The Role of Development in UK Security
Author: Lt Gen (Retd) Phil Jones CB CBE DL
For many years Ukraine has been a battleground in the contest between Western democratic and economic systems and Russia’s strategy of taking her near-abroad hostage through frozen conflicts and hybrid warfare. The current crisis raises the stakes sharply beyond the geography and politics of Ukraine and, more than ever, the outcome matters greatly to the people of the United Kingdom.
It matters because at a time of societal stress on a global scale, Russia is deliberately seeking to undermine and unpick many of our post-cold war certainties and assumptions. It matters because it allows Russia to weaponise the pan-European energy crisis which in turn impacts on everything from national industrial output to household bills. It matters because it denies Ukraine the chance to liberate the potential of its’ economy and modernise its own political and governance systems, such that it becomes an increasingly stable and prosperous trading partner.
Russia’s infliction of hybrid warfare on nations such as Georgia and Ukraine, short of open warfare, is about as unpleasant as it gets. Carefully keeping below the threshold of open conflict and designed to maintain perpetual uncertainty, almost every aspect of government and society is continually undermined and attacked. The Ukrainian Donbas is a relatively poor and underdeveloped region of Ukraine. Prior to the current crisis Russia did everything it could to separate the people of Donbas from their government in Kyiv: deliberately destroying the regional economy; keeping people poor, alienated and afraid; and denying the delivery of meaningful government services.
What has development got to do with all of this?
Countering hybrid warfare is extremely challenging and, in many ways, is absolutely not about conventional security responses. I was in Kyiv last September. Back then a group of nations led by the UK were starting the implementation of a large-scale, £35M, development programme purpose-built to grow precisely the governance and civil capacity needed in the regions of Ukraine most affected by Russia’s hybrid warfare. This major development programme, through the resourcing of local government services and support to regional economic growth, helps the Government of Ukraine rebuild national integrity and resilience, helping to protect itself and its people from the misery of Russian hybrid war. For the current crisis, donations of anti-tank missiles and NATO troop deployments to flanking nations are important security responses. But in terms of long-term Ukrainian, and therefore European, security and prosperity, carefully focused development is key.
As a small island nation with the sixth largest economy in the world, our own peace and prosperity is impacted by the ebb and flow of global events to an unusual degree. This is why it is so important to play an active, international role prioritised of course by national interest but also driven by the ethics that shape our values as a nation. Ukraine is but one example of why we are so active internationally as a nation, safeguarding our own future by contributing as strongly as we can to stability overseas.
The principles that drive the vital interplay between diplomacy, development and defence in Ukraine, to achieve outcomes that are directly in our national interest, are the same principles that shape our efforts in various nations across the globe. It goes without saying that each situation is different and our actions and responses therefore are different. As a nation we have a great deal of experience of modulating the interplay between the three-Ds to achieve longer-lasting and fully strategic security and prosperity outcomes.
