The respected IPPR think tank has published a report on Britain's defence status in a volatile geo-political climate.

By Alex Stevenson

Focusing on Trident's future merely scratches the surface of the commission on national security's final report. It promises something much grander: a fundamental revision of the world order, and Britain's place in it.

At the heart of the assumptions in this report, hashed out across two painstaking years, is a pragmatism offering a radical reassessment of our defence priorities for the 21st century.

Its vision is of a nation threatened as much as by climate change as it is by armies. Nuclear proliferation and the perils of international terrorism loom as large as 20th century atomic armageddon. Swine flu and cybercrime offer threats as intangible as the guns of the last 100 years were brutally real.

There are ways and means of addressing these shifts, of course. The government's updated national security strategy, announced last week, is testament to that.
Yet the report wants to go much, much further. It is fundamentally dissatisfied with the status quo. And it has the crucial insight to realise that finite resources mean tough choices have to be made.

Part of its frustration with the existing set-up is the lack of organisation in matching Britain's responses to security risks to the reality. That's why a national security council is sought, a way of rationalising all government efforts under the umbrella of a single body.
Another element is its hostility towards maintaining the outdated cold war model of defence focusing solely on conventional armed forces. "We're no longer living in the context of the old cold war," commission co-chairman Paddy Ashdown urged.

Britain needs much more than the capability to fight the sorts of wars it has fought for centuries. Aircraft carriers, for example, fall heavily under the microscope. As Charles Guthrie, a former chief of the defence staff, put it: "How good are aircraft carriers at chasing Somali pirates in shallow waters in the Gulf of Aden?"

This, therefore, is the context within which the Trident question must be aired.

"We are not saying we should scrap Trident," IPPR deputy chair Ian Kearns explained. "We do say we should look at it again and... consider all options for a minimum possible deterrent."

As co-chair George Robertson put it: "It's a question of spending more effectively. This is a time for urgent action and hard choices."

There is no need for any action to be taken to renew Britain's nuclear deterrent until 2014; but that is the timeframe the commission is currently operating on.
If it gets its way and succeeds in influencing the manifestoes for parties fighting the next national election, the most pressing need will be the next strategic defence review.

Here is a key goal, however: it is a strategic security review which the report demands is necessary. Only this holistic approach will give the government the utility it needs to effectively make a real difference.

David Omand, a former permanent secretary in the Home Office, knows more than most the importance of this. He's worried by the ability of government to make the right decisions. "The Cabinet secretary has to have somebody by his side who can devote the time to bringing together all these different interests," he said.

The commission is strong on the bureaucratic solutions needed to combat the rise of the security challenge in coming years. On the wider context within which Britain is operating, however, it has the benefit of Lord Ashdown's experience to articulate an imposing prospect for the next few decades.

"I suspect we are seeing the beginning of the end of nearly 600 years of western power, western values and western institutions," he said, suggesting Iraq and Afghanistan could be the last military interventions mustered solely by western states.

"We are going to have different priorities in a multipolar world, and so is the United States. If we're going to do things in the world, we're going to have to reach out."

With severe constraint on defence spending expected, the IPPR report is brutally realistic about the expanded needs of security issues.

"To paraphrase Clausewitz," Lord Ashdown finished, "'this is no longer an issue which can be left to the generals'."