COUNTER•POWER 106: What would an alternative "strategic defence review" look like?
Jun 25, 2025
44:00
To much fanfare, Britain has announced yet another "strategic" defence review - the fifth that a UK Government has undertaken in the last 15 years. The peculiar thing, however, is that despite the frequency of these reviews, they have a strong tendency to assert continuity over change.
This is certainly the narrative of the present UK Government's latest review: that nothing has changed in UK and US transatlantic relations, apart from the willingness, they suggest, of the UK to spend more on defence. Trump's close friendship with Vladimir Putin and sympathy towards Russia's geopolitical narrative - and the broader turbulence of American politics he forms part of - is, apparently, unimportant for Britain's future defence and security arrangements.
And rather than address the varied range of threats and challenges, the review advocates more submarines and nuclear weapons as its big-ticket proposals.
In this podcast, Zoe Williams, Luke Cooper and Mary Kaldor discuss this muddled and small-c conservative thinking. They lay out what an alternative defence policy would be, at the centre of which should be a closer relationship with our European allies.
For more on the discussion in this podcast, check out Luke and Mary's recent blog, "‘Organised irresponsibility’: How Britain’s defence strategy clings to a bygone world"
This is certainly the narrative of the present UK Government's latest review: that nothing has changed in UK and US transatlantic relations, apart from the willingness, they suggest, of the UK to spend more on defence. Trump's close friendship with Vladimir Putin and sympathy towards Russia's geopolitical narrative - and the broader turbulence of American politics he forms part of - is, apparently, unimportant for Britain's future defence and security arrangements.
And rather than address the varied range of threats and challenges, the review advocates more submarines and nuclear weapons as its big-ticket proposals.
In this podcast, Zoe Williams, Luke Cooper and Mary Kaldor discuss this muddled and small-c conservative thinking. They lay out what an alternative defence policy would be, at the centre of which should be a closer relationship with our European allies.
For more on the discussion in this podcast, check out Luke and Mary's recent blog, "‘Organised irresponsibility’: How Britain’s defence strategy clings to a bygone world"