THE HISTORY OF THE EMERGENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF AIR DEFENCE SYSTEMS WORLDWIDE (LATE 19TH – LATE 20TH CENTURY)

This article traces the emergence and institutional transformation of air defence from late nineteenth-century technological preconditions to the integrated surveillance, command, and interception structures of the late twentieth century. Using a comparative historical and documentary approach, it examines the shift from improvised countermeasures against aerial threats to specialized anti-aircraft units, centralized reporting networks, radar-based command systems, and multinational aerospace defence institutions. British, American and Soviet developments are considered alongside Uzbek-language scholarship on the historical experience of local air defence and civilian protection in Central Asia. The analysis distinguishes military air defence from civil defence, while showing their interaction in wartime organization. The findings indicate that institutional integration—especially the coordination of information, command authority and response forces—was as consequential as advances in weapons technology. The article is based on published historical sources, not newly discovered archival documents.