Government decision on finance and development undermine international security

Rethinking Security, a network of peace and security experts, today criticised the Government's apparent decision to grant an exceptional four-year increase to the Ministry of Defence's budget while other government departments face swingeing cuts and long-term funding uncertainty.

Reports that the Treasury is considering a significant and exceptional reduction in spending on overseas development aid from the legally mandated 0.7% of GNI to 0.5% in 2021/22 are of great concern. This would further undermine conflict-affected and developing countries in the midst of pandemic and global recession and damage the UK's attempt to position itself as a 'force for good' in the world.

The prioritisation of military spending over other levers of influence also pre-empts and undermines the much-delayed Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, which was supposed to integrate and balance the needs of different departments concerned with international security.

Rethinking Security Co-ordinator Richard Reeve said: "By prioritising military spending over other means of influencing international security, the government is sending a powerful signal that Global Britain's security strategy is increasingly and overwhelmingly about projecting military power.

If the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us one thing it is that the real threats to people's lives and livelihoods cannot be offset by spending on weapons. A return to cold war confrontation makes us all less safe and does nothing to address health crises, ecological collapse or colossal inequalities of opportunity.

The government's spending calculus is a retrograde step that would reverse two decades of rebalancing from defence to development, coercion to cooperation. The Integrated Review is disintegrating before our eyes."

Theresa Alessandro, from Pax Christi, said: "We agree with Rethinking Security's analysis. In apportioning more money to the military, our government is revealed to be out of step with the now commonly-understood insight that military approaches cannot help us with the major risks we face, such as pandemics and climate change. In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis cautions that: 'War is not a ghost from the past but a constant threat. Our world is encountering growing difficulties on the slow path to peace upon which it had embarked and which had already begun to bear good fruit'. More military spending continues to lead us away from peace.

Member organisations of Rethinking Security are: Campaign Against Arms Trade, Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament, Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, Conciliation Resources, Forces Watch, International Alert, Medact, Movement for the Abolition of War, Northern Friends Peace Board, Oxford Research Group, Peace Direct, Quaker Peace and Social Witness, Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network, Saferworld, Scientists for Global Responsibility, United Nations Association - UK, War on Want .

LINK

Rethinking Security - www.rethinkingsecurity.org.uk