Transcripts For CSPAN2 Senator Cotton Calls For Budgetary Changes To Bolster Missile Defense 20170630

All right, why dont we get w started since time is short. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is harry kazianis. Welcome to our friends here in the flesh as well as thosese joining on Facebook Live and ast well as cspan3. Today we present a real treat, not one but twopart discussion on u. S. Missile defense policy. Part one will be the gentleman sitting next to me on my right, senator tom cotton from arkansas, part two after senator cottons keynote address as well as q a session a lively debate on Missile Defense with joe and rebecca from the hudson institute. Now im going to keep remarks very brief as we want to spend as much time as possible with senator cotton, obviously it goes by saying that washington faces severe challenges when it comes to missiles and proliferation of missiles throughout the world. Obviously north korea is very much in the news and the abilities to actually at some point hit the homeland. Senator cotton has been at theue forefront of advocating for a robust Missile Defense strategy. His remarks today will be around 20 minutes or so. After that, we will open the floor for questions for about 25 minutes. S. Please keep in mind during the q a to state your name, affiliation as we are very much on the record as you can see by the different cameras here. Also as time is limited, please keep your question as compact and precise as possible. W with that, senator cotton, the floor is yours. Thank you, harry, thank youn all for joining us today. We have this very important topic. The defense of the homeland is the most basic premise off american grant strategy and has been since before this country was founded. If you read the bill of particulars and declaration of independence was the king was not protecting from attacks on homeland. T this has been consistent theme since revolutionary war in american strategic discussions whether its the sacking of washington and burning of the white house during the war of 1812. The premise of the doctrine that we wouldnt have powers and the cuban missile crisis was resolved in part that we would not attack cuba again absent the deployment of offense weapons capable of striking homeland and after 9 11 attacks the world saw the response the people demand when our citizens are attacked on our own soil. Its also one reason why we have all those Forward Deployed basis in places like europe and the middle east and east asia. Yes, its to assure our allies an help defend them but more than anything for defense for the United States and our citizens and our territory so if any war is going to be fought, its going to be fought on our enemys turf, not home game on our turf. Thats why Missile Defense is a musthave technology. Not a nice to have one. Its only becoming more so in the future because our rifles are continuing to advance theiru ballistic and Cruise Missile technology. A i divide the threat that is we face in shortterm and longterm. Ll shortterm threats obviously is north korea, longerterm threats iran, russia and china as they develop and deploy more advanced systems. As a preview, i would say there are four things we need to do to counter act the threats, first and most simply increase defense spending and second is to spend some of that additional money on integrated layer ballistic Missile Defense systems, third to help our allies develop their own missile defies systems and fourth is to reconsider and reevaluate the forces treaty. First let me turn to the threats that we face. First and most immediate, north korea. As secretary mattis said recently, north korea is the most urgent and dangers threat to peace and security that we face. This year alone, north korea has been test firing two or threee short and med yudrange missiles per month. They are working on submarine Missile Technology as well. Everyone agrees its only a matter of time before north North Koreans can flight test and thats why president obama warned President Trump duringon the transition that north korea was the most urgent crisis he might face. Even if north korea struggles mf minaturize, they have vast stores of chemical weapons whico can be delivered by Missile Technology. In one also must worry about reliability of Nuclear Command and control systems. They are developing, forworry ab instance, road mobile and submarine missiles and mustan wonder whether those commanders will be under the full control of north koreas National Leadership and practice. Second, iran. Since the joint comprehensive plan of action was signed, iran tested Ballistic Missile on 14 different occasions. They were trying to send a signal to both the United States and israel. Moreover reports that iran is t supporting Missile Defense in yemen and finally the nuclear deal, i would hope to have reliable systems for any Nuclear Weapons program. Third, country that sometimes escapes notice is pakistan. One cannot discount the possibility that one of pakistans over 100 nuclearmeti weapons might fall out of the country out of that governments control and potentially into the hands of extremists and, of course, ant loose Nuclear Weapons in the hands of a terrorist group is the kind of threat Ballistic Missile systems is design today stop. Ou next is russia. As everyone here is well aware, russians the russians still maintain the Worlds Largest invent other of nuclear war heads. Russia is has tested andin te deployed missile that violates treaty. The vice chairman testified this year to congress that the russians have, quote, violated the spirit and intent of the inf treaty and they do not intend to return to compliance. He also said, quote, the system itself presents a risk to most of our facilities in europe. In other words, russia is violating a treaty from which they received greater benefit to the United States and therefore need more without paying any consequences. China, the pla navy has fielded four sspns giving beijing a credible sea base nuclear deterrent. China also is not a member to the inf treaty, therefore they have developed a number of dual var yeants that contribute to their antiaccess area denialtri strategy in east asia. Moreover, both russia and china are blurring the final separation between conventional weapons use. I say the balance is already being disturbed by technologicac advances as well as lines. Russia sees theater weapons and nuclear use against military targets as a way to escalate and to deescalate on favorable terms for russia. China like wise is begin to go rethink its no firstuse doctrine which can occur at any point up to the decision to use Nuclear Weapons in a crisis. And Chinese Military journals discuss the use of Nuclear Weapons as a higherlevel component of the antiaccessssedt aerial denial in the western pacific. S with regard to china, must notei that we have to deal with the fact that the size and quality of Nuclear Forces remain largely a mystery to us as we have little transparency on what Nuclear Weapons they may have produced and whether and how they are concealed. Deterring what we dont know about is, of course, a very difficult task. If our adversaries are contemplating the use of Nuclear Forces as part of warfare, i would suggest that we develop ballistic Missile Defenses instead of clinging to a deterrence framework that they w have already discarded. So what will we do about all of the threats . Well, first as i said, the most fundamental decision that we have is increasing our Defense Budget and with that comes the requirement of repealing the budget control act. The budget control act was passed in 2011 in a very different world than we face now. Congress has repeatedly made it clear that they cannot abide by those limits. After spending caps went into effect briefly in 2013, Congress Passed a twoyear budget, followed by an omnibus, followed by an omnibus and congress did that in 2015. Congress doesnt act to repeal the budget control act, i predict that we will see a continuing resolution and twoyear budget in the fall and omnibus in december and we will repeat that cycle once again in the 20192020 phase. That will not save money because spending caps will increase but not mean Wise Investments because the military will not have the longterm stability any predictability they need. 112th congress was not the constitutional budget. The budget control is not the constitution. The budget control act must be repealed. How should we spend that money . We have a lot of needs. A lot of conventional needs, a lot of needs to modernize our Nuclear Forces. But the threats that we face also require that we accelerate the deployment of integrated and layered ballistic Missile Defense systems that incorporate forwardbased assets with space sensors in the United States