Improving the engagement of UK armed forces overseas
Authors: Davies Will 
Published: February 2022

The UK government’s Integrated Review of security, defence, development and foreign policy, published in March 2021 alongside a supporting defence command paper, set a new course for UK national security and highlighted opportunities for an innovative approach to international engagement activity. The Integrated Review focused principally on the state threats posed by China’s increasing power and by competitors – including Russia – armed with nuclear, conventional and hybrid capabilities. It also stressed the continuing risks to global security and resilience due to conflict and instability in weakened and failed states. These threats have the potential to increase poverty and inequality, violent extremism, climate degradation and the forced displacement of people, while presenting authoritarian competitors with opportunities to enhance their geopolitical influence. There are moral, security and economic motives to foster durable peace in conflict-prone and weakened regions through a peacebuilding approach that promotes good governance, addresses the root causes of conflict and prevents violence, while denying opportunities to state competitors. The recent withdrawal from Afghanistan serves to emphasize the complexities and potential pitfalls associated with intervention operations in complex, unstable regions. Success in the future will require the full, sustained and coordinated integration of national, allied and regional levers of power underpinned by a sophisticated understanding of the operating environment. The UK armed forces, with their considerable resources and global network, will contribute to this effort through ‘persistent engagement’. This is a new approach to overseas operations below the threshold of conflict, designed as a pre-emptive complement to warfighting. To achieve this, the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) must develop a capability that can operate effectively in weak, unstable and complex regions prone to violent conflict and crises, not least in the regions on the eastern and southern flanks of the Euro-Atlantic area. The first step must be the development of a cohort of military personnel with enhanced, tailored levels of knowledge, skills and experience. Engagement roles must be filled by operators with specialist knowledge, skills and experience forged beyond the mainstream discipline of combat and warfighting. Only then will individuals develop a genuinely sophisticated understanding of complex, politically driven and sensitive operating environments and be able to infuse the design and delivery of international activities with practical wisdom and insight. Engagement personnel need to be equipped with: An inherent understanding of the human and political dimensions of conflict, the underlying drivers such as inequality and scarcity, and the exacerbating factors such as climate change and migration; - A grounding in social sciences and conflict modelling in order to understand complex human terrain; - Regional expertise enabled by language skills, cultural intelligence and human networks; - Familiarity with a diverse range of partners, allies and local actors and their approaches; - Expertise in building partner capacity and applying defence capabilities to deliver stability and peace; - A grasp of emerging artificial intelligence technology as a tool to understand human terrain; - Reach and insight developed through ‘knowledge networks’ of external experts in academia, think-tanks and NGOs. Successful change will be dependent on strong and overt advocacy by the MOD’s senior leadership and a revised set of personnel policies and procedures for this cohort’s selection, education, training, career management, incentivization, sustainability and support.