Development aid is not a soft luxury but a hard necessity for Britain’s security
4 min read
The government’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) spoke of rising threats, hostile state activity and the vulnerabilities of an interconnected world.
However, beneath its muscular prose lies a far thinner document. One that sidelines the vital instruments to achieve that security: development and soft power. As a former British army officer, I know real security does not start when the first shot is fired – it begins in the partnerships we forge before troubles take root, in the aid work we do in the classrooms of conflict zones and in the clinics of fragile states.
I have seen first-hand, working in countries such as Kenya, how UK aid can support nations to stand on their own two feet – improving health, strengthening education, building resilience and driving innovation.
The NSS promises a decisive tilt towards hard power, with a pledge to raise security spending to five per cent of GDP by 2035. But the timetable is glacial. The world grows more dangerous by the year, not the decade, and delaying action for 10 years leaves Britain perilously exposed.
Most troubling, however, is the near erasure of Britain’s traditional sources of influence: development, diplomacy and soft power. The strategy claims to incorporate “development assistance and soft power” but beyond that passing phrase, there is barely a trace of either. Astonishingly, the document makes no mention of the Integrated Security Fund (ISF); the mechanism specifically designed to integrate defence, diplomacy and development in pursuit of a whole-of-government approach. Worse, it boasts of Britain’s “deep expertise in multilateralism, development and conflict resolution” as a means of tackling emerging crises, yet the foreign aid element of the ISF will be cut by 45 per cent by 2027. That is not expertise harnessed but expertise hollowed out.
Development is not charity – it is strategy. By reducing poverty, strengthening fragile states and supporting institutions, it prevents crises before they become conflicts. It is cheaper to avert a war than to fight one. It is wiser to counter extremism by bolstering education and opportunity than by reacting with force after the fact. In short, development is national security by other means.
This insight was embedded in the 2023 Integrated Review Refresh, which established the ISF and gave the minister for development a seat on the National Security Council. It also made explicit commitments to safeguard the BBC World Service and the British Council as vital instruments of influence and trust.
In both respects, NSS 2025 is a step backwards. The minister for development has been unseated. The World Service and the British Council are not referenced. At the very moment disinformation campaigns proliferate and authoritarian states invest billions in promoting their narratives, Britain is choosing silence abroad.
Yet Britain’s security lies not only in tanks, drones and frigates, but in alliances, legitimacy and the protection of values. Hard power deters. Soft power endures. Aid is not a soft option, and it is certainly not a luxury for easier times. It is a tool and a forward-deployed asset in the defence of the realm.
A middle power such as Britain must marshal every instrument of influence – military, diplomatic, developmental and cultural – if it is to remain a force for stability in a fractured world. Whenever Britain retreats, our adversaries advance. China does not wait for crises to deploy its power; it moves swiftly with investment, infrastructure and influence often in the very regions we have abandoned.
Britain’s greatness has never rested solely on the size of its arsenal, but on the reach of its ideas and the trust it commands. The danger of this strategy is that it mistakes steel for strength, when in truth Britain’s strength has always been steel plus story: the capacity to defend itself, and to persuade others that its cause is worth defending.