and begin to explore Airborne Systems as well. In the shortterm, we need to be able to stop the limited icbm attack threat from states like north korea and potentiallyd iran. Over the long term, though, i would suggest that we need to br able to stop an attack from near peer adversaries as well. I was please today see the Missile Defense agency successful groundbase interceptor test last month that destroyed incoming missile from the pacific. Were now in track to have 44 groundbased interceptors deployed by the end of the year. To accelerate, our ballistic Missile Defense progress, ive cosponsored the Missile Defense act along with sullivan, cruz,hf rubio peters and Bipartisan Group of senators who recognize the threats that we face, some of whom own citizens face it the most gravely. This legislation will authorize another 28 ground base interceptors and accelerate interceptor technologies as well as deployment of statebased sensor layer. But also accelerate the Environmental Impact statement for interceptor site in the east coast as well as the midwest of the United States and would require a dod report of the 100 groundbased receptors distributed across the United States and asked about the i specifics about optimal locations and the possibilities the possibility of transportable groundbase interceptors. In addition, the Missile Defense agency should rapidly develop and demonstrate an airborne Unmanned Aerial Vehicle capability. The concept here would be to involve would involve High Altitude long endurance uavs equipped with lase payloads loitering for days at a time. Why would we do this . Intercepting a missile in the boost phase before it achieves mid course is the holy grail of Missile Defense because the missile is slowing slower, easier to track and still intact, no decoy or debris. Of course, over its enemy, Enemy Territory not over our territory. All these things combined maketr it increase probability. The concept is, of course, is challenging, however, technology is rapidly advancing. Gy i believe with more investment and exploration it is a feasible concept. Third, we need to encourage our allies to deploy their own ballistic Missile Defenseir own systems. Deployed Missile Defense system and information sharing supports our goals of protecting the homeland extended deterrence and assurance of our allies. The United States has deployed two thaad launchers to south korea but has delayed in attempt to apiece china in intimidation to south korea. Japanese are debating whether to deploy either the thaad or the aegis short system. Em we should encourage them as allies in middle east. The United States has approved for sale to qatar, saudi arabia thaad system as well. In europe it has been one year since nato deployed aegis shore to romania. Construction underway on site and four are based in spain. All of these developments plus more that can be on the way will help develop our help create the kind of layered theater system that our troops and nationals as well as our allies and their citizens needs. Fourth and final, i suggest its time to reevaluate the intermediate range Nuclear Forces treaty. If russia is going to test and deploy intermediate range Cruise Missiles, we must respond. After all, as i said, russia benefits more from the inf treaty than the United States unless we believe that canada or mexico are going to develop intermediate range missiles any time soon or that we would allow them to be deployed to cuba. None of which i would imagine would happen. Yet, russia is violating a treaty from which they benefit more than do we. Its obvious that pleading with Vladimir Putins regime to uphold treaty and obligations hat not brought russia back to compliance and nor unlikely to do so therefore strengthening deterrence and Ballistic Missile deterrent in russia. The commander harris testified that we should take a look at renegotiating the treaty because it has become in his words a unilateral limitation on us. The United States and russia are the only two nations who are part of the treaty and russia is violating it, the United States is the only country on earth that is not at least exploring if not developing activelying if deploying Ballistic Missiles in the range of 500 to 5500 kilometers. All camed at taking steps withi inf treaty but also pressure iran or russia to come back into compliance. The legislation will accomplish record of road cable, rogue mobile with inf ranges to allied countries. In the late 1970s under jimmy carter and Ronald Reagan, the United States successfully used dual track approach to bring the soviet union to the inf negotiating table. The negotiation would limit further extension and open sky treaty activities until russia returns to compliance with the inf treaty. These are just a few of the stepsic we should take to face the growing threat or counteract the growing steps that we face. Theres no doubt more that weth could but at this point im happy to turn to harry for questions and to each of you. Thank you. Let me use moderators privilege and listening to your remarks, senator, i kept thinking about North Carolina north korea,in of course, and there was news circulating on friday that because over the weekend of the 25th, we had the anniversary of the north korean, the war with north korea in 1950s that there could be a nuclear test. So lets say, for example, north korea were to test an icbm. What do you think would be the appropriate response from the Trump Administration . Ea do you think we should your our Missile Defenses and take it out or good idea to observit, what do you think would be the best approach . Yes. [laughter] i wont speculate on hypotheticals and leave some of the questions to military experts but pressure we can to north korea to detier them from doing just that. I would say, i dont think china has done much in the last six months or for that matter the last 30 years in trying to deter this threat from north korea, they continue to try to have it both ways and theres much more that we can do in terms of sanctions against north koreas elicit network as well as individuals in china who are facilitating north koreas military and Ballistic Missile technology developments. At the same time, we have to take prudent precautions working with the new Moon Administration and seoul to hopefully deploy the remaining thaad systems and to encourage japan to take whatever choice they choose. There are steps left to be taken that we have not yet taken with north korea before we simply cede to the choice of accepting north korea as an armed state that can hold at risk the states of the United States of america or having to fight another korean war. Okay, fair enough. Well, with that, question and answer time. Please keep in mind to state affiliation when you ask your question. Well open it up. You go first, maam. If we can get a microphone, right behind you. Thank you very much. [inaudible] i wanted to ask the basis for your aim to have 100 intent interceptors. [inaudible] all right. Ic we need more interceptors. Obviously if north korea develops an intercontinental missile, you dont want to have one interceptor for one missile. The success rate is growing but the success rate is unlikely to be be 100 . In terms of the technology, obviously as i said, i was pleased to see the successful test earlier thismont over the pacific. Of course, the question to ask on these tests is not whether it was a success or a failure, but what we learned. Because you learn from success or from failure. If we are succeeding with first or secondgeneration interceptors, thats a good thing but leads to more lessons that might create future generations as well. Essons l richard. Richard white. Following that, i would think that one way you could make the best use of any additional interceptors is improving the kill vehicle. T you lay out some longterm object i objectives that might be useful. I would agree. Go ahead, please. If we can get her a mic right over there, thank you. Hi. You spoke earlier about russia and china blurring the lines between conventional and nuclear use. Does that have any impact on your thoughts on whether the u. S. Should develop a new lrsom. The new missiles are soon to be reaching their shelf life. We are developing a new b21 bomber but unwise to assume that multidecade life of the aircraft, that its always going to be able evade the most complex defenses and reach the interior of our adversarys territory. In addition, the b52 with the right kind of modernization can, be deployed for many decades to come. Obviously b52 cannot penetrate the air Defense Systems of adversaries and new long range Cruise Missile is essential to making the b52 a viable part of nuclear triad. Thats why almost every flag officer said that the longrange missile is part of our nuclearar triad