In July 2025, the UK government released three major policy reviews that will shape its approach to security and defence for years to come: the Strategic Defence Review (SDR), the National Security Strategy (NSS), and the Comprehensive Spending Review. Together, these documents set the tone for the UK’s defence and foreign policy — but how well do they respond to the threats and challenges that people in the UK and beyond are actually facing? 

In this episode of Warpod, Saferworld’s Charlie Linney and Lewis Brooks are joined by Eva Tabbasam, Director of Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS), and Richard Reeve, Coordinator of the Rethinking Security network, to explore the politics, assumptions and gaps in the government’s vision. 

They highlight the risks of preparing society for conflict rather than building peace, and argue for a more sustainable, rights-based, cooperative approach that puts people’s real needs at the centre of national and global policy. 

Training and equipping police, military, and border forces is a common part of international security policy. But how can this kind of support affect communities in conflict-affected countries? 

In this episode, we speak to Hamsatu Allamin, a peacebuilder from northeast Nigeria, and Major George Ashton of the British Army’s Royal Military Police, about the practice known as security force assistance (SFA). We explore the risks of SFA when it’s not carefully designed – and how this support might be used in ways that improve relationships between security actors and civilians. 

The tenth anniversary of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) coming into force provides a unique opportunity for reflection on the impact and challenges of the Treaty to date. 

We took some time to talk with Roy Isbister and Elizabeth Kirkham from Saferworld’s Arms Unit and to reflect on their experience of working on the global treaty to regulate the international arms trade. The discussion explores Saferworld’s involvement in bringing the Treaty into existence, the main successes and challenges of the ATT since its adoption, and the progress they hope to see from states in the future. 

The next decade will bring new challenges for arms control. Saferworld, alongside civil society partners, will continue working to ensure the ATT does ultimately fulfil the promise of its object and purpose. Strategic funding partnerships are crucial for innovation, rapid response to crises, and for building the networks that create high-impact initiatives like the ATT. 

With a new Labour government in power after the UK’s 2024 General Election, what does the future hold for the UK’s Integrated Security Fund (UK ISF)?  

The UK ISF is a cross-government fund designed to address UK national security challenges, with a budget of approx. £1 billion. The idea of such a fund began in 2001 when a previous Labour government introduced the Conflict Pool, which evolved in 2015 to become the Conflict, Security and Stability Fund (CSSF), and evolved again in 2023 to become the UK Integrated Security Fund. It supports a wide range of projects around the world, from training overseas security forces to high-level dialogue between geopolitical rivals; and from supporting women’s rights organisations to tackle gender-based violence, to involvement in de-mining initiatives.  

In this episode, we speak to Dr Gaurav Saini, co-founder of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research (CSDR), a think tank based in New Delhi, India. We also hear from Lewis Brooks, Saferworld’s UK Policy and Advocacy Advisor. We discuss their respective experiences of engaging with the UK ISF (and its previous iterations), including any gaps or challenges that stem from the national security approach it takes, and hear what they hope to see from the UK ISF moving forwards under a new government. 

As Lewis Brooks says in the episode, “If you want to understand UK security and conflict policy around the world, then you need to understand this fund”. 

Please note – the views, perspectives and opinions expressed in this podcast episode are those of the guests and do not necessarily represent the views of Saferworld as an organisation.     

With the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) set to withdraw and the al-Shabaab insurgency still posing a very real threat, how can the Somali security sector address some of the challenges facing the region? 

In this episode of Warpod, we speak with regional security analyst and Somalia security expert Samira Gaid alongside Saferworld’s Country Director for Somalia Ali Hersi. We discuss the security challenges that Somali citizens and civil society organisations face, we look at some of problems with the coordination between international actors that have been undermining peacebuilding efforts, and at the importance of investing in community reconciliation and dialogue to address security challenges in the long term. 

Our conversation with Olivia O’Sullivan and Christine Cheng was so interesting that it ended up being too long to fit into one episode. This shorter bonus episode focuses on how the next UK government might approach US and EU relationships. 

If you haven’t listened to the full episode, you can do by clicking here or searching for Ep#5 How are UK political parties thinking about security policy? 

Olivia O'Sullivan is the Director of the UK in the World Programme at Chatham House and contributor to their podcast, Independent Thinking. Christine Cheng is a senior lecturer in War Studies at King's College London. 

Saferworld, as a registered charity, is not politically affiliated in any way and is both politically neutral and impartial. 

Please note – the views, perspectives and opinions expressed in this podcast episode are those of the guests and do not necessarily represent the views of Saferworld as an organisation. 

The UK’s place in the world is changing, and so is the nature of the conflict around the world. With new risks and developing dynamics pulling policymakers and politicians in different directions, we spoke to great guests.  

Our discussion gives insight into how UK political parties approach security policy making and the various challenges they face. We cover the ways in which the UK’s major parties would respond to current conflicts and crises, the areas of consensus between their approaches, the difficulties in communicating foreign policy and security challenges to domestic populations, and the potential reorientation of the UK’s foreign policy under a prospective Labour government. We also spoke about the role of foreign policy and commentary on it in the upcoming UK election more broadly, and the need for inclusive and constructive debates on security challenges. 

Saferworld, as a registered charity, is not politically affiliated in any way and is both politically neutral and impartial. 

Please note – the views, perspectives and opinions expressed in this podcast episode are those of the guests and do not necessarily represent the views of Saferworld as an organisation. 

In this episode, we explore the future of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping and the role of the African Union (AU) in peace operations with three guests: 

Our guests talk about the challenges involved in the protection of civilians, the importance of due diligence in safeguarding human rights, the threats posed by unconstitutional changes of government and geopolitical security, and the need for flexible ways of addressing emerging challenges. We also speak about the concept of peace enforcement, which the UN Secretary General formally introduced in the New Agenda for Peace, and which differs from traditional peacekeeping in that it involves the use of force against combatants to establish peace. Running throughout all these discussions is a recognition that trust, political consensus and effective coordination between the UN and the AU are central to ensuring the success of peace operations. 

Please note – the views, perspectives and opinions expressed in this podcast episode are those of the guests and do not necessarily represent the views of Saferworld as an organisation.   

In this episode, we explore the role of the European Union in the research, development and joint production of arms and military equipment.  

Unlike other industrial policy areas such as commercial trade, decisions around arms production and export have traditionally been held solely by individual EU member states – linked closely to their sovereignty and national defence ambitions. However, in recent years and especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, we have started to see this dynamic shift, with the ramping up of joint research and development projects and collective efforts to provide military equipment to Ukraine. With this shift accelerating, can the EU’s oversight and accountability mechanisms keep up?  

To unpack this question, we speak to Hannah Neumann, a Member of the European Parliament who sits on the Security and Defence Committee and chairs the delegation for relations with the Arabian Peninsula, where the issue of arms exports is often debated.  

In this second part of our discussion with Lord Peter Ricketts and Nargis Kassenova, we take a deeper look at some of the security policy change we’ve seen in recent years, and at wider patterns of geopolitical competition and alliances. We also discuss how interventions by some major players in the region have created unreliable and inconsistent security partnerships, which in some cases has eroded trust and undermined their broader strategic aims. 

Lord Peter Ricketts is a former British diplomat of 40 years who was the UK’s first National Security Adviser and who now chairs the European Affairs Committee in the House of Lords. Nargis Kassenova is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Programme on Central Asia at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. 

If you’ve not listened to part one of this discussion, you can find it here.