Aid & development, explained.
Binary framing betrays a tragic narrowing of British statecraft whereby one form of national power must be traded off against others (DFID/Flickr)
Development spending prevents conflicts and builds resilience – dismissing it as secondary betrays decades of effective practice.
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Australia should heed Britain’s tough choices – and its mistakesAustralia should heed Britain’s tough choices – and its mistakes
“…hard power is more important than soft power…”
Readers should be as wary of selective quotation as they are sceptical of such categorical statements.
The eight words above belong to UK Defence Secretary John Healey, speaking on The Rest is Politics last week. Healey was pressed by hosts Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart about increases in defence spending, funded in part by aid budget cuts instead of increased taxes.
Healey defended the Starmer government’s decision to prioritise hard power investments, arguing that there are “never easy choices and decisions” especially given the “record of the previous Labour government on millennium development goals”. However, the government’s calculus was ultimately that “you can't deal with Putin’s drones with international aid projects.”
Strictly speaking, Healey is correct: outright military aggression must be deterred and met with hard power. But such binary framing betrays a tragic narrowing of British statecraft whereby one form of national power must be traded off against others.
Healey’s alluring but deceptive logic should be refuted. He misunderstands both the nature and effects of the supposedly “soft” instruments of development spending. Aid does in fact have very “hard” (i.e., real world, tangible) effects. Economic development, effective and transparent institutions, good governance, and environmental security all contribute to resilient and prosperous states. As others have well established, development directly contributes to conflict prevention, generating virtuous cycles of stability and security. And investing early to prevent conflict emerging is often far less costly than fighting once it does.
Moreover, though Western aid has always been motivated in part by political dividends, it is too simplistic to suggest it is only a means to purchase influence. That also does an injustice to decades of good British development practice.
To dismiss development and soft power as secondary to hard power ignores two great strengths of British statecraft (DFID/Flickr)
Healey’s comments are especially disappointing given the recent decline in the UK’s development spending, as well as the erosion of Britain’s moral and cultural power through the self-inflicted wounds of Brexit, a fracturing union and perpetual political instability.
In February, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the UK would cut its aid budget from 0.5 to 0.3% of gross national income. This is an unfortunate departure from the UK’s long-term significant support through both bilateral arrangements and funding for multilateral institutions (in 2024, the UK was the third largest OECD aid spender).
Healey also underplays the importance to the UK of its soft power – robust democratic institutions, prestigious universities, cultural reach, and English as the global lingua franca. Every notable soft power index has consistently ranked the UK highly in recent decades.
To dismiss development and soft power as secondary to hard power ignores two great strengths of British statecraft, at a time when both are under significant pressure and require renewed focus.
As disheartening as Healey’s comments may be, they do bring into stark relief the compounding challenges faced by progressive governments in places such as the UK and Australia: low growth and productivity, sticky inflation, rising populism, a warming climate and mounting international security threats, all in the context of high public debt and growing demand for public services, but also political and economic pressure to keep taxes low.
When domestic and international pressure pile up, diminishing development and soft power is self-defeating.
It is an unenviable witches’ brew for governments elected on a reform platform, but with very little fiscal space to enact it. Unfortunately, such omnidirectional pressures also invite the kind of oversimplified prioritisation that Healey makes, as governments sacrifice the long-term effectiveness of their statecraft in the face of immediate budgetary cycles.
Britain’s challenges are vastly more acute than Australia’s. Public sector debt sits at 96.4% of GDP; for Australia, it is 32%. Populism is having real electoral impact in the UK with the precipitous rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, reflecting a wave of anti-migration sentiment. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and constant testing of European and NATO resolve presents a more immediate security challenge than any Australia presently faces.
Speaking in late September at the UK Labour Conference, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese acknowledged the challenges faced by progressive governments in both countries:
“Working within the system is tougher than railing against it. And creating solutions requires more of us than shouting slogans.
In a democracy, being a party of government means grappling with uncertainty and complexity. It means dealing with the gritty realities of the world as it is. It means making – and owning – tough decisions, in the national interest.”
Australia has so far done better to avoid reductive analyses that shortsightedly prioritise hard power above all else in its own tough budgetary and strategic decisions.
Though hard trade-offs and ruthless resource prioritisation are sometimes necessary, Canberra should take Britain’s recent choices as a warning: that when domestic and international pressure pile up, diminishing development and soft power is self-defeating. In doing so, Albanese and his ministers would do well to remember the Prime Minister’s words to his British counterparts:
“So while governments always need to be able to tell the difference between what’s urgent and what’s important … in the end, we have to do both. To take immediate action in a way that anticipates and creates future opportunities. To navigate stormy seas, while always keeping our eyes on the horizon.”
Urgency often demands an effective hard power response – but good statecraft also means investing comprehensively and consistently in national power for every challenge on the horizon.
About the author
Hugh Piper
Hugh Piper is a director at Ancrum Advisory.
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