Armed forces of the Republic of Macedonia made significant progress since their establishment in 1992. In relatively short time span, they developed from practically obsolete Territorial Protection unit to a small and well - trained organization. Since 2003, Macedonian Armed Forces in general, and Macedonian Air Force in particular, were participants at numerous international live exercises where they gathered invaluable experience. In addition, Macedonian Army and Air Force carried out several true joint national level exercises, using gathered experience from international exercises and from international military cooperation. Cooperation with Macedonian police is advancing, resulting with many mutual operations, and including even successful real situation COIN operations.