Lieutenant General (ret.) Friedrich Wilhelm Ploeger was born on 25 March 1949 in Emmerich / Germany. He joined the German Air Force in October 1967 and started his career as an Air Weapons Controller / Fighter Controller in the German Air Force. He retired from active service on 30 June 2013 as Deputy ­Com­mander and Acting Commander of NATO ­AIRCOM, Ramstein, Germany.

His military career includes key staff and high ranking NATO and national positions – among them four joint positions – in the fields of operations, force planning and military policy, i. a. as Director Military Policy and Arms Control and Disarmament in MoD Berlin. He also held command positions at all levels, from squadron to corps / force level.

Lieutenant General Ploeger has been lecturing and holding speeches at a number of conferences on the subjects of Space, Cyberspace, Ballistic Missile Defence, and Air Policing in European NATO countries and in the USA. Since retirement, he is still active as a Senior Mentor and Consultant for the ‘Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr’, for NATO as well as for the German Air Force. He is Speaker of the ‘Senior Advisory Board of the ­Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr’ and the ‘Community of former ­CIS-Officers’ of the German Air Force.

He also contributed to books and journals on the subjects of security ­policy, conceptual and operational issues.