and a ground base deterrent. Thanks for coming, senator. Thank you. I had a broader question for you in listening to your remarks is what country do you think poses overall the greatest threat to American Security right now . Well, its a good question but the answer to that question always is Something Like asking how many adversaries can advance on the head of the pin because all of our adversaries pose serious threats, so the most immediate threat, you might say, north korea, you might say iran or some of the terror networksh that a country like iranan supports or alqaeda or islamic state. Those are all reasonable answers to your question. At the same time russia is a very reasonable answer to your question because russia at this point absent massive strategicbl surprise from china is the only country that has the Nuclear Arsenal capable of destroying our way of life and russia over the last several years has made it clear that they are remain hostile power and Vladimir Putin doesnt think soviet union or russia lost cold war, they were simply behind at half time andk working quickly to make up the difference. So much so that you might ask today whether russia is better poised to get to france or towo get to spain than they were in the late staunl of the cold war. So theres different ways of looking at that question. The take away from i think its hard to pinpoint a single threat thats the greatest threat we face is that our military needs to be agile and flexible and dominant in every domain and region and part of that dominance is Missile Defense not just to protect or deploy troops because i said in the outset but protect homeland which is the basic premise of american strategy. [inaudible] do you think its time to give up on china, china to help with north korea and what more pleasure can be applied and what do you make the president s tweet on china and how do you think the administration isid handling it and on the inf, with leaving the inf sparking a new arms race . Thank you. Better to win an arms race than lose a war. Thats in the hands of Vladimir Putin and the russian leadership. They are the ones who are violating the inf treaty and deployed intermediate Cruise Missile thats destabilizing in europe and potentially in the middle east and east asia as well. My legislation is design today bring russia back into compliance with the inf treaty. Again, russia needs the inf treaty more than we need them. One reason they came to the negotiating table is that once we deployed intermediate range missiles to europe in 1982 on 1983, they recognized just how great the threat was to them. Again, the United States faces a much more limited threat from intermediate range missiles. Russia also gets much more from the open skies treaty than does the United States. Yet russia continues to violate the open skies treaty. And russia is likely to extend the new stark treaty. We have many points of pressure. Even if we do get them back into compliance, of course, we still face the reality that china since its not a party to the treaty has something north of 90 of all of its missile in the intermediate range as admiral harris pointed out and we have to take whats necessary to bring russia back to inf treaty. First question on north korea, i dont think its time to abandon yet the effort to try to encourage beijing to bring more pressure to bear on pyongyang. For instance, the threat of secondary sanctions against chinese businesses, institutions and individuals who are key facilitators for north korea. There are also direct steps that we can take about north korea like relisting them as a statesponsored of terrorism and cracking down on Financial Institutions like we did in the last decade, but in a misguided effort to try to reach a negotiated outcome with north korea we lifted those things. So i commend President Trump and secretary of state tillerson for undertaking efforts with china. I dont think theyve yielded fruit yet but theyre worth pursuing further. Right behind cristina. Mic is coming right behind you. [inaudible] i will. I have a question about nato, there has been even past sixe hs months,montenegro and exercises in response to russia. So with Congress Kind of playing on the side of nato and the administration have questioned it as the president talks abouti gdp2 , what are your thoughts on the usefullness for nato and how can see involvement and encouragement in Eastern Europe . Nato is vital to National Security. A fundamental premise of american grand strategy since before we were a country is the defense of our homeland and our citizens. Every citizen in all 50 states deserve under constitution equal protection from those kinds of threats. And we have all those bases not just in europe but in the middle east and in east asia and the entire euroasian homeland. They dont play games in u. S. Soil. Many countries in nato are relatively small and not wealthy countries. They are not contribute tenal divisions to our military efforts, however, they are vital things they can contribute through their geopolitical position and insights that they may have. Thats one reason why we have nato and we have all those bases overseas. President trump is very right that nato allies need to spend the amount of money that they we all pledge today each other a few years ago and that too many have not been doing and the most important countries are the larger richers ones like germany, it would be nice if the smaller poorer countries in nato spend enough to meet that commitment as well. But again, the country of aa couple Million People in a relatively limited economy you are not going to fill ten divisions. Its not a political matter, deterrent is a military matter and Vladimir Putin knows just like agresessors always know that no words backed up or not backed up by action mean anything. So its it would be much greater deterrent if nato spent 100, 120 billion every year that it has been spending because of european allies are not matching commitments than anything than any National Leader can say. I think we had marvin. [inaudible] now Johnson Hopkins and wilson center. I would like to probe your knowledge of the technology on the Missile Defense side based on, you know, you have Privileged Access to a world that i once worked and i no longer do and prelude to that that theres screws to be turned potentially on pressure on north korea, but weve been at this for well over 20 years and we tried a variety of approaches, we have been trying to use sanctions as a root to bring the North Koreans around for a very long time, it gives grounds for someone like me to be ultimately pessimistic that thats going to be a viable route and what yourr left with, i think, is your topic which is Missile Defense. And i wonder if you can say anything about, you know, the technical technologies in this world are huge, the complexities are mindnumbing, how good are we and how good can we get . So first on the go owe geopolitical point of northh korea there have been steps that have not been taken to bring pressure to bear, china made a show of cutting coal import which didnt have much impact. If china stops those, you can see within a matter of weeksos north korea would be entirely on a gasoline, just to give you one example. There are geopolitical steps we can take that we havent yet taken and that we ought to take if china doesnt quit playing both sides in this rivalry. In terms of military technology, i obviously cant go into great deal. Youre right, its complex. I have to caveat im not a Rocket Science and barely got through physics in school. More broadly within the pentagon or outside experts are increasingly confident that with higher levels of investment andr more focused leadership in the executive branch and interest and pushing from the congress that we are in the cusp of some pretty major breakthroughs. Me not just in Ground Breaking interceptors but airborne interceptors. Thats cuttingedge stuff but given the pace of technological innovation specially in this country, i believe that sooner rather than later we could see a genuine and acknowledged effective layered Missile Defense system that could largely if not entirely neutralize the threat of north korea. Microphone, thank you. [inaudible] so you mentioned you want to build build this thing into something that [inaudible] russia or china. What kind of investment do you see that that would take in order to achieve that because its not going to do a lot hundreds if not thousands of interceptors and no guaranty or success. It almost invites a situation where they might perceive the threat to launch for strike if theyre going to do some of that. And the second point was also with the europeans feel threatened by russian groundbased Cruise Missiles in that case. We would not be threatened but they