Shared Responsibilities: A national security strategy for the UK

This is the final report of the IPPR Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, an all-party Commission preparing an independent national security strategy for the United Kingdom. Based on research and Commission deliberations over a two-year period, the report sets out a wide range of proposals designed to make the UK and its citizens, businesses, and communities more secure.

The recommendations include:

+ A new approach to the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan
+ Proposals to improve the UK’s energy security
+ Measures to address radicalisation and the threat of terrorism here in the UK
+ The call for a transformation in our approach to defence policy, and measures to strengthen both NATO and the European pillar of the transatlantic alliance
+ Measures to strengthen and improve the institutions handling security at the centre of government
+ Proposals for improved global governance
+ A call to strengthen and deepen the legitimacy of the security strategy we pursue.

The report, as with the interim report, Shared Destinies: Security in a Globalised World, is a call to action. The Commission says the UK faces serious and worsening international security challenges but provided the country is willing to learn lessons, to change the way it thinks, to find the necessary political will and to adapt policy solutions and instruments to new circumstances, there is much that can be done. In the post 9/11, post financial crisis world of complex threats and limited national resources, this report charts a safer course for the UK in turbulent times.

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