The geopolitical challenges are getting harder: my speech at the Changing Character of War Centre at Oxford University.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be here at All Souls this evening to discuss some of the maritime
geopolitical challenges that we are watching unfold, and to consider how we best plan and execute the strategic and
tactical plans needed to protect UK and global interests, be they financial or wider.
I have had the great privilege of serving my country from ministerial roles over the last 5 years which brought
together the challenges for the UK of trade, transport, defence, energy and global security.
In my last posting as Minister for the Indo-Pacific, I had the opportunity to bring together the individual portfolios I
had been leading into the holistic platform that is our embassies overseas and all that HMG does in countries from
India to New Zealand and every country, large and small, in between.
This evening I will try to share my perspective – and for those of you who know me – bluntly and without fear or
favour – to stimulate discussion on the policy leadership which great institutions like this need to provide to help
Government make the right decisions.
Our world is in a disrupted, challenging and potentially existentially dangerous place – we really must put all brains to
the challenge of prevention and mitigation of the threats our citizens unknowingly face.
As an MP , until retired by popular demand in July, I represented the most northern English seat nestled at the top of
England, in the county of Northumberland which has been at the heart of the North East’s national and global
leadership on everything from the spread of Christianity to coal to power the world’s ships and the building of those
vessels…… and I had the privilege of discovering the work that our armed forces, and especially the Royal Navy, do
unseen every day – until perhaps the cameras caught the dramatic incursions in the Red Sea in the last year.
It has been an honour to learn, through their lived experience, the realities of the veracity that we must not take for
granted – that our global waterways are free and open, unthreatened. This is simply not the case, and we need to
educate and make much clearer to all affected just how precious and precarious this open world of trade really is.
The tireless work of our Royal Navy may have gone unnoticed by our citizens, friends and neighbours for decades,
but our adversaries are busier than ever, and as these challenges proliferate, we see our men and women stepping
up across vast areas of ocean and an increasing breadth of activity.
Most critically of course, our submariners are deployed 24/7, 365 days a year, on our continuous at sea deterrent –
silently patrolling global waters, the most effective deterrent yet invented: our adversaries know they are there,
somewhere, unseen, but always ready to defend.
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• Protecting the freedom of navigation on which we all depend, wherever it is threatened, is at the core of the
Royal Navy’s work.
• Protecting airspace for freedom of overflight across the world, is a giant patchwork of which our Royal Air
Force is a leading participant.
• We assume that our flights will take us wherever we want to, on the timetable planned, and at a cost
affordable to so many these days.
• We assume our washing machines will arrive at Tilbury Docks from South Korean factories, that car parts can
move across the North Sea to Rotterdam and back, that prawns and flowers will be in our supermarkets each
morning from Vietnam and Ethiopia.
• And for all those who move data across the globe, unknowing of the pathways taken, of the data centres
managing these flows, the safety of undersea cables and landing points in every country are vital to our
prosperity.
To maintain all this, our air and waterways must be unimpeded by disrupters or danger. And I would contend that we
are not yet being honest with ourselves.
So the question we must ask ourselves is – are we prepared and capable of deterring, or indeed defending, if this
assumed status quo of easy and predictable trade becomes seriously disrupted?
Do we really understand what we would need to do differently if required? And most importantly are we able to do
so?
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The new Labour government has today pledged £3 billion more for the defence budget – the reality of that is simply
status quo maintenance, to counteract the £3 billion of commitments to the Ukraine war effort.
So whilst not moving towards the 2.5% committed to in theory, it should at least stem any serious backsliding.
But if the Defence Secretary (and several of his predecessors) is warning that we do not have the capacity to fight a
war, but only selected operations with others, why has that warning continued to fall on deaf ears with the Treasury
and Prime Ministerial prioritisation?
We need to face up to this reality and consider properly what the risks are, and then adapt our posture, investments
and education of citizens. Not in a year or two. Not in a few months. But now.
The Strategic Defence Review set in motion by the new Government is looking at itself in isolation from the whole –
the benefit of the Integrated Review & Refresh was the forcing of every part of Government to consider and feed into
the strategic security landscape and challenge ourselves on the state of readiness, understanding and risk
assessments of the world around us.
It isn’t a pretty picture and its not getting any sunnier.
Our world is becoming increasingly dangerous, unstable and unpredictable.