are. Thats kind of a problem because we are also we do not have skin in the game but they do, what can we do to reassure nato allies that we will do something to defend them in that sort of situation . Your first question, youre right that it would be a large investment of resources. Thats one reason why the budget control act must be repealed among many other reasons but we wont know until we continue the Technological Development again with the pace of technological innovation in this country, with the possibility of advanced space base systems, i do believe that we can one day get to a layered system that would make the United States homeland protected against these kind of threats. Its going to be longer than it would take to north korea as we were talking about but i do think its technologically feasible. Second, inf treaty, of course, europeans are threatened by intermediate range missiles. Thats why europeans should support our efforts to try to bring russia back into compliance with the inf treaty. Those missiles are driven around russia right now and can strike any European Capital with virtually no warning. So European Countries rather than suggesting that we look thd other way or bury our head in the hand or talk more, take no action, should be supporting thr kind of legislation that i have, which is designed within the current parameters to put pressure on russia to come back into compliance. All right, we have time foria maybe one brief question, if probable, please. Microphone is coming to you, sir. Senator, that was a fine presentation. Im a cold war military guy and all those increases in our nations military capability, it warms my heart. Im also a guy that balances his checkbook every month. I know thats a quaint concept, im not in government, but with neighborhood of 20 trillion National Debt and entitlement spending and 10,000 boomers adding to those rolls on a daily basis, how are you going to pay for all of that . Our chairman. A very good question. It goes far beyond the topic of ballistic Missile Defense. I would say, though, as a general matter, our Defense Budget is not the cause of deficit or 20 trillion in debt. If anything, it helps make that deficit and that debt more manageable longterm because it keeps open international lanes of commerce and keeps our people and our assets protected. Inevitably when we try to balance the budget on the back of the military as we did immediately following the demise of the soviet union as we did over the last eight years, enemies catch up with it as they did to us on 9 11 or as youre seeing now. Further, on our strategic forces, i have sometimes heardhe the objection that we shouldnt spend so much money on weapons that we never use. I would dispute both premises of that state. One, we dont spend that much on strategic forces, 3 to 4 of total Defense Budget and two we use Nuclear Forces every single day and we have for 73 years because they help deter the existential threat to our homeland. Your point is very right to get the fiscal house in order. The most immediate and fundamental thing is growing economy. President trump obviously has prioritized that through regulatory action, but congress is working on it as well. Were looking at Health Care Legislation this week that might have impact of making medicaid, for instance, one of our three big drivers of our National Debt more financially stable in the longterm while delivering an t equal or greater quality of care to the most vulnerable populations that have needed it since inception. Youre right about the challenges that we face from our debt. Ill just say that our military so far from being a cause of that debt is actually something that helps keep it within manageable levels by protecting peace and prosperity not just here in the United States but throughout the world. Ry all right, well, that concludes part one. If we can get a hand for senatoc cotton, thank you very much, senator. [applause] appreciate it. So if we could have joe and rebecca come join us, we will jump to round two. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] all right, welcome to round two on discussion on Missile Defense. Next we have two presentations that showcase very important and i think very different perspectives on u. S. Missile defense policy. Both speakers will present views ten minutes each which should leave us quit a bit amount of time for q a, please presentch name and affiliation, we have cameras from cspan and Facebook Live and always great to know who theyre hearing from. First speaker to my right joseps cirinclone, securing the world before it is too late. A romance novel. [laughter] he previously served as president for National Security and International Policy at the center for American Progress and director for nonproliferation at the International Peace and i happened to watch you. Am congratulations on that. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for inviting me and we have ten minutes eacho is that correct . Yeah. Good. Cue me up and i will stop. Its a lot to say in ten minutes. I basically disagree with everything senator cotton said except that it was nice to be here. I represent sort of the other side of this and let me focus my remarks primarily on Missile Defense, the point of this session. I have been in washingtonn working on National Security for about 35 years, its a pleasureb i have known dimitri all of that time and jeff. A big part of that was focused on Missile Defense beginning in 1982 when president reagan launched the strategic defense initiative. I joined the staff of Armed Services committee and assigned over sight that responsibility. C i have been tracking the programs ever since. So let me state very clearly and fully that i am strongly inas favor of an Effective National Missile Defense system for the United States. Who wouldnt want an Effective National Missile Defense . If you could reliably protect the American People from Ballistic Missiles, the only existential threat that we have besides climate change, who wouldnt want that . I want it. I also want a cure for cancer, i would also like a really good light beer, but some things are beyond our technological capability and effective Missile Defense is one of them. Its not for lack of trying. Weve spent 330 billion on Missile Defense over the last decade, 330 billion, weve hadd our best contractors, our best Scientific Minds focused on this. We have been pushing this. It is not as Newt Gringrich said in his contract on america in the 1994 election, only one of his ten points in this contract on america on National Security was about this, was about Missile Defense. Its not because we lack the political will. Thats been the critique that we havent been trying hard enough. No, no, no, we have been trying. Republicans an democrats have been trying. Since since the 1980, republicans have held the president , executive branch for about half of the time, about half of the time, even split, even more on the side of republicans actually and theyve been trying to push this. The result has been that every Major National Missile Defensese system we tried to produce has failed. It has not worked. Si and we are left with this system. The ground base Ballistic Missile system, gmd, ground gmb. This is the system senator cotton talked about that will be in alaska and california by the end of this year. This system does not work. It cannot protect the United States from a sophisticated, even north korean Ballistic Missile attack and here is why, the problems with groundbased ballistic Missile Defense were detailed in the 1980s, the proponents of the star wars. You remember the cartoons, weapon satellite shooting star wars like lases, you needed to go to space because groundbase missile ballistic Missile Defense was flawed. I have Daniel Grahams bookork. Promoting frontier and i went at the center for strategic of national studies, i thought that he was nuts then but his comments on Ballistic Missilel defense on the ground were absolutely spot on. Number one, groundbased Missile System can be easily overwhelmed. He it is far cheaper for the offense proliferate war heads than from the defense to proliferate defenses. Its a simple task. Thats why we were never worried about the soviets deploying a ballistic Defense Missile in moscow. We just targeted 200 war heads. We were never worried about our ability to penetrate those defenses. Number two and most important, as Daniel Graham says, the farther away the targets are the higher up, the harder it is toe discriminate between the war head and decoys. A ground base Missile Defense system cannot discriminatein between a war head and decoy. It couldnt do it in 1993, it still couldnt do it. Thats why none of the tests of these systems have actually been tested against realistic decoys. Realistic