Rear Admiral Archer M Macy Jr describes today's military, organisational, human and cultural risks and opportunities in integrating forces for air and missile defence.

Many modern defence reviews focus on the need for integration. Arguably, nowhere is the need more important today than in providing air and missile defence. State and non-state adversaries have shown varying abilities to combine their attacks in ways that pose multiple dilemmas.

Using small, slow-moving and low flying drones intended to swamp defences, coordinated with aircraft and cruise, hypersonic and ballistic missiles, these packages present huge challenges across a wide span of heights, speeds and trajectories. As well as being a problem for fielded forces, it is an industrial challenge in making sure there are enough interceptors at the right price point to sustain the defences.

In this episode, RAdm Macy USN (Retd) offers his unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities based on his time in the Aegis Program Office and most recently as the Director of the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization in the US Joint Staff.

Further Reading

Sidharth Kaushal, Archer Macy, and Alexandra Stickings. The future of NATO's air and missile defence. RUSI Occasional Paper, Royal United Services Institute, 2021, available at https://static.rusi.org/NATOMissileDefence2021.pdf.

Brian R. Green, Offense-Defense Integration for Missile Defeat: the Scope of the Challenge, Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 2020, available at https://www.csis.org/analysis/offense-defense-integration-missile-defeat.

David C. Gompert, Preparing Military Forces for Integrated Operations in the Face of Uncertainty, RAND 2003, available at: https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP250.html.

Luke Harding, 'Judges with machine guns: the part-time drone hunters defending Kyiv', The Guardian, 9 May 2024.

Talking Strategy, Season 6, Episode 14, Force Integration in 1940 – Dowding's Air Defence System, RUSI Podcast, 2026, available at https://www.rusi.org/podcasts/talking-strategy/episode-14-force-integration-1940-dowdings-air-defence-system.

Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding's air defence system was crucial during the Battle of Britain. The RAF Museum's Andrew Renwick describes how it was created.

In the 1930s, Great Britain, wrestled with the challenge of achieving wide area air defence to protect against threats from continental Europe while reliant on many different elements.

ACM Hugh Dowding was tasked with solving this problem. His solution was a system that integrated detection systems, including classified intelligence sources and the new radar technology, with disaggregated command and control systems directing fighters onto the enemy. It was this 'Dowding System' that underpinned British success in the Battle of Britain.

As Winston Churchill put it: 'All the ascendancy of the Hurricanes and Spitfires would have been fruitless but for this system, which had been devised and built before the war.'

Paul and Beatrice are joined by Andrew Renwick, the curator of photographs at the Royal Air Force Museum Hendon. He is the author of RAF Hendon, Birthplace of Aerial Power, published by Flight Recorder Publications in 2021.

Further Reading

John Terraine, Right of the Line: The Role of the RAF in World War Two, Pen & Sword, 2010.

Vincent Orange, Dowding of Fighter Command: Victor of the Battle of Britain. Grub Street, 2008.

Basil Collier, Leader of the Few: the authorised biography of Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding of Bentley Priory. Jarrolds, 1957.

T. C. G. James, The Growth of Fighter Command 1936-1940, Air Defence of Great Britain Vol. I (Royal Air Force Official Histories, Air Historical Branch), Routledge, 2001.

Understanding the Dowding System, a Briefing Paper by the Association of RAF Fighter Control Officers, https://www.raffca.uk/art_UnderstandingTheDowdingSystem.php

As European nations discuss preparing their militaries for war, Poland's former Chief of Defence, General Rajmund Andrzejczak, describes how they have led the way in increased military spend.

With almost 5% of its GDP now invested in defence, Poland has moved at speed to grow its armed forces. Indeed, Poland stands out as the European NATO member that has moved fastest to respond to the threats facing the Alliance and is rapidly becoming a European leader in defence.

In this episode, we talk to General Andrzejczak, the Chief of General Staff for the Polish Armed Forces between 2018 and 2023. It was while he was Poland's most senior military officer that preparations to face the new threat posed by Russia in Europe were accelerated.

He describes the opportunities and challenges in the transformation implemented across the physical, moral and conceptual components of Polish fighting power and what is still needed for NATO to deliver on its ambitions.

He also discusses how the European members of NATO might meet the Russia threat and respond to 'the strategic double espresso' of the 2025 US National Security Strategy.

A graduate of Poland's National Defence Academy, the Czech Army Defence Academy, and the Royal College of Defence Studies in London, General Andrzejczak is an expert commentator on European defence and security.