We must not divorce foreign and economic policy from domestic politics.
All over the western world, we see the rise of political movements that want us to pull up the drawbridge, claiming
that we will be better off if we focus purely on domestic concerns.
But this is the wrong answer. Because what happens abroad matters directly to our citizens.
Our approach must not be to ignore the rise of these movements. It must be to deal with what has caused them to
grow, so we can engage with the world and therefore safeguard our national interests.
And so it is more important than ever that our understanding of the strategic importance of the maritime - from the
margins of the conversation into the heart of foreign policy – is centre stage.
The impacts of
• Instability … in the Middle East;
• Aggression… in the Black Sea;
• Military and economic coercion in the South China Sea;
and the double-edged sword of emerging technologies…… are rippling out across the globe.
Households everywhere are feeling the pressure of all this on their budgets. Fuel, food and fertiliser price spikes
courtesy of Putin’s illegal war shook the economies of all, but of course the poorest suffered most.
Governments have had to underwrite these cost-of-living hikes where they can.
So after a long period of - perhaps naive – optimism, people now understand once again why defence needs to be
prioritised.
Credible deterrence across these many unstable theatres requires our military resources, alongside our allies and
friends, to be fitter than ever….
• because they must sustain free and open navigation routes,
• protect undersea energy and cables,
• assist the safeguarding of EEZs for smaller nations (that’s fish, fuel and minerals) by direct and indirect
means,
• and become much more vigilant as to the asymmetric threats to our citizens’ daily lives and livelihoods.
So how do we do this in practice?
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We must work with our NATO allies to take some of the European strain, to demonstrate our understanding and
support for the vast US leadership taken to assure the security of so many. The US underwrites NATO on their eastern
flank and our Indo-Pacific friends on their west.
As I travelled across the Indo-Pacific, every conversation with counterparts had the challenge of maritime security
and protection on the agenda.
For the UK, our work across the Indo-Pacific continues to be a priority with the new Government I am pleased to say -
because the reality is that the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific are indivisible.
Together, we are standing up for our shared security, freedoms, and prosperity – and there is nothing selfless about
wanting to focus on the two thirds of global maritime trade which passes through Indo-Pacific waters.
The UK continues to lean into our role as Dialogue Partners in ASEAN and IORA, as well the Pacific Island Forum.
Our bilateral maritime dialogues with
• Brunei,
• India,
• Indonesia,
• Malaysia,
• the Maldives,
• the Philippines,
• and Vietnam are going from strength to strength,
with Maritime Domain Awareness and work to help them manage how to police their waters once they can see the
malign activity – but sadly we know there is great deal more to do.
Our second Naval Littoral Response Group is now hard at work keeping the Indian Ocean safe and open.
And then there is the challenge we have set ourselves with the USA to help our Australian counterparts develop a
nuclear-powered submarine fleet under this new word AUKUS.
To achieve this will require an enormous commitment from our British and US expert maritime defence industries –
and they are busy building new relationships with Australian companies, universities and state governments, to
prepare for the SSN-AUKUS fleet.
It is our industry leaders who will be helping the Australians to deliver the infrastructure design and build for this
most high end of naval activity and the maintenance workforces in the Western Australian arena, as well as the build
skills and supply chains which will be needed in South Australia once we get to that stage.
But it also requires the Australian machinery of Government – across Commonwealth and State – to up their game
on investment and pace of delivery if we are to meet the challenge.
Let’s remind ourselves why this Treaty was agreed – nuclear-powered submarines can travel greater distances, be
undetected for longer, and therefore increase the credible deterrence to those who would wish to disrupt or deny
the free flows of trade critical to and from Australia and all of our mutual economic security across Indo-Pacific
waters.
The USA knows that there is no world in which anyone ever said “We have got too many submarines”! So
developing a third leg to the UK-US effort alongside a strategically useful alternative to Guam down in Western
Australia is worth the effort.
The hard work of getting SSN-AUKUS underway has begun with £4bn of contracts to BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, and
Babcock for the first elements of the UK’s SSN-AUKUS submarines.
Australia has also committed $3bn to the US for their first Virginias, in which they will learn their new nuclear
submarine trade and build skills.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg – not in financial terms, but in the uplift in infrastructure and skills which will be
needed to deliver SSN-AUKUS on time.
