𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Britain’s security doesn’t start at our borders. It starts upstream. I’m a veteran – I know. During my career in both the British and Australian Army, I operated in, and prepared others to serve in, places where, if instability was left unchecked and early warning signs ignored, we might have paid a heavier price. Veterans understand from experience that humanitarian action, peacekeeping and combat operations exist on the same continuum, each influencing the success or failure of the others. During my time on peacekeeping and support missions in Kosovo and the Solomon Islands, and in Afghanistan, as well as conducting domestic and humanitarian assistance tasks, I have witnessed this first-hand.

Governments should recognise this operational reality and ensure that humanitarian and security planning are developed in concert if they are to achieve lasting strategic effect. I recently joined more than 50 other Veterans – men and women who have served across every operational setting you could name – in signing a letter to the now outgoing Prime Minister telling him something we know from hard experience. Britain’s security begins in fragile parts of the world, where, if we invest early, we can prevent the crises that later demand military force at far greater cost.

We warned the Prime Minister that cutting £6billion from Britain’s overseas aid budget to fund defence is a false economy rather than a strategy. We wrote: “When crises are left unaddressed, they do not stay distant for long. Conflict, extremism, disease, hunger and displacement spread beyond borders, driving instability, undermining security and increasing pressures that are felt here in the UK as well as overseas.”

Importantly, well-targeted aid is Britain’s first line of defence, not charity. The argument is not complicated. Decades of British investment in development, soft power and conflict prevention have made this country safer. When conflict is contained upstream, it does not become a military operation downstream. Likewise, a fragile state that can be stabilised does not become a refugee crisis on our own shores.

While others argue about the “next war”, we appreciate a strong military is essential, and so is proper investment in prevention – to deliver complementary effects. We know, better than most, what it means to do more with less and the implication of our actions or inaction. If you fund defence by cutting international development, you will spend more in the long term.

As Britain’s leadership sees yet more change, I wonder, will Andy Burnham take the opportunity to make a better informed, more forward-looking decision. We are asking that he not force a choice between defence and development.

We eventually received a response to our letter, signed by the Rt Hon Baroness Chapman, Minister of State for International Development and Africa.

Though this letter was drafted and sent while the government was under some duress regarding the Defence Spending Plan – finally published this week – the reply failed to address many of the points raised by us. “The countries we work with today want genuine partnership, not the paternalism of the past,” it states, before going on to outline the government’s development priorities, and how financial support is part of the bigger plan.

While rather tritely expressing gratitude for our service, the letter offers little recognition of our experience in uniform and afterwards, nor did it seem to grasp the fact that the impacts of overseas development aid are as important at home as they are abroad.

Military leaders, diplomats and humanitarians should not compete against each other. From the Veterans’ Alliance for International Aid, I know many Veterans with experience of serving both in the military and later delivering humanitarian aid – sometimes even in the same theatre. From these experiences, it has become clear humanitarian and military influence are two sides of the same coin and this group of people need to be heard.

We told the Government plainly: “Acting early is both a moral duty and a strategic necessity. It reduces the chance that problems deepen to the point where military intervention becomes the only option.” This message remains vital – regardless of who is leading the nation.

If we dismantle that essential combination of defence and overseas aid spending, the country will ultimately pay for it in a different way.

Garrath Williams served for 17 years in the British, then Australian Army. He is Co-Founder of Veterans Can… a community interest company that celebrates the positive impact Veterans have on society, and is convenor of the Veterans’ Alliance for International Aid