Summary:
The Defence Diplomacy Strategy’s vision is to make the UK secure at home and strong abroad, by focusing on the partnerships that underpin NATO First and shape wider UK interests.
A NATO First approach means leading within the Alliance, shaping its future, and ensuring the UK remains a credible, dependable partner.
Minister of State for Defence, Lord Coaker said:
The threats we face are more serious and less predictable than at any time since the Cold War. NATO First does not mean NATO only – security in the Euro-Atlantic is indivisible from security in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific. This first ever Defence Diplomacy Strategy ensures the UK remains fully committed to working with our global allies and partners on shared priorities.
Defence diplomacy is therefore not an optional extra, it is a core tool of national power, central to deterrence, resilience and growth.
The Defence Diplomacy Strategy enables Defence to co-ordinate more closely across government to deliver the UK’s foreign and defence policy objectives. While the full Strategy is necessarily classified, the public summary focuses on the implementation actions:
- A prioritised approach – aligning effort to outcomes and measuring progress.
- Coordinating the use of all the levers and tools of Defence through the Defence Strategic Effects Cycle.
- Making defence diplomacy an engine for growth – driving jobs, investment and prosperity.
- Expertise that endures – language skills, regional knowledge and valued international careers.
- One team, one plan – visits, training, exercises and exports working towards the same objectives.
- Evidence-based impact – data driven planning and systematic measurement of results.
This is a new model for how the UK projects defence influence overseas: disciplined, prioritised, data-driven and outcome focused. It is about turning our alliances into our strategic strength, partnerships into deterrence, and diplomacy into security and growth for the nation.