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This truly will need to be a national endeavour across all three nations for us to meet the challenge we have set
ourselves. And we need to be honest with ourselves that it is not yet that – it is a giant defence programme perhaps,
but even then I am not sure it is really being managed as anything more than several complex defence projects in the
minds of the three governments.
That mindset will not deliver what we know the intent was searching for.
If we can get our respective governments to look and work holistically, trusting in the defence industrial partnerships
the US and UK are putting at Australia’s disposal, then we will see this extraordinary opportunity and deterrence plan
kick into action as it needs to.
At its peak AUKUS Pillar 1 is expected to support more than 21,000 jobs in the UK and will bring Australia a skilled
workforce which presently does not exist. The Royal Navy and US Navy are welcoming Australian personnel as they
begin their specialised training, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Pillar 2 activity is also getting into its stride – the first successful AI and autonomous undersea capability trials with
our AUKUS family have been taking place alongside trilateral maritime autonomy exercises. We are also now
considering other countries that might contribute to AUKUS Pillar 2 projects, with Japan in the first instance.
So what’s Pillar 2 about?
It’s the opportunity to work with allies to maximise the asymmetric warfare tools, weapons and skills which can
provide advantage over adversaries in other ways than simply big platforms.
Always critical to ensuring advantage, and victory over adversaries if needed.
The AUKUS Industry Forum, Defence Investor Network, and electronic warfare Innovation Challenge, are all now up
and running to help improve and strengthen engagement and real understanding between government and industry.
But I will keep saying it – it will be industry that builds the tools our sailors must have to deliver the effect we need.
One of the greatest threats to success is the disconnect between defence ministries and their defence industrial
complex.
Here in the UK there is a tangible disgust from officialdom that industry “makes a profit” – a glaring lack of
understanding that those small 6-8% margins are needed to underwrite and fund the financial risks which a private
sector business has to take.
Without a change in mindset to long-term strategic partnerships, where the shared risks are understood and
financed, the short termist transactional nature of defence department contracting will continue to restrict
investment and growth.
So we must get better at helping government understand this and change its commercial relationship, if we are to go
faster to get ahead of the threats we see growing around us.
Whilst the AUKUS project takes root, how else do we use our military and diplomatic assets as the UK and a leading
NATO nation to remind those who wish to disrupt the world order that they would be better not to do so?
Next year will bring CSG25. Our aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales will be deployed to the Indo-Pacific at the head
of a Carrier Strike Group, including a port visit in Japan. There is a long list of states requesting where else they would
like the Royal Navy to visit. Some of the smaller island states may be tricky to park, but there will opportunities for
the fleet ships to show their support.
This work is immensely important in and of itself – but it is increasingly important in light of the growing number of
incidents involving unsafe conduct against vessels in the South China Sea over recent weeks and months.
That includes actions by Chinese vessels against the Philippines coastguard which have endangered lives, caused
damage to civilian vessels, and made headlines around the world – as tensions mount over the Second Thomas
Shoal.
We expect all states to uphold UNCLOS – it has a vital role in upholding peace, prosperity, and security, by making
sure we all play by a set of rules designed and agreed to guarantee all our futures.
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So last week’s Joint Sword 2024 B drill by the CCP’s eastern theatre command which encircled Taiwan as part of their
military exercise – with an aircraft carrier, 25 PLA aircraft, seven PLA Navy vessels and four official ships in evidence -
was a strong statement and demonstration of capability, and perhaps also of intent.
It looked very much like a practise run for blockading Taiwanese ports and international shipping lanes. And we must
admit that the impact of disruption to trade flows in the Taiwan Strait would be catastrophic for the global economy.
The Bloomberg Analytics data published at the start of the year indicated a blockade of Taiwan having an in year
impact of up to $10 trillion on the global economy. That’s a 10% hit to prosperity, to stability of supply chains, and
Bloomberg said themselves they hadn’t begun to really assess the second and third order consequences.
So we must continue to support our partners to shine a light on these actions that heighten tension, risk escalation,
and threaten regional peace and stability.
Indeed, from the Caribbean to the Pacific Ocean, the Royal Navy’s Maritime Domain Awareness Programme sets the
global gold-standard when it comes to building the trust, partnerships, and capabilities we need to plan-ahead and
respond to everything from illegal fishing to state threats.
