Resisting the Integrated Review

Posted: 1st April 2021

As the news of Boris Johnson’s Integrated Review sinks in, campaigners from across the peace, anti-nuclear and anti-war movement have been responding. In a deep-dive on the Review, CND General Secretary Kate Hudson breaks down what it consists of. She notes:

“Indeed it can be summarised as an ‘attack’ document. It makes much of Britain being western Europe’s most heavily armed nation, of its leadership role in NATO, and its deploying of forces worldwide. Britain is ready to deter – and defeat if necessary. Its determination to defend democracy against systemic competition, shaping a new open international order, is a leaf out of the Trumpian book, and there is much that is reminiscent of the strategies and postures of the Trump administration. Situating Britain firmly as the US’s junior partner is a clear message throughout.“

This in-depth analysis goes on to break down the Review’s policy content. This includes:

The Indo-Pacific ‘tilt’, which promotes closer strategic alliances between the UK, India, Australia, Japan and others, against two geopolitical rivals. As Kate says, “While Russia is described as the ‘most acute threat’, China is clearly the main strategic focus.”
As many of us are already aware, this Review “includes a major announcement on nuclear weapons, increasing the UK’s nuclear weapons stockpile from the current approx 195 to 260. This reverses the 2010 SDSR announcement to reduce the stockpile to 180. This process which has been ongoing since 2010 will now be reversed, ending three decades of gradual reductions in the UK’s nuclear arsenal… It has led to observations that the UK is starting a new nuclear arms race.”
“The Review also includes a change in nuclear use posture – now reserving the right to use nuclear weapons not only against nuclear threats but against supposedly comparable threats, such as chemical and biological weapons or ‘emerging technologies’. An additional change is an end to the UK’s much-vaunted transparency on nuclear weapons – an extension of the policy of deliberate ambiguity and an end to giving public figures for the ‘operational stockpile, deployed warhead or deployed missile numbers.’”
The Review also includes the renewal of the US/UK Mutual Defence Agreement – the world’s most extensive nuclear sharing agreement; “The Review includes the announcement of new combat planes, predator drones and the expansion of military activities”; “the Defence Command Paper focusing on the armed forces, emphasises modernisation, being more assertive, and a greater ‘forward deployed presence around the world’”; alongside greater onshore military production, new military hardware and even more worryingly, the “MoD will review its requirements to spend on this as it moves to develop the new warheads.”

ICAN’s Ben Donaldson has offered an explanation that this U-turn on the part of government might be explained by internal political calculation:

“The motivation, at least in part, seems to lie not in the orthodoxy of nuclear weapons doctrines or security analysis, but in the petty domestic politicking of the Prime Minister, who appears to be attempting to set a trap for his Labour rival Keir Starmer.“

In opposition to the Review, Musicians for Peace and Disarmament have written a letter to the Guardian, Parliamentary CND will be tabling an Early Day Motioncondemning the warhead increase, and you can write to your MP using CND’s lobby tool kit. In Yorkshire, Leeds CND are hosting a Nurses not Nukes flashmob photoshoot on April Fool’s Day, as are Calder Valley CND soon after. If you want to organise one of these, please get in touch! There will also be a protest outside Menwith Hill on 30th April as a part of the International Day of Action against Foreign Military Bases.

With the Nuclear Ban Treaty on our side, and lockdown slowly easing, peace activists are making it clear we will not accept the government’s Integrated Review. If you have any plans for action or want to do something, let us know and get in touch on [email protected].