Emergence of SHORAD/VSHORAD Industrial Clusters on NATO’s Eastern Flank

Short-range and very short-range air defence has become one of the most structurally consequential capability priorities on NATO’s Eastern Flank, not only from an operational perspective but also in terms of industrial organisation and capital allocation. The proliferation of low-altitude threats, including cruise missiles, loitering munitions and unmanned aerial systems, has exposed the limitations of legacy air defence postures and elevated SHORAD and VSHORAD from auxiliary assets to core elements of deterrence and force protection. In Poland and Romania, this shift is translating into large-scale procurement programmes that are explicitly designed to couple military requirements with domestic industrial development, driving joint ventures, technology transfers and the localisation of production, integration and sustainment activities. As a result, the reinforcement of air defence on the Eastern Flank is no longer only a question of capability acquisition, but a process reshaping national defence-industrial ecosystems and redefining how operational urgency is converted into long-term industrial capacity within the Euro-Atlantic security architecture. Short-range and very short-range air defences (SHORAD/VSHORAD) have moved to the forefront of NATO’s Eastern Flank security agenda amid intensifying air and missile threats in Europe’s east. Russia’s war against Ukraine, marked by pervasive drone and cruise missile strikes, has underscored the urgent need to shield forward-deployed forces, logistics hubs, critical infrastructure and air bases from low-altitude attacks [1] [2] .