I hope the new government will continue to expand this shared security expertise further, because we all need to
look beyond what seems most alarming in a headline – to scan the horizon for what should really be keeping us up at
night, so we can get the right pieces into place, across multiple theatres.
And, while it may seem trite to say that ‘together, we are stronger’ – from NATO to the MDA Five Eyes Partnership
Forum, we should recognise that even when trust has been strained, and our resolve tested, we can and must hold
firm.
The quiet work on inter-agency cooperation, on integrated defence and security, and indeed counter-terrorism must
continue and deepen – because we must be clear about what is at stake, right now.
For us Brits, our identity as a maritime nation is a deep and enduring part of our view of ourselves. The nature of an
island nation with centuries of inquisitive leaders and entrepreneurs exploring the world’s possibilities, building
talent and economic growth and building the trade routes we nowadays take for granted.
Around the globe, others are looking to us to make good on the promise of that legacy for our shared future – by
defending the values we hold dear, not just for ourselves but for all whose who long to feel the benefits of freedom
and prosperity in their lives as well.
Indeed, they are looking to all of us – even as determined adversaries and ruthless opportunists seek to bludgeon the
brave into submission – to support them as they are brave enough to stand up for the future they want to shape for
their citizens.
So we need to ensure that our Navy and armed forces have what they need to do so.
For all of us right now, we face a defining litmus test in Ukraine.
As we strive to sustain our unwavering support and galvanise others to their cause – it is important that we recognise
that it is at sea where the allied contribution is felt most keenly, combined with the Ukrainians’ indomitable spirit.
The UK is providing 60 small boats, alongside our mighty Storm Shadows, and uncrewed sea systems, with some £2
billion earmarked to become Ukraine’s largest supplier of drones.
Alongside Norway, we are proud to be leading a new Maritime Capability Coalition. Together, we are providing mine
detection drones, raiding craft, Sea King helicopters – helping Ukraine build its navy, develop a marine corps, and
defend its sovereign waters.
And we know it is making a difference.
Ukraine struck the Kremlin’s Naval HQ in Sevastopol, and sunk or disabled around a third of the Russian Black Sea
Fleet – including the notorious Moskva, forcing the rest into hiding.
But probably only for a while.
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In the first months of 2024, agricultural exports reached the highest level since the war began – getting grain from
Ukraine to those who need it most, has been a key British focus, just as we continue to work to disrupt Russia’s
shadow fleet, and increase the cost of Putin’s war machine with the largest ever package of sanctions.
The new shadow fleet sanctions I was able to bring to fruition in June should demonstrate to those aggressors that
we will continue to find new ways to slow or stop their shipments – as ever, its all about cashflow and we must keep
on limiting Russia’s if there is to be a swifter end to this appalling illegal war.
The Ukrainians have the will, they have the skills, and they have proved their effectiveness – if we back them. Its
good to see the continued £3 billion a year commitment for military support to Ukraine – building on more than
£7bn to date.
The US release of funds as well as from the EU all helps to give the defence industrial complex the cash to build the
munitions factories needed to support the defence of Ukraine.
But it is up to all of us to make this a priority for as long as it takes for the Ukrainians to prevail.
Lets be under no illusion, China is closely watching our resolve. If we flinch, we can expect to reap the consequences,
with global economic impacts that would make Ukraine’s look like a mere tea party.
We seem loathe to follow through on the logic of the Ukraine battle for survival, which is that if we are to safeguard
peace across Europe, and deter others from serious disruptions to trade flows globally, then we MUST get on a war
footing in order to safeguard peace…….. Just as those twelve founding NATO nations did 75 years ago, when they
gathered in Washington D.C, after conflict had engulfed the globe for the second time in a generation.
So how do we actually do that? And the critical question which no western government wants to ask themselves is -
what is ENOUGH to assure it?
If all NATO countries were to commit, and indeed spend, at least 2.5% of their GDP to defence, then our collective
budget would increase by more than £140 billion.
What is NATO’s defence budget? Poland is allocating 4.1% this year, Estonia 3.4%, the US 3.4%, the UK in 9th place
2.3%. But in cash terms what are we looking at?
