GovWire

The 2021 Integrated Review (IR2021) provided a comprehensive articulation of the UKs national security and international policy in the context of a world moving towards greater competition and multipolarity. In the two years since its publication, that transition has happened more quickly and definitively than anticipated. The 2023 Integrated Review Refresh (IR2023) responds to a more contested and volatile world.

The broad direction set by IR2021 remains right, and IR2023 maintains significant continuity across most policy. But in a few areas, the UKs policy has evolved in the last two years, or needs to be updated to reflect key changes in the global context, including but not limited to Russias invasion of Ukraine.

In this context, IR2023 sets out the four ways in which the UK will protect its core national interests the sovereignty, security and prosperity of the British people as well as its higher interest in an open and stable international order of enhanced cooperation and well-managed competition based on respect for the UN Charter and international law:

1. Shape the international environment. The UK will actively shape, balance, cooperate and compete to create the conditions, structures and incentives necessary for an open and stable international order and to protect global public goods.
2. Deter, defend and compete across all domains. We will strengthen our integrated approach to deterrence and defence, to counter both state threats and transnational security challenges. We will also work to uphold strategic stability, establishing new frameworks and building a new international security architecture to manage systemic competition and escalation in a multipolar environment.
3. Address vulnerabilities through resilience. We will develop the UKs approach to resilience, addressing the economic, societal, technological, environmental and i
   

   View the original news story