While Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty makes clear each member state’s responsibility, the UK is lagging. Years of austerity, Brexit, the pandemic and now a cost-of-living crisis have left people inward-looking, not outward-facing. A whole of society approach, as outlined in the Strategic Defence Review, demands more than military readiness. It means investing in the public services and civic infrastructure that build trust and capacity. From Uppsala to Taipei, others are showing what resilience looks like. In the UK, we’re not there. Until we are, we cannot expect public buy-in on defence, let alone mobilisation in a crisis. Societal resilience must be seen as central, not separate, to national defence. The NATO Summit in The Hague concluded with a sigh of relief from alliance watchers: the US remains committed, and NATO’s unity held. But the cost was a narrow agenda, fixated on the 5% of GDP for defence-spending target – and within that, a preoccupation with hitting 3.5% on ‘hard’ defence. What fell off the table was a serious discussion about resilience – despite it being part of the remaining 1.5% allies have pledged to spend and fundamental to NATO’s future deterrence and defence.
Realising Societal Resilience for a Whole of Society Approach to Defence (Katharine A.M. Wright – RUSI)
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