{"id":77311,"date":"2016-12-15T13:12:19","date_gmt":"2016-12-15T13:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=e06645a9e50b4b982425af8c96b2af24"},"modified":"2016-12-15T13:12:19","modified_gmt":"2016-12-15T13:12:19","slug":"news-story-publication-of-annual-report-2016-on-the-national-security-strategy-strategic-defence-security-review-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=77311","title":{"rendered":"News story: Publication of Annual Report 2016 on the National Security Strategy &amp; Strategic Defence &amp; Security Review 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>On 7 December, the UK Government published its first Annual Report to Parliament on the 2015 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence &amp; Security Review (SDSR).<\/p>\n<p>The 2015 SDSR set out our vision of a secure and prosperous United Kingdom, with global reach and influence.  It established three overarching National Security Objectives: \u2018protect our people\u2019; \u2018project our global influence\u2019 and \u2018promote our prosperity\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing that has happened since has changed those fundamental objectives, nor the importance of our NATO membership to securing them: if anything, the latter has increased.<\/p>\n<p>The Annual Report sets out progress on achieving our objectives, many of which are central to our Alliance commitments.  For example, the Government:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>is investing in the renewal of the UK\u2019s independent nuclear deterrent;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>has launched a new National Cyber Security Centre; and<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>has expanded the UK\u2019s diplomatic and defence engagement networks.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We have created a joint FCO\/MOD department to shape our policy on NATO and European security, mirroring the joint FCO\/MOD delegation we have in NATO.<\/p>\n<p>Since the SDSR was published in November 2015, the Government has also renewed its commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence (one of only 4 European Allies to meet this NATO target), with a real terms increase of 0.5% a year in the defence budget until 2020-21, and 0.7% of GNI spent on overseas development, also crucial to long-term national security.<\/p>\n<p>We are the only NATO Ally to do 2% and 0.7%. We are also one of the few Allies to be spending more than 20% of our budget on equipment, the other NATO target, including new aircraft carriers, maritime patrol aircraft and fighter jets.<\/p>\n<p>We have also:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>agreed to deploy a battalion to Estonia and an infantry company to Poland, strengthening NATO\u2019s Enhanced Forward Presence;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>increased our military presence in Iraq helping to train Iraqi forces, which NATO will also be contributing to from next month;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>renewed our participation in joint naval operations to tackle illegal migration in the Mediterranean;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>decided to deploy UK fighter aircraft to contributing to the NATO Southern Air Policing task in Romania;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>helped remove 500 tonnes of chemical weapons precursors from Libya;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>reiterated its commitment to double the number of UK troops on UN peace-keeping missions;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As the Annual Report describes, there have been changes to the international environment since 2015, including the UK\u2019s decision to leave the European Union.<\/p>\n<p>But the main threats to our security remain: state-based threats; terrorism and extremism; cyber attacks from state and non-state actors; and renewed challenges to the rules-based international order. And therefore the central role which the SDSR gave to our Alliance membership and the contributions we make to NATO remain also.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Acting UK Ambassador to NATO, Paul Johnston, announces how the UK\u2019s commitments to NATO in last year\u2019s SDSR are being realised<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}