ACM Sir Stephen Dalton describes the Chancellor’s pre-budget speech that is likely to make clear the scale of the financial challenge facing us. Yet the world remains a dangerously unpredictable place as it emerges from the financial crisis into an as yet ill-defined multi-polar state. While we rightly concentrate all efforts on Afghanistan we must not lose sight of the current and future threats to the national interest that history tells us will emerge, often in unexpected form.