The Integrated Review Refresh 2023: What has changed since 2021?

What is the Integrated Review?

The Integrated Review evolved out of the strategic defence reviews published in the decades following World War Two. It sets out the UK Government’s national security and international policy. It identifies the core values of the Government’s foreign policy, assesses risks and threats and how to address them. This overarching strategy is intended to inform and guide national security, international and domestic policy.

As Prime Minister, Boris Johnson pledged the largest review since the end of the Cold War. The resulting Global Britain in a Competitive Age was published in March 2021, though it was often referred to as the Integrated Review, reflecting the integration of security, defence, development and foreign policy into one overarching policy document.

The Integrated Review (hereafter IR21) set out a vision for “Global Britain” for the next decade. This incorporated the UK’s response to what it described as a more competitive and multi-polar world, characterised by competition between states.

Why a refresh?

The Integrated Review Refresh 2023 (hereafter IR23) was produced in response to significant world events that have taken place since the 2021 strategy. This includes the war in Ukraine and what Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described as “China’s willingness to use all the levers of state power to achieve a dominant role in global affairs”.

The IR23 affirmed many of the trends shaping the international environment identified in IR21: shifts in the distribution of global power; inter-state ‘systemic’ competition over the nature of the international order; rapid technological change; and worsening transnational challenges.

However, the Government says the “transition into a multipolar, fragmented and contested world has happened more quickly and definitively than anticipated”.

What does the refresh say?

IR23 builds on the approach of IR21, setting out the next steps in delivering on its aims, against the backdrop of a “more volatile and contested world.”

It reaffirms the UK’s core national interests, articulated in previous reviews as the sovereignty, security and prosperity of the British people, and adds “the higher goal of an open and stable international order.” The ways in which the UK will achieve these ends are divided into four pillars:

1. Shape the international environment.
2. Deter, defend and compete across all domains.
3. Address vulnerabilities through resilience.
4. Generate strategic advantage.

The security of the Euro-Atlantic is a core priority

Amid concerns about IR21’s tilt to the Indo-Pacific at the expense of the UK’s immediate neighbourhood, IR23 states the security of the Euro-Atlantic is a “core priority” and the “primary theatre” to which the UK will commit the majority of its defence capabilities.

Russia was identified in IR21 the “most acute direct threat to the UK” in the Euro-Atlantic region. Following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the refresh concludes “we cannot discount the possibility of an attack against Allies’ sovereignty and territorial integrity” and says that the security of the Euro-Atlantic area is now “intrinsically linked to the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine”.

China poses an "epoch-defining challenge"

Over the last few years, the largely cordial relationship between the UK and China has deteriorated sharply. IR23 describes an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge posed by China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) across almost every aspect of national life and government policy”.

Defence spending

Ahead of the Spring Budget and the publication of the 2023 Integrated Review, the Prime Minister announced that defence spending would increase by £5 billion over the next two years. The Government says that as a result, UK defence spending is expected to reach 2.2% of GDP this year.

IR23 does not make any recommendations for changes to the armed forces. It does, however, make several observations which are likely to inform the update to the 2021 Defence Command Paper that is currently underway. This update is expected to conclude in June 2023.

How have MPs responded to the Integrated Review 2023?

In a debate on the Integrated Review Refresh in the House of Commons on 13 March 2023, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly updated MPs on the Government’s plans. Conservative MPs welcomed the review’s emphasis on China, although some argued for the Government to take a tougher position and to increase UK defence spending.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, said the refresh of the 2021 review was “overdue but welcome”, noting “this is a challenging moment for our security and that of our allies and for our place in the world.” He said the refresh “does not answer growing questions concerning capability gaps that weaken our national defence and undermine the UK’s NATO contribution”.

Dave Doogan, Shadow SNP Spokesperson for Defence, criticised the Government’s emphasis on the Indo-Pacific in the review, arguing the war in Ukraine calls for a redoubling of the Euro-Atlantic posture.

Richard Foord, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Defence, raised the subject of nuclear weapons and how much of this was being used on the Dreadnought acquisition programme.