decoys meaning decoys meant to look exactly like the war head. Weve had some test where theres a big fat balloon, that you can do. Whether the opponent is really determine today spoof you, in fact, until the last test, wev, had 18 tests, the last one of this system was the first one where we tested against an actual icbm target. One that was actually icbm range even at the lower end of that8 range. Other than that, they have been slower. The reason we dont test against countermeasures, we cant hit the system, but and here is the final flawed defense says daniel and others george c. Marshal institute, even if you can discriminate or deploy hundreds of effective interceptors, your system is still vulnerable, its radars can be attacked. As you know the beginning of any air campaign is to suppress the enemys defense. That would be true of Ballistic Missile as well. You would suppress and attack radars and blind the system by simple means such as north korean and blowing up some of a the Forward Deployed air or missile attack on the radarse themselves or by other means. Fine, so thats the problem wera have with some of this. Thats its a confusing subject because so much of us are confused by the benefits of shortrange ballistic Missile Defense. See, that we can do with some success. You can build a shortrange system to shoot down scuds, things that go 1,000 kilometersn you can do that with some reliability. The gulf war of 91. It hits 41 out of 44. No, it did not. The patriot system did not work. It was not designed for job it was given. Weest maided hit somewhere zero and four of those scuds and to the armys credit they have done good job in new software and new interceptor. Its only when you go long range that you really get those problems and this is what thaad will encounter if it tries to intercept and the 1999 National Intelligence estimate concludeja that had any nation capable, 1999 said that any nation could deploy any one or more of six basic counter measures. So thats why when people say and you hear some generals say this that the ground base Missile Defense system can provide protection to the unitet states from a limited Ballistic Missile attack, thats what they mean, a limited attack no. Counter measures. This system will only work if the enemy cooperates, if the enemy gives us a target that we expect. And the problem is our testing has been so unrealistic. Its been from one site. We know the trajectory, we know the velocity. Everything is set up. These are strapped down chicken tests. You kill a strap down chicken. Go catch one. Ic go shoot it when its 200yard away. Thats your problem here. This is a system thats been designed for contract success, to keep the money going. Thats why you cannot rely on this system. So why do people keep promoting it . Well, i think some people dont know. I think they dont know thispl thing doesnt work. They havent spent the time, they havent really examined the test which is why my solution to this, which i will give you at the very end might be a way to settle this debate. Some are driven by ideology. Thisthis is the beginning of the Missile Defense debate. People rejected the idea of arms control. We will not allow the security of this nation to depend on a piece of paper. They do not belief that you can control these weapons byof paper treaties eliminating even though Ronald Reagan did it with treaty, even when it happens they dont believe it. Therefore we have to rely onhe technology, we have to rely on own military might and thats why you hear senator cotton limit weapons with russia, full on deployment of Nuclear Weapons in europe, proliferate Missile Defense, Missile Defense will save us. You think we have trouble with our european allies now, start deploying Nuclear Weapons in europe and see what happens. Remember what happened in the 1980s. This would be a disaster. It will not only fail but make our situation more dangerous, infantly more dangerous. We have nothing to gain by the Nuclear Forces treaty and a whole lot to lose. I wish Missile Defense worked. I wish we could do this but as Dwight Eisenhower said it does not permit of any suchas easyeay solution. Should we keep trying, yes, you should. Should we deploy things thatat dont work . No, you should not. Since we began deploying the groundbased interceptors, it has a success rate of only 40 of only 50 since 2004. It fails half of the time. This is really hard to do. It is really hard to hit a bullet with a bullet and amazing that we can do it at all even under pristine ideal conditions but yet still fails 50 of the time. We know that the kill vehicle that are deployed in the interceptors dont work very well. The thir. Ement kill vehicle, but we will see. It shows more promise. Even if you take the best record since 2010, we still, when you think when the beatles say its Getting Better all the time, no its not Getting Better all the time. It has a 50 failure rate since 2004 and a 60 for failure rate since 2010. In 18 test weve had weve had two or three successful tests in a row followed by two or etree failures. Followed by two, three, failures, so how do you settle this . How do you decide if rebecca is right . Or am i right . Lets have independent commission. This is the way we settled the directed energy weapons, original star wars weapons, whether they could actually be built. There was a study done that said it would take 20 years before we would know if such weapons were feasible. It was at that point the congress decided to pull backcoe and go for a more limited defensive assistant. The debate over whether the star wars type systems could work with essentially over and asked what we need now. We will never solve this in congress. Ov lets put together in the minute independent commissionoing t to assess the feasibility groundbased Ballistic Missile to defend that us, limited or largescale Ballistic Missile attack. Lets get scientists involved to dont benefit from defense contracts who dont have an ideological bent to them and then the American Public can decide whether they should rush ahead with this fatally flawed system or wait until we can perfect something that might work before we deploy it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Phrase of the day, strapped down chicken test. Im going to that in a piece. Next, we have a different perspective from rebecca from the kitchen institution. Shes a fellow there and serves as adviser on military matters, member of the house Armed Services committee and helps helped launch the Missile Defense conger congress. Shes razor and tv, fox news and cnn, other outlets and many other outlets. Rebecca, the floor is yours. Thank you. On going to share with you. Rather than digging in and responding to some of what joe said i will just give my remarks and that hopefully we can go back and forth and begin where there is some major points of disagreement. Missile Defense Systems and then, i mean, the entire suite of Missile Defense systems. Joe talked about gmd essentially groundbased miss court midcourse defense and im going to talk about the entire concept of what the us is trying to do. Yes there is gmd, the only deployed Missile Defense system that can protect the homeland from intercontinental Ballistic Missile and without we have nothing. We also have the Weapon System with interceptors. They are all currently deployed an integrated as part of the us military operations. These systems complement offense of wes weapons of both strategic and conventional to deter the launch of enemy missiles ended if the current fails to defeat those missileses midflight. Thats the purpose of the system. At one time the con some doubt of Missile Defense was controversial. There was disagreement about whether it could work and whether it would be stabilized, but im happy to report that there is broad bipartisan consensus, broad consensus of an assigned community that the technology essential to defense is proven and does work. Now, the disagreement among the Consensus Community lies on how fast do we deploy these systems, would we invested how do we prioritize and what does the inventory look like a moving forward balancing our resources etc. Recent test point to the success of some of the technical aspects of the program. We have recently seen successful test on a couple systems. The only system deployed has been us homeland as i said that gmd successfully intercepted an icbm class target with countermeasures. This was under very realistic conditions, short of launching it from north korea at our own homeland we have to take into consideration safety precautions and clearing the seas etc. , but despite what some deniers say the military along with command and everyone else involved in that test did not have the exact time when the launch would take place. Produce at a