Political and military alliance

The paper is published against that harsh background of cuts in budgets. Some critics have said the new strategy is driven by the need to cut money rather than the real threats facing Britain.

However, Britain is in political alliance with almost all of mainland Europe through the European Union, and in military alliance with NATO. There is no nation state which could be conceived of as a direct threat to Britain, and the NSS reflects that.

The publication of the strategy comes ahead of the release Tuesday of the Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR), which will set out the future make-up, and capabilities of Britain's armed forces.

The SDSR has been much criticized by the armed forces, the media, and provoked a public intervention from United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton who expressed her fears that the cuts in military spending, of between 10 and 20 percent, would seriously weaken Britain's capacity to perform within NATO.

Intense lobbying by all three armed forces, and public wrangling by Defense Secretary Dr Liam Fox has led Prime Minister Cameron to step in at the last minute, late last week, and protect military spending from the Treasury's (the finance ministry) demands for a 10 percent cut in the budget over four years.

The cut is now expected to be eight percent, but it comes alongside an overspend in future budgets on military projects of about 38 billion pounds (about 80 billion U.S. dollars), equivalent to an entire year's military budget, which will have to be catered for.

Cameron was careful to lay the blame on the former Labor administration. He said, in the NSS, "we have been left a litany of scandalous defense procurement decisions, which have racked up vast and unfunded liabilities."