RUSI calls for UK defence review realignment and rescheduling

摘要

A Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) report has argued that the United Kingdom should delay completion of its integrated defence, security, and foreign policy review until 2021. The paper also proposes significant shifts in the defence posture and force structure required to underpin the policy. Published in late March 2020 by the London-based think-tank, 'Defence and the Integrated Review: A Testing Time' argued that planned completion of the review before July 2020 will be affected by the "huge" and "highly unpredictable" consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. Such consequences, it said, "are likely to include new debates on public spending priorities in the UK and elsewhere, new geopolitical alignments between major powers, exacerbated developmental challenges in countries worst hit by the crisis, and (potentially) a further strengthening of nationalist political forces". Such global consequences would significantly affect UK security defence, development, and foreign policies.