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

“Every person and every nation should be able to develop freely, end every people may
satisfy its needs with regard to its social and political life, its mother tongue, its culture,
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customs and religion” (USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, 26 February 1988: “Out of
the USSR: Rupert Cornwell’s reports from the Soviet Union”, The Independent 2024)) “
Whilst Russian President Putin’s followers might not acknowledge it, this desire to balance self-
reliance more equably with membership of the international security system strikingly resembles
Gorbachev’s policy, echoing Lenin’s “three Ds”: decentralisation, destalinisation and
democratisation”. At the time, this was held to be “an understanding of the interdependence of the
modern world“. Even though this policy was an important element of Perestroika a decade or more
earlier, the formation of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation in October, 2002 could also appear
to reflect the visions of Lenin and Gorbachev rather than Brezhnev and Putin. Comprising Armenia,
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, it was granted observer status in the General
Assembly of the United Nations in December, 2004.
“According to the Treaty the member states maintain their security on collective basis. Article 2
of the Treaty claims: “In case a threat to security, territorial integrity and sovereignty of one or
several Member States or a threat to international peace and security Member States will
immediately put into action the mechanism of joined consultations with the aim to coordinate
their positions and take measures to eliminate the threat that has emerged.””
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(CSTO website, 28 October, 2024)
Indeed, the current desire for “collaborative autonomy” provides the rationale for a more formal
BRICS and an enlarged UN Security Council, breaking away from the guiding principles established at
the end of the Second World War, where the kind of world order hierarchy that had frustrated
Napoleon provided the framework. Achieving the appropriate balance of power informed the
structure of the United Nations organisation, based on established frontiers and regimes. The five
main victorious powers, the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China, were charged
with the role of the world’s police within a UN Security “Council”. Over 80 years later, only now will
this be expanded, both numerically and geographically.
“the UK will support reform of the UN Security Council (UNSC) – and would welcome Brazil, India,
Japan and Germany as permanent members. We will also support permanent African
representation in the UNSC, as well as further representation in other multilateral institutions
including the G20.”
(Integrated Review Refresh 2023 “Responding to a more contested and volatile world” HM
Government; March, 2023)
Even while denying Lenin’s “3D”s, by invading Ukraine, provoking and motivating the EU’s
Enlargement programme and, subsequently, Readiness 2030 in the process, whilst also struggling to
reconstitute Russia’s position in the Balkans, President Putin appears to be a principal proponent of a
more formal BRICS alliance. The sixteenth annual BRICS summit was held in Kazan, Russia, in October,
2024, with Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa now joined by Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the
United Arab Emirates.

Source: Collective Security Treaty Organization

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