Future Trends and Challenges to UK Security

"Before it took office, both parties in the current British government promised to conduct a new Strategic Defense Review. These are a traditional once-a-decade assessment of what Britain's national interests are, and how best to defend them in the coming years.

Over the course of the Cold War and in its aftermath, the threats to Britain's security changed but their nature remained broadly similar: traditional interstate warfare, threats to trade routes, nuclear proliferation amongst states, threats to Britain's overseas territories such as the Falkland Islands, and terrorism, particularly from the IRA.

I believe that the preeminent overarching trend in the coming decades will be the changing nature of security itself. The twelve years since the previous Strategic Defense Review has seen Britain retain its ability to project conventional force around the globe, and this ability will remain important. But it has also seen the emergence of real threats against which conventional force are not appropriate. These are likely to grow in importance over the coming decades as technology improves and becomes cheaper and thus more widely available to non-state groups and individuals...."

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