Russian invasion of Ukraine and China’s aggression over Taiwan threaten to create a world ‘defined by danger’, PM warns
Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s aggression over Taiwan threaten to create a world “defined by danger, disorder and division”, the UK prime minister has warned.
Rishi Sunak predicted a “difficult and dangerous decade” as his government published a long-awaited update to a major defence, security and foreign policy review on Monday.
The 63-page document signalled that the world faced the biggest risk in decades of security threats escalating, including into “uncontrolled conflict” with nuclear weapons.
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The most immediate security priority was to tackle the threat posed by Russia’s war in Europe, the Integrated Review Refresh said.
But it warned that any future war in the Indo-Pacific, where tensions have increased with China over Taiwan, could have “global consequences greater than the conflict in Ukraine“.
The paper did not change the fundamental assessments of the original review, published in 2021, before Russia‘s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but the language was starker.
Mr Sunak described the Chinese Communist Party as posing an “epoch-defining challenge”. It was previously described only as a “systemic challenge”.
He also set out how Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine was an assault on UK and wider European security.
The prime minister explained how the security environment has changed over the past two years, with threats and challenges intensifying.
“Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, weaponisation of energy and food supplies and irresponsible nuclear rhetoric, combined with China’s more aggressive stance in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, are threatening to create a world defined by danger, disorder and division – and an international order more favourable to authoritarianism,” he wrote in a foreword.
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£3bn more for nuclear weapons and submarine fleet
As a result of the evolving threats, Mr Sunak announced an extra £3bn over the next two years for the UK’s nuclear weapons and submarine fleet as well as an extra £1.9bn for ammunition stockpiles.
The document was released ahead of the government’s budget on Wednesday. It set out a plan to increase UK defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, up from just over 2%, but without setting a timeframe.
Warning of future threats, the review said: “There is a growing prospect that the international security environment will further deteriorate in the coming years, with state threats increasing and diversifying in Europe and beyond.
“The risk of escalation is greater than at any time in decades, and an increasing number of advanced weapons systems have been developed and are being tested or adopted.”
It raised concern about the impact of a weakening in a set of arms control agreements between the United States and Russia.
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“The strategic stability mechanisms that helped in the 21st century to mitigate the risks of misunderstanding, miscalculation and unintended escalation have not developed at the pace needed to ensure that competition does not spill over into uncontrolled conflict,” the text said.
It added: “Tensions in the Indo-Pacific are increasing and conflict there could have global consequences greater than the conflict in Ukraine.”
Warnings about Iran and North Korea
The Integrated Review Refresh also cautioned about an increasing threat from Iran, which is advancing a nuclear weapons programme.
In addition, North Korea is “seeking to develop its nuclear capabilities while pursuing regionally destabilising activity through missile tests that threaten its neighbours”.
Much of the text reaffirmed and strengthened findings from the previous review.
But the 2023 update also include a specific section on UK policy towards China, balancing security concerns with a desire to engage with Beijing in areas of mutual interest such as climate change.
This nuanced approached may meet with criticism from certain members of the Conservative Party, including former prime minister Liz Truss, who have been much more hawkish.
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The review talked about “growing concerns” over the actions of the Chinese government, including its strengthening relationship with Russia despite the war in Ukraine.
It also highlighted how China has pursued “rapid and opaque military modernisation with huge new investments, militarised disputed islands in the South China Sea, and refused to renounce the use of force to achieve its objectives with regard to Taiwan“.
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Specifically on Taiwan, the UK reaffirmed its position that tensions over the self-governed island should be settled peacefully.
But Mr Sunak’s review also focused on the reality of Beijing’s size and significance. China accounts for being a fifth of the world economy.
The text said Britain would “engage constructively” with the Chinese government, business and people when it serves the national interest but would take “robust action” to tackle any threats.
The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.
Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.
We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.
It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.
Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.
We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.
David Lammy and Norway’s Foreign Minister Barth Eide view the melting Blomstrandbreen glacier. Pic: PA
The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.
“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”
In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.
The foreign secretary visiting SvalSat, a satellite ground station which monitors climate in Svalbard. Pic: PA
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.
“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.
But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.
Norwegian observers are concerned about the Russian leader – and Trump being ‘too soft’ on him. Pic: AP
Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”
Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.
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In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.
There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.
“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”
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This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.
Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.
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‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment
A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing
The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.
“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.
He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.
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Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
Children are among the bulk of the casualties in Gaza
“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.
“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.
“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”
Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.
They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.
Dr Victoria Rose is a British surgeon working in southern Gaza’s last remaining hospital
Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.
“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.
“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”
One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.
“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”
Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”
Hatem Senior
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The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.
He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.
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Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”
Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.
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