Rethinking Security is a network of organisations, academics and activists working in the UK for an approach to security that can better meet everyone’s needs, from the local to the global level.

They believe that security matters but much that governments do in its name is making us all less safe, at home and around the world. It’s time for a rethink.

It was previously called the Ammerdown Group.

Their discussion paper says

The problem lies in the dominant narrative about what security means, whom it should benefit, and how it is achieved. That narrative:

1. privileges UK national security as a supreme imperative, to which the needs of others may be
   subordinated, rather than recognises security as a common right, to which all have equal claim;
2. aims to advance ‘national interests’ defined by the political establishment, including corporate
   business interests and UK ‘world power’ status, and so dissociates the practice of security from the
   needs of people in their communities;
3. assumes a short-term outlook and presents physical threats as the main risks, largely
   overlooking the long-term drivers of insecurity; and
4. proposes to respond by extending control over the strategic environment, achieved principally
   through offensive military capabilities, a superpower alliance, and restrictions on civil liberties.

More information

Discussion paper

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