In this episode, AVM Mark Ridgway DBA, Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Futures and Force Design), explores how UK Defence approaches long term planning, from strategic foresight to force design and capability development.
In conversation with Viktorija Starych-Samuolienė, Co-President of the Council on Geostrategy, AVM Ridgway draws on Global Strategic Trends out to 2055 and Future Operating Environments 2040 to explain how the Ministry of Defence prepares for a range of plausible scenarios rather than attempting to predict a single outcome. The discussion examines the forces shaping the security environment, the growing interdependence of traditional, space, cyber, electromagnetic, and cognitive domains, and the challenge of balancing readiness today with transformation over the longer term.
The conversation also unpacks the shift from platform centric to architecture centric warfare, the development of a hybrid force combining crewed and uncrewed capabilities, and the need for greater agility as artificial intelligence and autonomous technologies evolve. Finally, AVM Ridgway considers why resilient, interoperable systems, alongside the ability to make better and faster decisions than an adversary, could prove decisive in future conflict.
