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Prime minister Gordon Brown is to say the UK must play a comprehensive role in "changing the world" as he is set to defend the country's military mission in Afghanistan.
He will claim that efforts against al Qaida this year have had a greater impact than in any 12-month period since the US leg invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
But he will say the terror group continues to recruit and train militants and could return if international forces pulled out.
The prime minister is due to speak at the Lord Mayor's banquet in the City of London on Monday evening.
His comments mark the latest stage in the prime minister's efforts to gain public support for the war.
Brown is to reject a "splendid isolation" approach and will say that Britain needs a foreign policy that is both "patriotic and internationalist".
He will say the UK can best defend its national interests through global co-operation and "leading in the construction of a new global order".
And he will warn that al Qaida continues to run "an extensive recruitment network across Africa, the Middle East, western Europe and in the UK" to attract adherents to its brand of international terror.
Calls for Britain to pull out of the International Security and Assistance Force (Isaf), will be rejected, as will calls to bring troops home and concentrate on protective measures to prevent terror attacks in the UK.
"As a nation we have every reason to be optimistic about our prospects: confident in our alliances, faithful to our values and determined as progressive pioneers to shape the world to come," Brown will say.
"And that is why I say our foreign policy must be both patriotic and internationalist: a foreign policy that recognises and exploits Britain's unique strengths, and defends Britain's national interests strongly - not by retreating into isolation, but by advancing in international co-operation."
Foreign secretary David Miliband is due to travel to Kabul ahead of the inauguration of the Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Thursday.
He will make his own speech defending British involvement tomorrow, focusing on the need for the Karzai government to move out of a cycle of corruption.
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