E3G

Security trends and threat misperceptions

By Nick Mabey

Rebalancing the Strategic Mix

A broad-based security strategy needs to take into account these trends as both drivers of direct security threats and inhibitors of successful security responses. It would take a long-term and systemic approach to managing these risks, through a combination of four generic strategic approaches, which span foreign and domestic policy:

Isolation – closing/restricting borders, pursuing self-sufficiency in energy;

Buffering – reducing exposure to global shocks, for instance building national oil reserves, vaccine stocks, diversifying export markets;

Reaction – rapid response to emergent threats, for instance through military intervention and international police activity on drugs and international crime; and

Prevention – investing in global, regional and national governance networks to reduce instability and strengthen governance of key threats

                           
There is no simple strategic solution to these complex problems; all responses are costly and have different probabilities of success. Interventions must be targeted and sustained if they are to be effective, and no country can work everywhere. The effectiveness of each approach is heavily determined by the prevailing political context and willingness of others to cooperate.

There has been much analysis of the ineffectiveness of reactive responses in controlling the international illegal drugs trade, as prices continue to fall in all major markets. However, investment in strengthening national policing systems in supplier and transit states (such as Columbia, Afghanistan and Jamaica) has also met with mixed success. UK energy security policy has so far focused on EU market liberalisation. But with the decline in national oil and gas reserves, the UK now needs to reduce exposure to volatile markets through efficiency and renewable energy, and through much stronger engagement on energy and climate security with other countries through the EU.

The reality of UK security policy is that choices between these approaches are often made implicitly, and are heavily determined by existing institutional structures. The current security architecture is designed essentially to deliver isolation and reaction strategies, and it tends to underinvest in resilience and preventive strategies. Except for high-profile missions such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the UK security machinery finds it difficult to maintain a long term strategic focus on delivering reform and stability in any region.

The result is an unbalanced portfolio of action and funding which does not reflect the relative size of different security threats. The UK spends only £40 million on tackling organised crime overseas, and £200 million on preventing crisis and conflict (including UN and EU contributions but excluding peacekeeping missions and general development aid), compared with an annual armed forces budget of £35 billion. The UK is one of the largest global investors in preventive responses globally, but still has a large imbalance between its capability to project force and its capability to project stability, enforcement and good governance.

This approach does not mean cutting the UK’s ability to project hard power, but complementing it with new capabilities to deliver stability and security. It is vital that the security benefits of such investment are clearly prioritised, in order to strengthen the political impetus behind such interventions. A good example is the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative launched by the UK in 2002, which works with resource-rich countries and oil and mining companies to make payments to public authorities transparent and so less prone to corruption.