Global threats to national security

The left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said a security strategy based only on preventing military or terrorist attacks was redundant.

It called for a radical rethink, arguing that the power to control the security environment was "slipping beyond the reach of governments acting alone". The report said: "This is true at the global level on issues like climate change and the growth of ungoverned spaces and it is true at home on issues like protection of a critical national infrastructure that the Government no longer owns."

It continued: "We increasingly live in a world of shared destinies in which the grievance, policy failure or insecurity of one quickly becomes the insecurity and policy problem of others. In this context security must be common to all or is unlikely to be delivered for any."

The warning appeared in a paper, The New Front Line, presented to the IPPR's commission on national security, co-chaired by Lord Ashdown, former High Representative to Bosnia and Lord Robertson, former Nato Secretary General.

Intended to inform a report from the commission later this year, it identified five key factors in the new security landscape. These were - globalisation and power diffusion, global poverty and failed states, climate change, the growth of political Islam, and socio-economic vulnerability.

Ian Kearns, IPPR deputy director and report author, said: "The world has changed and notions of security that helped protect us in the 20th century are no longer able to protect us in the 21st century. "Terrorism is a very real threat but we must not allow it to dominate discussion about national security. The frontline in the battle for security today is more complex than ever before."

The Government established a national security committee last year to discuss security and counter-terrorism issues. It also oversees the national security strategy, which the Government has pledged to publish regularly, outlining the threats faced by the country.

But the IPPR said a much broader focus was required. The paper argued that the UK was reliant for its security not only on decisions taken at home but also on those taken elsewhere by others. This was underlined by the rise of China and India, newly-important energy states, and potential new nuclear powers, creating alternative power centres and fresh regions of conflict.

Lord Ashdown said: "The report should play an important role in framing the policy debate moving forward, since it tables the kind of fundamental and challenging questions on national security that any UK government must surely now address."