• the USA … 3.4% is $967bn
• Poland’s 4.1% is $35bn
• Germany’s 2.12% is $98bn
• The UK’s 2.3% is $82bn
• France’s 2.06% is $64bn
But statistics don’t really answer the question. The reality is that the USA spends two thirds of the NATO annual
defence spend.
Its no surprise that Trump (and he isn’t the first President to be frustrated by this imbalanced burden sharing) points
out that European nations need to do more to defend themselves.
In 2014 NATO allies in Europe and Canada invested $250bn, or 1.43% of their collective GDP in defence.
In 2024 that will be $430bn, or 2.02% overall.
Lets cut the stats a different way and look at the spend per capita…..
The USA spends $2802 per head, Norway $1900, Denmark $1,656, Finland $1,299, Sweden $1,263 and the UK
$1,187.
Or another way…. 12 countries make up over 95% of the defence spending for the whole of NATO…. And the USA is
carrying 65% of that burden, Germany 7%, the UK 6%, France 4%, Poland 2% and Italy 2%.
I understand why Trump articulates (perhaps more bluntly and threateningly than previous Presidents!) that the
defence of Europe shouldn’t be so heavily on the shoulders of the USA, since they now also have to be prepared for
Western Seaboard pressures.
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Statistics can tell us in many different ways why the imbalance of spending brings risks, but the silent message
remains – is 2.5% from all actually going to be enough?
We are looking at this from an inputs basis not an output one.
What is it we need to be able to effectively deter, and if not, then defend successfully against?
The challenge therefore is not just a commitment for meeting a future greater proportion of a spending bucket, it’s
about upping the pace on investing now in our defence industrial partners so that they can absorb larger sums and
turn into effective tools quickly as needed.
We really need to be changing gear, enabling our defence industries, their innovation and people, to invent, design,
build, weld, innovate to give us the hardware and the software our armed forces need in order to protect a billion
people across the NATO family, and global security for all those who simply do not have the agency to fight for
themselves across the world – from those malign actors who have been investing at an incredible rate, and for too
long, and we have just been watching.
We can see the vast growth of the Chinese Navy, the stockpiling of commodities, the advanced weapons and
militaries appearing from North Korea, the production capacity of the Russian war machine. This is real activity
which speaks to one direction of travel.
Are we really going to continue to pretend that we are not in a “pre-war” environment in how we allocate our
resources?
Now Ladies and gentlemen - It’s not all about NATO, it’s not all about maritime capability, and there’s only so far
money goes.
There is more we can and must do to build stronger partnerships and achieve greater coordination.
Gunning for interoperability and interchangeability is a no-brainer.
There is much more we can and must do to send the clear, unequivocal, united signal to our adversaries that we will
stand up for our values and our freedoms – that they will not grind us down, nor will they wear us out, nor divide us.
But we must look ourselves in the eye and have an honest conversation about the reality of the threats and their
potentially catastrophic impacts on our economic security, which I fear we still take for granted.
So we must make good on our word – it will be mission critical to effective deterrence in order to keep the peace,
that it is genuinely credible, and those who would wish us harm need to really know that.
Be it in Ukraine or anywhere else, if we allow our word to be shot down by tyrants and chancers – we send our every
adversary the signal that it is open season on all that we hold dear.
And in so doing, we would be gambling every gain hard-won – not only of the rules to which we have all signed up –
but of the tacit good faith treaties on which we rely to hold the fragile peace.
We must do all we can to stack the odds in our favour. The future is not guaranteed. So it is up to all of us to write the
next chapter together.
Governments can and must provide the money and the leadership, and we must make it our laser-like focus to get
through to the Treasuries of our NATO family just how threatened our economic stability and security is.
Do we need to spend 2.5%, or 3%, or 5%?
I would suggest it is an investment which needs to be considered quite differently from the present model, if we are
to get this right.
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Industry and the ingenuity of our universities is where the tools to enable us, with the leadership of our brave
military personnel, to deliver that credible deterrence, denial capability or battle-winning front-line defence, will
come from.
Governments need to be unafraid of the nature of private capital and profit underwriting risk. Otherwise that
particular aversion will look entirely ludicrous if economic security is derailed by broken supply chains.
That safe and secure, peaceful and prosperous world we wish for our children doesn’t come free. Thank you.
Delivered by The Rt Hon Anne-Marie Trevelyan at All Souls College, Oxford 30th October 2024.