window and were able to do that, discriminate against what was not the actual warhead and what was the warhead and successfully hit the targeto that sm three to a, cooperative system with the japanese had a successful intercept in february of this year, so the most recent one missed, but we test and point out areas where we need improvement and build on those tests and we dont quit until we had increased the credibility and reliability of these systems and theres a lot to be excited about with the sm3 family of interceptors. Ly that bipartisan point in fact the term Missile Defense appeared over 20 times in the 65 at page obama 2010 nuclear process to review or about once every three pages of text, so the Obama Administration while starting its first term significantly cutting Missile Defense including as senator caught and talked about the boost phase element which i think he described as the holy grail Missile Defense because you can intercept eight enemy missile before you can release. Thats really went where you want to get it. Although he cut the Defense Program and the gmd program in half, he did restore funding to gmd in his latter half of his time in the white house and initiated the deployment of the 14 additional groundbased interceptors those are two alaska, the same once he cut the firstyear in office. That administers and also administrated the phase approach in europe. Former changes to Missile Defense was in response expanding the gmd changes to the quickly progressing north Korean Missile program. Thats what changed the administrations mind and they made that announcement that they would look for those poor teen gpis and reinvest to Missile Defense and look at a third Missile Defense site on the easr coast and then the eat the other response in to give the Administration Credit to step with those first two phases even though it illuminated that for phase of the european approach due to russian complaints of separatism initial phasesom because of the threat of iranian Ballistic Missiles and because our european allies wanted them and was demonstrating commitment and insurance to our allies in the face of provocation from russia. Russia continues to oppose those european Missile Defense sites. What happened here aside from just the change and threat, i would actually say the threat wasnt really a change but enough of an uptick that even persuaded the most staunch Missile Defense skeptics in thec white house to change it, but it was the threat that drove the military requirements, which is what should be working shouldnt be ideology. E house it should be based on what is the threat telling us and then those threat will military requirements and then work onsh technical capabilities and plugin those requirements, which is how we have done Missile Defense. All of the threats continue to grow worldwide and this is because despite armscontrol, missiles world why are improving spending and we have entered a new and dangerous era of missile threat marked by missile improvement and rage, survivability and mobility, hypersonics and antisatellite weapons. Missiles are not really reserved to nations with Cutting Edge Technology took missiles provide a inexpensive way for countries rese whose militaries are less sophisticated than that of the us to deny access to contested areas and hold it. Dont take my word for it in the last couple of days the pentagon released to congress a new assessment of the threat to the us and it said quote many countries feel ballistic andreas Cruise Missiles are costeffective. That is driving the need for missiledefense worldwide as this explosion of Missile Technology. The report was on to assess bots russias capability, north korea, china and iran. What this means is that even if one doesnt believe an enemy is in possession of a nuclear icbmn for instance out of north korea that it would necessarily employ the weaker icbm by possessing the capability will inhibit the us and our options in response to a variety of aggression. Therefore, take it with enemys ability to threaten the us and dramatically enhance the ability of the us to conduct a Foreign Policy as we see fit. We have to close the deterrence gap and by leaving the us exposed the are creating incentive for our enemies to develop those capabilities. As the senator stated theresofu underway great bipartisan effor in the senate to expand both an inventory and also justrt investments in these programs across the entire spectrum of Missile Defense system. Im in firm agreement that especially on the heels of this successful intercept test of gmd is the time to increase groundbased interceptors. We have a base in alaska and california to do for this interceptors, so as we continue to improve the technology we should continue to test rigorously, but shouldnt wait until the system is perfect because our enemies are not general heightened this gave a great talk at days ago comparing the way the us acquisition versus north korea. North koreans are quickly trying to get their systems to work. Thats why you see these missiles blowing up on the launchpad because they dont get discouraged like we do. North koreans are determined to have the capability, so they are testing, they are having setbacks, but they went with the mistakes are and then they apply that new knowledge in order to improve the capability. Wl i would suggest the us take more of that approach to getting our systems right. I wont go into too much detaile because the senator did that in terms of whats in the bill. There is great bipartisan effort in the house of representatives with the democrats interested in not having their state how that risk of a nuclear icbm, so they are working hard to make sure we have a robust and credible Missile Defense system. The last thing i will point out before questions, important last year that congress defended in the house bipartisan effort amend to the 1999 national Missile Defense act, so now its at the girl of the us it was never the girl, but no way the law was written impression to the pentagon and Missile Defense agency that the us was only to build a Missile Defense system in to defend against limited missile attacks, but we have always been able to build the system as we see fit. Limited is the baseline, not the ceiling. Congress has prudently amended the law, so now has stricken the word limited so the us is free to build a Missile Defense system based on the threat and can go forward increasing the technology qualitatively and in the number of systems we have deployed in the inventory connotative late and i would suggest that includes expanding gmd, weapons system, and also getting a space state space base center layer so we have a better idea of where these missiles are headed and what is on them. Eventually, having it with a kill capability which would provide the us with the advantage point of intercepting missiles. In conclusion, while its a shame it has taken so long and has been such a political battle to get us where we are in terms of technical capabilities and because of the political fight we have had that we have much to be grateful for an optimistic about in terms of the missileDefense System deployment and also that increasing current political dissent consensus we have fought war and continue to grow. Thank you, rebecca. Now the fun begins of q a. Pleased that your name and affiliation. Na your first and then we will go to, eric. This is a question for both rebecca and you. Would you consider to be like a non script test because this test, you are right it did not have a window and they did not know when it was coming, but they had preposition and radar in spots where it was supposed to be. They seem to be deployed in the right spots. I was actually at the facility last week and basically they can tie it together. The problem is without thosethaa advanced deployed radars and what not you actually shoot at this thing, so you have to have been prepositioned around the world and have to know somethings coming before you shoot, so without the spacebased element of this in place, i mean, how do you consider it to be a fully like i real system to defend the country without advance notice cracks. Let me start. If you are serious about this, if you are a warrior, a politician wants to protect the market people, you dont deploy something that is made to look like a defense so it makes people feel better because thats a dangerous. You will then enter the combat situation, escalate the conflict thinking you can defend against them when you cant. This puts american lives at risk and troops lives at risk. You want to test something then do it the way the military knows how to do it. Red team and blue tenet. Lets get a red team up largely designed these targets to put something up thats intended to stress the Weapon System beingwe