Episode Details

In this episode of Books to Battles, Col. Cory Hollon speaks with Dr. Peter Layton, a retired Royal Australian Air Force officer and grand strategist, about his concept of heterogeneous air power. Layton argues that the rising cost and complexity of manned combat aircraft has created a resilience problem for middle-power air forces, particularly in a prolonged war of attrition. Drawing on the Russia-Ukraine war, he examines how rockets, missiles, drones, and manned aircraft can combine to create an air force with greater resilience, scalability, and mass. The discussion explores the implications for air superiority, control of the air, precision warfare, industrial capacity, force design, and the future of air strategy and theory.