| Publication |
2014.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
The question is not whether Britain is a great power, but whether it does what great powers do. In the absence of wider changes, Britain will continue to play this role. 'What is Britain's role in the world?' Answering this question is a vital step in a successful review of British security and defence provision. The conclusions of the latest chapter of this review process will be published in 2015, in an update to the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), which was itself the first for 12 years. The 2010 SDSR declared that 'any strategy for our national security must begin with the role we want to play in the modern world.' As Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament Menzies Campbell put it, 'the central question is: what role do we want Britain to play, and how much, as a nation, are we prepared to pay?' Defence reviews are thus about more than how many guns, ships and aircraft the armed forces will have at their disposal; they are concerned with thinking holistically about Britain's place in the world.
|