Recommendation 9

The importance of allies, discussed in the previous section, is one of the lessons that the Department has learned from its support for Ukraine.16 The Department also highlighted several other lessons. First, for future conflicts armed forces will need a mixture of capabilities to be effective. For example, Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles have been of fundamental importance in the war in Ukraine, but they are a long-term, expensive capability at the cutting-edge of technology. However, a transformation during the war has been the importance of affordable high-mass equipment, such as drones. The Department now considers that it needs both high end equipment and affordable mass going forward.17