Report

Strategic security: the case for a new paradigm for national security

This report from UK think tank the Henry Jackson Society suggests a pivot to ‘securitisation’ as a new national security paradigm.

We need a new doctrine for a new world. With more global instability than at any time since the Second World War, we are faced with challenges that are not only of a different nature, but also ones that require a whole new way of thinking.

Today’s challenges are economic, societal and environmental as much as they are military. Hostile powers can – and do – threaten the Free World through other means than merely military ones.

The UK is facing down historic decline, both economically and in terms of our strategic capacity, and on the current trajectory is at serious risk of losing its premier position as the leading European power. We need a new conception of security for a dangerous new world. Preserving security does not just require the prevention of military threats, but anything that undermines society’s safety – be it economic crises, health pandemics or destabilising societal changes such as uncontrolled illegal immigration. Britain’s low growth and misaligned foreign priorities are seeing the nation relegated to second-tier status in Europe. Misguided energy policies, rising taxation and the spiralling costs of doing business are squandering our strategic potential as well as our economic welfare.

This report suggests a pivot to ‘securitisation’ as a new national security paradigm – an outlook that recognises the ever-widening array of threats facing our society and the need for extraordinary measures to overcome them. It will explore how the issues of immigration, economic stagnation, ideological activism and direct economic warfare – largely disregarded as direct threats under our existing security paradigm – can fit into a new securitisation model.