tested and then you have a blue team who knows nothing about the target who said maybe you can give them a window and you do limitations, to come this week, the state and then lets try it. Into that and thats dangerous to america. Thats not the way we should buy our weapons. Do you want to deploy something on an emergency basis if you had one of these gigabyte eyes intercepted because you thought the North Koreans had a weapon that could hit as next they can not right now, but they are working on it. If you let the North Koreans keep doing what theyre doing they will have a new killeru warhead to hit seattle or los angeles in the next four or five years. The north korean threat is coming. You need eight emergency defense , but treated that way. Understand that this is emergency deployment, not an effective defense and then stress against what you think the North Koreans would do, little low voltage jammers that we put out, balloons that look exactly like the warhead or even simpler just take the boost vehicle and have an explosive whelp that blows it up into little pieces of the warhead coming at you is fake and filled with 100 pieces. The defense has to target every single one of those. It cant. Do stuff like that then you might have a judgment of whether your system will actually protect the American People or just protect you in the next election. I would just to say that the past several fourstar combat commanders have all verified they believe the gmd system provides them with his ability to protect the us against the threat of North Koreans. There is that. This is not a partisan issue. This has gone beyond just one republican administration, Democratic Administration and had expanded the administration, this last test by the director of Operational Test and evaluation at the department of defense continues to look at the system specifically and in the past and its been tough. This is the system they are only looking at what is it able to do and they are stressing the system and pushing the envelope to see we can do in the past it has said it has a limited capability to defend the us from homeland, from the small number of intercontinental listed missiles launched from north korea or iran took thats comfortable that is what they are saying it is comfortable tot can do. Its updated and said gmd has not demonstrated capability to defend the us from small immediate ranges. You dont have driving we academics can read open source data and pick and choose what we want to say, but you are talking out about the people lookingda at the threat, the commanders, those Us Forces Korea in addition to both members of Congress Getting the highly classified briefings and they will say in terms of moving the radar where it used to go, we are watching what north korea is doing, so we dont want to be totally caught by surprise, but as a move we can get sensors and radars where it needs to be in order to get the system ready to go. Can i just ask, even if you believe what rebecca just said t even if you believe the commanders who she quoted, direct understand this in 18 test failed 50 of the time. This has a 50 feel your rates. You wouldnt get in an airplane. That fails 50 of the time. Lie put the defense of the us in the hands of such a system . North korea theres like pensions, but say you are in a situation where karen has iran has in the so we dont know about and its in a cave somewhere in pops out and shoots you cant react to that because your radars not position to. Youre making a great argument for increasing our radar, so i would agree. [inaudible] those of us who are evidence based analyst are merely looking at what the system is currently able to. We have made progress. We are happy with where that. We are not satisfied with where it is that. We would like to expand inventory and in the capability. I will be the first to say we need more radar and the mda has said that. We need that lr dr etc. And we need to have space based sensors. Hello. I have been working on a project recently looking at Missile Defense development and ability with china and part of that is going through declassified documents about historical discussions, declassified discussions with the Us Government about past missileDefense Systems and systems in the 60s. One thing that stuck out in that analysis is that in the past observers were pretty frank about the impact of missiledefense on strategic ability to pick the idea that if we were to build better Missile Defenses and there would be w incentive for the soviets or the chinese to expand their arsenals or invest in technology that could defeat it. I dont really hear that in modern debates much. Im curious to hear the palace think. Why do we sort of ignore or downplay so, guess gmd is intended to be against north korea or iran. Our common the money you put it into it and more interceptors you add the higher the incentive for countries like russia and china to develop countermeasures to them. Is that conversation happening in policymaking circles are is ignored . If i may take on. The reason you dont hear that debate anymore is because its no longer applicable. It applied in the cold war when you had one particular enemy in which you are trying to deter and worried about strategic balance because of the proliferation of Ballistic Missiles that dynamic known longer applies and moreover you have the chinese and russians that have been free to develop offense of capabilities and even though we dont have a Defense System in place. To hear that the adversaries are going to be incentivized to build offenses in response to our defenses has not proven to be the case. They have proved built office of systems because of the absence of a defensive system. This is what i would call deterrent gap in our system. Where theyre having in of the enemy stepping in. We dont have a robust defense of capability and the more we rely on National Security space assets the more we quit incentive for them to target the vulnerability. So ive and view hat as you have seen we dont need to incentivize oue adversaries to within our own interest. States act in their interest or china would like to hold the us at risk, so it will. Its up to the us then to respond by closing that deterrent gap that we have allowed to remain vulnerable because of the abm treaty and then just the lack of policy makers interest in moving in that direction. Thats what its important that congress have the prudence and insight to actually amended that national Missile Defense act to make it clear that should the us deem it responsible and technologically possible to close those gaps, that we are free to do that. Deterrent gap, i dont think i have heard that. Maybe i havent been paying attention. Just so you all know and those of you watching at home the us has about 5000 Thermo Nuclear warheads in its active stockpile. Russia has approximately 4000 4000, we have come down a bit. Thats enough to destroy human civilization maybe 20, 30 times over. Thats a pretty good deterrent. I dont see any gaps in your side. We could easily cut down to a few hundred each and we would still have a robust deterrent. So, this deterrent gap is interesting slogan. I dont think it has any relationship at all to the reality of Nuclear Weapons, but on the question of the Missile Defense, this center used to be called the nixon center. Richard nixon believed in the point of Ballistic Missiles defense and he supported the democrat, president johnson when he started deploying a limited Missile Defense in the us, but he and his secretary state henry cages are understood if you wanted to stop the arms race both the us and russia were racing to deploy weapons in the 70s than you have to put a cap on defenses because as long as you proliferate defenses the other side on this obvious and most cheapest and effective answer was to proliferate offense of weapons. This has been to since catapults. This is the weight offense and defense works, so 1972 when they wanted to limit the offense of weapons of each side, the strategic arms limitation talks the treaty that limited the defenses each side could deploy and that logic held. That logic helped rein in the cold war and in fact when either side russian or the us have been the point of defenses and sincea Ronald Reagan state when he started cutting Nuclear Weapons that are sold nulls arsenals have been coming down. There used to be 66000 Nuclear Weapons in the world. In the World Without Missile Defenses number seven coming down steadily. That will change if you deploy defenses. How do we know cracks look at south asia. Both pakistanis and indians are talking about Missile Defense systems and negotiating with various Us Contractors to helpgo with Missile Defenses and with the answer of the other side . We had to build more weapons overwhelm the