A Peace-First Response to the UK Strategic Defence Review

The UK Government’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) arrives at a time of multiple, overlapping crises:  growing global conflict, climate breakdown, and deepening inequality.

Yet instead of re-evaluating its militarised approach to global affairs, the Government is doubling down, proposing to raise military spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, with ambitions to hit 3% in the next Parliament. Framed as a necessary response to geopolitical threats, this strategy risks compounding the very dangers it claims to address.

For a government that argues there is “no money” for struggling public services, this aggressive push for military expansion reveals a deeply skewed sense of national priorities. Redirecting billions toward nuclear submarines, warheads, and aircraft carriers will not make our hospitals more resilient, our schools better resourced, or our climate policies more effective.

It will not feed the hungry, address the housing crisis, or improve social care. What it will do is funnel vast public funds into a global arms trade that fuels insecurity, undermines diplomacy, and diverts us from the urgent task of building a peaceful and just world.

The Government’s suggestion that defence spending is a reliable economic stimulus also doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Studies consistently show that public investment in education, healthcare, and green infrastructure creates more jobs per pound than military expenditure.

A Scottish Government analysis placed military spending near the bottom of the list in terms of employment returns. Even the Government’s own claim of 400,000 jobs must be weighed against what’s lost - funding that could have created more, better, and more sustainable work in other sectors.

Meanwhile, the environmental cost of the military-industrial complex continues to grow. The UK military already produces more carbon emissions than many entire countries. Defence-linked climate solutions, such as increased use of biofuels or expansion of nuclear, offer at best marginal reductions in emissions and at worst create new ecological risks. If the UK is serious about climate leadership, its security strategy must stop privileging weapons over sustainability.

There is a better path. Conscience is one of many voices in calling for a truly strategic rethinking of national security—one that prioritises peacebuilding, human dignity, and climate resilience over militarism.

An alternative defence review, produced by academics, unions, and campaigners, lays the groundwork for this vision. It calls for a shift away from armed force and towards diplomacy, development, and disarmament.

This is not naive idealism. It is a recognition that the most pressing threats we face today are not military in nature. Climate collapse, poverty, pandemics, and political polarisation cannot be defeated with missiles or submarines. What’s needed is a holistic and people-centred definition of security—one grounded in justice, sustainability, and international cooperation.

As war continues to rage and budgets continue to tighten, now is the time to ask: what truly keeps us safe? Conscience believes that lasting peace cannot be built on the threat of violence. It must be built on solidarity, investment in human potential, and a commitment to resolve conflict without killing.

The Government’s Strategic Defence Review entrenches a dangerous status quo. Let us instead demand a peace-first strategy, reflecting the values and priorities of a just and secure society.