GovWire

Perhaps unsurprisingly after three years, there is a ring of familiarity to these RUSI Lectures.

Back at the start in December 2021 I spoke about a renewed era of state-on-state competition. I warned that the Russian forces massing on the border with Ukraine posed a direct challenge to global stability.

By the following year, our worst-case intelligence estimates had come to pass with the intensity of the fighting and the barbarity of Russian atrocities.

Then last year, speaking in the wake of the attacks by Hamas on Israel, I spoke of the potential for volatility across the Middle East.

Now here we are in 2024: reflecting on a conflict in the Middle East which has spread beyond Gaza and a war in Europe which has now passed the 1,000-day mark and grows even more intense. In October 2023 Russia launched 300 one-way attack drones beyond the frontline at Ukraine: in October this year the number exceeded 2,000.

Sitting above this are the broader geo-strategic shifts, including the growing coordination between Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang.

Now as you heard, I am known as an optimist. And I keep coming back to the advice I was once given by a wise general: the role of senior leaders at points of tension is to reassure the nation and stiffen its resolve.

Ive spoken before about how we should be reassured by our nations strengths:

• Our status as a nuclear power
• Our wealth as a G7 economy
• The collective might of NATO
• Our network of international partners
• The potential of military-industrial agreements like AUKUS and GCAP
• And the quality of todays servicemen and women.

These are good reasons to be confident.

But, tonight, I want to focus on the other part of my responsibility to stiffen the nations resolve.

That requires me to speak plainly about the threats we face and the response required.

My premise is as follows:

• First, the world has changed. Global power is shifting and a third nuclear age is upon us. The era of state competition primarily through geo-economics has shifted to a resurgence of geo-politics. And it will last decades.

• Second, how we go about demonstrating that resolve. Its about confidence and self-belief. Its about our national and collective sense of purpose. Its about leadership and a willingness to act. This keeps us safe even in a more dangerous world.

• And third, why the case for reform that I outlined three years ago is even more important today. And why the imperative is to shift Defence to an outward looking, forward-thinking organisation that is entirely focused on making the nation safe at home and strong abroad.

In their book, The Lessons of Tragedy, Hal Brands and Charles Edel pose the crucial question for all of us who have been fortunate to benefit from relative peace and rising prosperity since the Second World War: how do we invoke that sense of tragedy and the need to act where necessary without having to experience the tragedy that comes from war?

Are we able to recognise one era has ended and another has begun? Do we understand what is at stake? And are we sufficiently motivated to respond?

This years most extraordinary development was the deployment of thousands of North Korean soldiers on the border of Ukraine. And the possibility of tens of thousands more to follow as part of a new security pact with Russia, which could involve the exchange of the most sensitive technology and expertise between Moscow and Pyongyang.

Add to this the use of Iranian-supplied drones by Russian forces, and Russias threats to arm the Houthis in direct retaliation for western support to Ukraine, and we are witnessing the world aligning into three groups.

In one group are those authoritarian states seeking to challenge the global rules. In the case of Russia, it is because Putin believes in a historic fiction. In the case of China, it is seeking to reshape the rules around its own interests. And in the case of North Korea and Iran, it is to secure the survival of their regimes at any cost.

In another group are the responsible nations of the world. Most are democracies. But it also includes the Gulf monarchies and others who are committed to partnership and to the maintenance of stability and security in the world.

And the third group of countries are hedging and ducking between the two for maximum advantage, as we saw with the BRICS Summit in Kazan this October.

Talk of world order may sound abstract. Rules and values can seem wishy-washy. And multi-lateral institutions may feel remote. But they are real. Their presence, and more so their absence, can be felt in a way that is immediate and visceral.

The concept of sovereignty is real for the people of Ukraine, who are paying an extraordinary price in its defence.

The value of deterrence, and collective security, is real for our allies in Eastern Europe - countries whose borders have been progressively shaped and reshaped by autocratic and expansionist powers and feel the proximity of Russias aggression every day.

The notion of freedom of navigation matters to those nations that faced food shortages due to Russias actions in the Black Sea. Or to the merchant mariners in the Red Sea who are on the receiving end of Iranian-supplied missiles and drones.

In contrast, Britain might feel safer.

We do not face an existential threat like Ukraine or Israel. We do not share a land border with Russia, like Poland or our Baltic and Nordic allies. We are protected by our maritime geography and the strength in depth of an Alliance with a landmass stretching from the fringes of the Arctic to the Eurasian steppe.

And yet we too are experiencing the consequences of a more unstable world in a way that is also very real.

Our national airspace and territorial waters, our critical energy and digital infrastructure, and our public discourse have all been subject to interference. In cyberspace, the frequency of attempts on our networks continues to accelerate, driven both by rogue individuals and nation states.

And we are seeing a Europe-wide campaign of arson and sabotage, characterised in and extraordinarily frank and open way by the heads of two of our intelligence agencies as a sustained mission to generate mayhem and beyond irresponsible.

But the impact of global instability is felt even more broadly. As consumers through the cost of living. As taxpayers, through the expense of energy subsidy. And low growth and stagnation across Europe as markets react to an increasingly uncertain world.

The security outlook is more contested, more ambiguous and more dangerous than we have known in our careers.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the nuclear domain.

The first nuclear age the Cold War was defined by two opposing blocs governed by the risk of uncontrollable escalation and the logic of deterrence. The second nuclear age was governed by disarmament efforts and counter-proliferation. But we are at the dawn of a third nuclear age which is altogether more complex. It is defined by multiple and concurrent dilemmas, proliferating nuclear and disruptive technologies, and the almost total absence of the security architectures that went before.

From Russia we have seen wild threats of tactical nuclear use, large scale nuclear exercises and simulated attacks against NATO countries, all designed to coerce us from taking the action required to maintain stability. Chinas nuclear build up poses a two-peer challenge to the United States. Irans failure to cooperate with the IAEA is a concern, and North Koreas ballistic missile programme and erratic behaviour presents a regional and, increasingly, a global threat.

Nuclear non-proliferation has been one of the great successes of international security since the end of the Second World War but is now being challenged. It has been successful because of states that took their international responsibilities seriously, and those, like Britain and the United States, who were willing to extend their nuclear umbrella to allies and partners and guarantee their security. This must continue.

The UKs nuclear deterrent is the one part of our inventory of which Russia is most aware and has more impact on Putin than anything else.

This is why successive British Governments are investing substantial sums of money to renew both our submarines and warhead and to recapitalise our nuclear enterprise after decades of underinvestment, and this even though the real benefits wont be realised for another decade at least. Previously governments believed they were doing the right thing. Now they know they really are.

This leads me to my second point, which is about rediscovering our confidence and self-belief.

Because if we step back for a moment, we can see our strengths.

A Europe and America that represents half the worlds wealth versus a Russia that is facing economic and demographic decline.

A NATO that spends more on Defence than Russia and China combined and is becoming even stronger.

An international community that has responded to Russias aggression with unprecedented cohesion and resolve.

Meanwhile, from America, weve had the clarity of successive US Administrations on the need for NATO allies to step up and shoulder their fair share of the responsibility for European security.

By and large, that is happening. European nations are spending $400 billion more on Defence today than they were

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