The principal continuities and changes in our approach
Our Strategic Framework involves significant continuities from the UK’s previous
national security and international policy, adapted to meet the opportunities and
challenges of the coming decade:
i. The United States will remain our most important bilateral relationship, essential to
key alliances and groups such as NATO and the Five Eyes, and our largest bilateral
trading partner and inward investor. We will reinforce our cooperation in traditional
policy areas such as security and intelligence and seek to bolster it where together
we can have greater impact, such as in tackling illicit finance.
ii. Collective security through NATO: the UK will remain the leading European Ally
in NATO, working with allies to deter nuclear, conventional and hybrid threats to our
security, particularly from Russia. We will continue to exceed the NATO guideline of
spending 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence, and to declare our nuclear
and offensive cyber capabilities to Allies’ defence under our Article 5 commitment.
iii. CT and SOC: we will keep our citizens safe from terrorism, working at home
and overseas to detect, disrupt and deter terrorist threats, and to address their
underlying drivers. Our CT capabilities will be integrated in our new Counter
Terrorism Operations Centre. We will also tackle SOC, strengthening the National
Crime Agency and regional and local policing, and sustaining our international
networks so that we are able to address the links between criminality from the local
to international levels.
iv. Upholding universal human rights: we will act as a force for good in standing up
for human rights around the world, providing support to open societies and using
our independent (‘Magnitsky-style’) sanctions regime to hold to account those
involved in serious human rights violations and abuses.
v. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): we will remain a world-leading
international development donor, committed to the global fight against poverty and
to achieving the UN SDGs by 2030. We will support others to become more selfsufficient through trade and economic growth and increase our ability to achieve
long-term change through combining our diplomatic and development expertise.
vi. Girls’ education: we will continue our efforts to ensure all girls have at least
12 years of quality education and to get 40 million more girls in developing countries
into school by 2025, using our aid spending and presidency – with Kenya – of the
Global Partnership for Education summit in 2021.
vii. An open and innovative digital economy: we will establish the UK as a global
services, digital and data hub and remain one of the world’s most open economies
– championing free and fair trade, welcoming inward investment under our plan
for growth and tackling illicit finance. We will use all our economic tools and our
independent trade policy to create economic growth that is distributed more
equitably across the UK and to diversify our supply chains in critical goods.
Our new Investment Security Unit will safeguard British intellectual property and
companies against national security risks, intervening in inward investment where
necessary and proportionate.
20
Integrated Review
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