National Security and Democracy: The United Kingdom Experience

This article analyzes the development of the national security system in the United Kingdom, focusing on the impact of external factors relating to the preparation and conduct of war and internal factors such as industrial conflict and terrorism. It goes on to discuss the challenges that the system must confront in the post-Cold War context. Chief among these are the problems of managing the tension between the operational requirement of secrecy and the imperative of democracy—the right of the public to know about and control what is being done in their name. It is argued that the traditionally highly secretive national security state in the United Kingdom is changing in the context of an increasingly "information hungry" and less deferential society. In addition, in a climate of "risk uncertainty" the United Kingdom will have to decide on the relative balance between military and nonmilitary instruments of security as it redefines its role in the world, and on how best to obtain value for money from the resources it commits to its redesigned national security system.