Page 22 - Five Forces of Americanisation Richard Hooke 04072025 final post SDR1

The UK Defence Industry in the 21 Century
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The Five Forces of Americanisation

Our 2005 paper discussed how defence spending can be optimised by achieving the right balance
between domestic programmes and exports and by developing and sustaining the right international
alliances in the process. It described “why the trade in defence equipment is such a vital component
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of national security policy” .
Now, in a world where conflict is a major theme and the US has expressed a desire to disengage from
European security, the full extent of the value of a robust national DIB has become more widely
understood, particularly its practical role in building and strengthening international relationships.
Military sales do not take place in a vacuum. They envisage a conflict, usually with a possible aggressor,
with a specified term in mind. Equipment needs updating, refreshing, replacing or supplementing over
a life cycle spanning several years. The buyer–seller relationship is intimate and enduring (see
Appendix 4).

A resilient industrial base underpins Defence’s credibility as a fighting force…. Our witnesses
strongly emphasised the role that the Government should play in reversing this process.”
(House of Lords International Relations Committee 26 Sept 2024 “Ukraine: a wake-up call”)
In the UK’s case, Boris Johnson was therefore able unilaterally to pledge practical support to
Volodymyr Zelensky when the US and others in the west remained cautious in the early days of
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking at London’s Frontline Club in the spring of 2024 , The Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav
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Trofimov recounted that “in the months before the Russian invasion, few in Washington and even
fewer in Paris or Berlin, held faith in Ukraine’s ability to resist. The United States supplied ninety
Javelin shoulder-fired antitank missiles … not nearly enough to match the thousands of Russian
tanks arrayed on the border. With American permission, the Baltic states sent a few Stinger man-
portable air defence missiles, a weapon that America had provided to Afghanistan’s mujahedeen
in the 1980s. Britain, in perhaps the most consequential commitment, shipped about 2,000 short-
range antitank missiles (NLAW)”
Indeed, from diplomacy to peacekeeping to warfighting, having the power to deploy or to supply
weapons is usually a persuasive tool. What former US President, Theodore Roosevelt, called “Big
Stick Diplomacy”.

William Allen Rogers; Harpers Weekly; 1904 5
Even so, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s ability to provide such support was restricted to arms and
equipment where the UK had sufficient autonomy to authorise their supply. NLAW (Next Generation
Light Anti-tank Weapon system) was in fact, developed by BAE Systems and Saab of Sweden. It is
manufactured in Northern Ireland in a production facility owned by Thales of France. Such is the
interdependence of much of the European defence industry.

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07/07/2025 Richard Hooke 2025