If we don’t understand soft power, no wonder aid budgets get cut
Beijing, July 2024: Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, at a summer camp for children from China and Africa | Image by: Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo
3 min read
Shifting money from the aid budget to defence is a grave mistake that will only exacerbate wider security challenges
At last! An increase in defence spending. For years, a small group of parliamentarians has been advocating for this, conscious that our arguments were losing traction as MoD budgets resulted in less, not more, money for defence.
And why not? Other Whitehall departments needed the funding, and allocating resources to schools and hospitals resonated more with the public than preparing for distant threats. I recall a heated exchange with the then-prime minister over cutting our battle tank numbers. Boris Johnson argued that large-scale tank battles on the European continent were a thing of the past. How different the world looks today.
Europe has never looked so dangerous than since 1945. America is increasingly aligning itself with Russia, which seems poised to re-arm, regroup, and fight another day. The realisation has finally set in: defence spending must rise to halt the decline in our military posture and prepare us for future conflict.
However, shifting money from the aid budget to defence – strengthening our hard power at the expense of our soft power – is a grave mistake that will only exacerbate wider security challenges. The nature of conflict is evolving; it is no longer confined to physical battlefields but increasingly involves grey zone warfare, where economic harm is inflicted from afar, often through proxy or non-state actors.
When we cut education initiatives in the Congo, China fills the gap
Mitigating threats is not just about maintaining the hard power to deter adversaries. It also requires strategic foresight to prevent threats from emerging in the first place.
Does terrorism, extremism, Ebola, cyber-attacks and ransomware not threaten our economy? Does the loss of access to key trade markets, including rare earth minerals, not harm our economic stability? Does the collapse of governance and security in foreign countries not drive increased migration and asylum seekers to the UK?
These challenges are best addressed at their source, and Britain has built a global reputation for doing so effectively for decades. We have been among the fairest and most effective in the world. However, overseas aid spending often suffers from poor public perception due to occasional mismanagement and lack of awareness about its broader benefits. In both the UK and the US, it is mistakenly seen as mere handouts to foreign nations – a luxury we cannot afford in tough times.
But consider the consequences of withdrawing from governance programmes in Libya – Russia swiftly moves in. When we cut education initiatives in the Congo, China fills the gap, each of them pursuing its own strategic agenda. If we assume that UK security is solely about hard power and conventional military spending, we fail to grasp the modern threat landscape and the root causes of instability.
As we enter a more uncertain era, the British public is awakening to the necessity of increased defence spending. If they also understood the security risks of reducing our aid budget, there would likely be overwhelming support to reconsider this approach. We must recognise that ensuring our safety may require increased taxation – a price worth paying for long-term stability and security.
Tobias Ellwood is former Conservative MP for Bournemouth East and chair of the Defence Select Committee
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