckoned if it didn’t face the need to sustain stability in places it had ‘liberated’ on the battlefield. It is easy to assume stabilization is out of fashion because it was so difficult to do in the shadow of counter-terror hubris. But now Trump is trying, without USAID and USIP, to figure out how to stabilize Gaza. In a few years’ time, the UK could be trying to stabilize parts of Ukraine or perhaps even a Baltic state liberated from Russian occupation.
In my experience, the orientation of good peacebuilding is to engage with power structures as they are, not as we wish them to be, and to work incrementally to remove the violence from politics and to push back against unjust concentrations of power and wealth. When this works it can profoundly reduce violence and bolster security and prosperity.
The aims and approaches of conflict prevention and peacebuilding have never been more relevant than now. In coming years, both domestically and internationally, whether in peacetime or at war, the UK is going to need capabilities to prevent conflict, mediate, stabilize and peacekeep, support recovery, tackle underlying issues with conflict sensitivity, and deliver politically smart governance and development support.
The UK urgently needs to integrate an enhanced conflict prevention and peacebuilding approach into its national security strategy. From civil society and research networks to seasoned practitioners and diplomats, the UK has strong capabilities that it is going to need. To protect and invest in these, it is now vital to initiate a sustained, strategic dialogue with the defence sector and all political parties to restore a common understanding of why and how to promote peace.
Enhancing the UK’s approach to conflict requires prioritisation: the UK needs to focus on the conflicts where it has most at stake, and the influence, relationships and opportunities to prevent deteriorations and promote peace. Response strategies must be long term, context appropriate and grounded in evidence onwhat works in comparable settings – and carefully monitored and adjusted using inclusive feedback loops.
In specific places, the UK should focus on helping to shift momentum from within. It should support incubating networks on specific agendas, helping them to grow their common cause. Central to this is work with activists, NGOs and social movements, leaders, lawyers, civil society, academics and journalists. Success requires consistently funding civil society and social movements that can push for peace and social democracy – and reducing the bureaucracy that stymies their effectiveness.
4. Rebuilding a cooperative multilateral framework
To complement its peace and conflict agenda, the UK must work to salvage and reinforce multilateral response structures. With its most like-minded partners, the UK should push back against the assault on multilateral norms and structures, and keep promoting collective action on key agendas.
Geopolitically, the UK needs to grow the vision and capacity to help build frameworks for strategic stability – most urgently for Eurasia and for the Middle East, and on key issues such as nuclear proliferation and risks. Transnationally, confronting the trends fuelling conflict also means tackling the climate and environmental emergency, disrupting serious organized crime, propaganda and influencing operations, and exerting pressure on corruption and illicit financial flows.
In the immediate term, it must use its UN Security Council seat to defend multilateral norms and enlightened pro-peace laws, policies and initiatives. It should also reinforce pro-peace structures such as the UN Departments for Peace Operations, and Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, as well as building up regional architectures for crisis management, confidence and security-building.
For the long term, to expand momentum behind collective action, the UK needs to reset its relations with states that share strong interests in effective multilateralism, but are tired of the hypocrisy and self-dealing of the status quo. On all such agendas, it will be easier to achieve traction with governments who are oriented to safeguarding common goods domestically and internationally and accountable for their performance (yet another reason to keep strategy focused on social democracy).
However, to complement the new posture of avoiding all-but-necessary confrontation, the UK should tirelessly seek to bridge divides, champion ambitious cooperation, back words with deeds and build confidence with the majority of states, whether or not they are social democracies – finding common ground and pragmatic working relations with non-like-minded players on the most urgent agendas, starting with climate change. In doing so it should seek to demonstrate in practice at every opportunity the continued value of international collective action.
Overall, a pro-peace security strategy with these four pillars would carry far fewer costs and risks than the current National Security Strategy, and focus more holistically, successfully and sustainably on the ends the UK needs to keep in view. Genuine realism requires more thoroughly interrogating its major assumptions and partnerships, considering more creatively what conflict prevention and peacebuilding can bring to the table, and building this into more holistic strategic thinking. By doing this, the UK would stand a much better chance of safeguarding the British people against the new, multidimensional threats ahead.
This article is an adapted version of a presentation given by the author to a group of UK Government officials on the future of conflict and conflict prevention in November 2025.
The views and opinions expressed in posts on the Rethinking Security blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the network and its broader membership.
Image Credit: United Nations via Flickr. James Kariuki, Deputy Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations and President of the Security Council for November 2024, chairs the Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East (Yemen), 05 November 2024.
