Nov 1, 2026 · 10 min · 7 segments
Modern warfare has exposed a costly gap between what militaries need and what the industrial base can deliver. General Chris Cavoli (Ret.), former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and Mark Marengo…
Chris CavoliGuest
Mark MarengoHost
So let's start with your experience as Allied Commander, where you oversaw the development of NATO's collective defense plans at a point in time when member nations were increasing their budgets, developing capabilities and expanding the capacity for defense production.
What is your view on how policy, budget and plans have come together to build capabilities to deter our adversaries?
So, Mark, it's a massive success story, but it's like many success stories, one born of necessity and it's incomplete.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the heads of state and government of NATO directed my predecessor, Todd Walters, immediately to generate such a plan.
I took command five days later, and so the story of my tenure was developing these plans.
The plans were put together in very short order, about a year, got them approved at the summit in Vilnius in 2023, and that has made all the difference.
We know what we need to build, we know what we gotta do, but now we've run into two challenges.
Number one, we gotta actually come through, right? We have to do the hard political work to make sure our populations understand why we're gonna be spending more and what we're gonna be spending on.
Second, there's a problem with the defense production capacity on both sides of the Atlantic.
We're all working hard on it, but we've got money to spend and we need more stuff to spend it on.
So let's start with your experience as Allied Commander, where you oversaw the development of NATO's collective defense plans at a point in time when member nations were increasing their budgets, developing capabilities and expanding the capacity for defense production.
What is your view on how policy, budget and plans have come together to build capabilities to deter our adversaries?
So, Mark, it's a massive success story, but it's like many success stories, one born of necessity and it's incomplete.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the heads of state and government of NATO directed my predecessor, Todd Walters, immediately to generate such a plan.
I took command five days later, and so the story of my tenure was developing these plans.
The plans were put together in very short order, about a year, got them approved at the summit in Vilnius in 2023, and that has made all the difference.
We know what we need to build, we know what we gotta do, but now we've run into two challenges.
Number one, we gotta actually come through, right? We have to do the hard political work to make sure our populations understand why we're gonna be spending more and what we're gonna be spending on.
Second, there's a problem with the defense production capacity on both sides of the Atlantic.
We're all working hard on it, but we've got money to spend and we need more stuff to spend it on.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
