Ground-Based Air Defence
The Ministry of Defence, however, acknowledged last year that it still needed to ‘step up’ its efforts to deliver integrated air and missile defence for the UK. This will mean further investment in sensors, command and control, data links and the offensive systems that can destroy the ships, aircraft, and submarines of any adversary before they launch missiles against the UK. Or, in defence slang, destroying the archers before they can loose their arrows. It will mean investment in the resilience of critical infrastructure, dispersal of vital assets, and hardening of key UK bases as part of a nascent National Defence Plan. As a senior expert at the Rusi think tank noted this week, this also means ‘more missile ammunition and funded flying hours’ for the RAF to practice air defence against cruise missiles before they get anywhere near the UK.
