The UK’s 2023 Integrated Review Refresh New Points

1/ On the UK’s Areas of Interest
  • Europe is still the top area of interest. However, in the context of the war in Ukraine, the IRR23 emphasizes the region even more, considering it a “core priority”. In contrast, the IRR21 only stated that Europe is the focus of Britain’s security and is a “precondition” for the UK to move towards the goal of a “Global Britain”. 
  • The Indo-Pacific is still the UK’s second theater of interest, but British goal in the region seems to be more modest. In 2021, the UK wanted to become “the European partner with the broadest, most integrated presence” in the Indo-Pacific. The IRR23 removes this phrase, while for the first time mentions the role of the UK as a supporting actor in advancing a shared concept of a free and open Indo-Pacific. 
  • However, the IRR23 stresses more on the interconnected between the two aforementioned regions: the UK acknowledges the “growing coalescence” between its allies and partners in the two regions, as well as introduces the concept of a new network of “Atlantic-Pacific” partnerships.
2/ On the UK’s Approach to China
  • The IRR23 represents a stronger approach to China: (i) the UK still considers China as a “systemic challenge”, which is similar to the IRR21, but additionally describes China as an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge”; (ii) for the first time, the IRR rejects China’s activities to change the status quo in the South and East China Sea (the IRR21 only mentions the South China Sea in its sustainable maritime governance section, while the IRR23 identifies the South China Sea as a focus of geopolitical change, associated with China's activities to increase its military activities).
  • The IRR23 also has a new section on the UK’s policy towards China which includes three “interrelated strands”: Protect; Align and Engage. This could present the essence of the "robustly pragmatic" approach to China that Prime Minister Sunak mentioned a few months earlier.
 
3/ On Other Issues
  • The UK’s defense budget seems to be more modest than its earlier desire. On February 2023, Defense Minister Ben Wallace requested an £11billon raise on national defense expenses. A month later, however, the IRR23 announced that the UK will only increase £5 billion on this until 2025, in which £3 billion will be dedicated to its nuclear arsenal & related issues (including AUKUS) and £2 billion will be utilized for the development of the UK’s conventional weapon arsenal. Originally, the IRR21 planned to invest £6,6 billion from 2021 to 2025, mainly for technological development. 
  • On climate change, the UK highlights the importance of this issue in the IRR21: the keyword of “climate change” appeared 56 times; while the UK committed to investing £11,6 billon from 2021 to 2026. However, climate change was not as prominent in the IRR23 as the previous version: the usage of the word was reduced to 18 times and there were not any new commitments. Maybe the reason is that IRR21 was introduced in the year the UK hosted the COP26 conference. 
The post is originally published here
Translated by Nguyen Tien Dat
Revised by HD, Viet Ha