Page 91 - 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

offer the potential to disguise transactions by agents or other intermediaries that would be
viewed as corrupt practices. Even so, countries or international bodies can consider defence
programmes exempt from such legislation. If they are, whilst they can be configured in a
number of ways, offset arrangements are always a long term derivative of reciprocal trade.
Defence Procurement options

i. Actively making use of/developing the export customer base

An equally important but less formal element of the world’s security and economic framework
are “Platform Alliances”: the countries that share the common use of specific military
hardware: from 27 US F-16 Fighting Falcon users to the five partners and 4 overseas operators
of the Eurofighter Typhoon and, notably, the Hawk fighter/trainer: over 1,000 aircraft in 13
countries. In view of the long-term commitment to sustainment, the buyer–seller relationship
is both intimate and long-lived. It is an important diplomatic asset, often overshadowed by
the presence of the USA, both militarily and industrially. With new US foreign policy
threatening to loosen or sever these relationships, the opportunity for the UK is significant:
from Saudi Arabia to Abu Dhabi, Indonesia to South Korea and South Africa.

AUKUS is an example that now presents a complex proposition in view of US aggression on
world trade and Australia’s enthusiasm to develop a more independent stance. Established to
promote “a free and open Indo Pacific that is secure and stable”, it was attracting interest
from a wider group of nations in the region. This should not descend into an insubstantial
aberration.
ii. Teaming with industrial partners as appropriate to develop UK export customer
relationships, actively using direct and indirect offsets, countertrade and industrial
participation programmes

It will be instructive to observe the progression of US foreign policy and the vision and mission
of the Defense Security & Cooperation Agency (”DCSA”), since this encapsulates the notion of
an integrated government-industry-civil enterprise working with foreign partners both to
develop trade and to preserve and enhance collective security and prosperity.
This premise was also at the heart of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s “Refresh” and now
features prominently in the EU’s Readiness 2030 policy paper. The UK-US Defence Trade Task
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Force , set up by the UK DSIS in 2019, specifically focuses on a bilateral development of this
policy approach. If now endorsed by the new government, One Defence would bring the UK
in line with most of its current and aspiring international defence peers. More important, if its
resultant policies and actions were consistent across departments (notably Cabinet Office,

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