defense. Theres a Real Nuclear Arms Race underway in south asia and now its been accelerated by the introduction Missile Defenses, pouring gasoline on the fire. So, this debate has been not happening because we have not been in a missiledefense race weve just been playing around with limited defenses, theater defenses. The place where it will flareup is europe, socalled european phase adapter approach. It was supposed to be aimed at an iranian icbm with a nuclear warhead. That iranian deal has truncated that program to ensure they wont be a Nuclear Weapon for at least 15 to make 20 years and yet the missileDefense Systems we said were aimed at the audience are still going in and out tuesday and. Of the russians say, see its about as. Its been about us all along and in fact you have some senators who want it to be about russia. They want to put Missile Defenses in europe. You do that and you have just done whats going on in south asia pouring gasoline on the fire and you will see the proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in europe once again. Just a couple of factual errors there. That approach started by the Obama Administration was not merely to handle an iranian missile. There is a approach with the deployment of short range ballistic Missile Defense weapons and to end in the fourth phase which was unfortunately canceled in iran. Yes, but this point is important. Iranian Ballistic Missile still exists and putting aside the wiz tm of the ironic you because thats how what we are here to debate, it did not restrain or handle listed missiles and even the sanction still forbid testing of some of these missiles. It doesnt prohibit the testing and they have continued to increase the listed missiles. Europe is still in risk of the missiles. The approach was to deploy short mediumrange defenses. Thats what we are doing and by the way this is not, i mean, i find it so interesting when skeptics continue to say this is a partisan or ideological question when you have seen that israelis, the japanese, the saudis, you have all of these countries that are looking at the capability with the same information we are able to looking at what theyre able to do and say we want these systems. The south koreans, if i didnt say that. Missile defense, its not a matter of ideology. Its a matter military climate, regardless of what people say in terms of strategic stability, what we have seen is missiles have exploded worldwide. Were in the middle of a new missile era in terms of quantity and quality and technical ability of missiles. We have a couple of options. We can actually choose to remain vulnerable as our adversaries proliferate and increase the ability of these systems and hold our assets at risk or we can close those gaps. Our military and allies have closed those gaps, so im optimistic about what this is for the future. Never been made to be the endall beall to totally and utterly make all of these missiles unable to target the us, but its part of an overall us strategic posture to consummate offense of capabilities. Jacob, hedging next. Thank you. Ive been waiting a long time for this spirited debate to take place. I recall that when reagan gave his speech march 20, 1983, on sdi as it was known he did not control consult the state department and like donald trump just went out and it did on his own. This was a dday six of his were decades. The impulse was not to ramp up the arms race. It was as he put it in his speech to render Nuclear Weapons impotent and obsolete. Now, in thinking about our debate here, did reagan set the bar too high . In fact, whats wrong with having an imperfect missileDefense System to strengthen deterrence . Imperfect Missile Defense systems of stipulated offense and leads to an arms race and evidence not ended ended arms race. This has been true almost any place you have seen being deployed. This is our response. Look at what we do when the soviets started deploying Missile Defenses in the 1960s and because we didnt have the Kill Technology these were nuclear tipped interceptors, 10m around moscow and our response was to proliferate our warheads. In fact, this is what led to the merging of warheads, putting multiple warheads on one missile to overwhelm the defense, so thats the danger. If you could have a perfect defense as i said in the beginning, i would be in favor of it. The promise of sdi, star wars was that it was going to be that perfect. Ronald reagan was misled. He told him he had back at his lab the proof of concept of whah the system later known as the xray laser, excalibur spirit could with one weapon eliminate the entire first wave of soviet warheads and could hit thousands of targets in one blast. Of this of course was a fantasy and never true. I looked at the xray laser indepth when i was on the Armed Services committee. There was no proof. It like all the other laser and beam weapons of speed of Light Weapons turned out to be a fantasy. Militarily impractical, scientifically impractical, economically impractical, but thats what people thought you might get to do this. Did was it because they thought we could get better groundbases interceptors or do hit to kill better. That was never the plan. This was always a small tertiary layer of defense in a copper heads of state based system. We could not build space space and all the proponents of Missile Defense continue this they have thinking some kind of technology will come out of the sky and protect us from Ballistic Missiles. C its going to happen. Ground based ballistic Missile Defense will not protect you from Ballistic Missile. You will never be perfect if the only way to eliminate Ballistic Missile is to eliminate Ballistic Missile. You need treaties to limit things before they can be built. I would just say in the real world, countries act in their own interests. Arms control, just based on evidence with all the arms control and counter proliferation we have had some of them being more successful than others, its not slowed or stopped the proliferation of Ballistic Missile worldwide. This is just reality, not ideology and because of that you had to have again, i have never been a proponent of until we get a perfect assist of more the goal of the perfect system, i dont think we will ever have a perfect system because there is to me missiles worldwide. I advocate with the military has been doing. I would like to see them have more political backing and more backing from policymakers, which i think will happen under the Trump Administration, to expand what we have, and build on the progress we have had. On the spacebased system i would say there has been studies done. Institute for defense analysis did a study on it and they determine that you could have an initial capability which would be 24 satellites in space over a 20 year life cycle costing abou2 26 billion and i would give you the ability to intercept Ballistic Missiles midflight and that would also provide defense of what i can say that was in the open and unclassified report which is the only one ive read that it would provide defense of what seemed targeted against our assets at sea as well. If you think about those areas and talk about china specifically, we have areas in which there is no need to antagonize them. They are already doing it. There is no defense against what china can throw at us in terms i of strategic Ballistic Missile and they continue to do that, developing their capability to they continue to develop their anti carrier did it capability and to target our allies in the pacific and the us and so the us can again allow that to happen or work towardsr closing those gaps in the same with north korea. North koreans have not been incentivized targeting the us. They want to have the ability to hold American Cities hostage of a Nuclear Attack and thats whats driving their capability in their program, not because wg are creating the stabilizing situations. I find it interesting how critics both say the system doesnt work and also its destabilizing. How does a system that doesnt work to stabilize . Joe and then dmitry. Its like confronting a policeman with a plastic gun. It doesnt work, but they will respond. There has not been an explosion of Ballistic Missiles in the world. This is not true. There are not more ballisticor missiles in the world now. There are fewer Ballistic Missiles in the world now than in the 80s. Fewer countries with Ballistic Missile programs im not worried about our Ballistic Missiles. Im worried about the north korean Ballistic Missiles if you are talking the adversary Ballistic Missiles globally its expanding no, now im afraid not. Part of their business fewer adversaries and the people we were devout in the 80s have been dealt with. We used to worry about a rocket Ballistic Missile. We dont. They are a threat, just not a global threat, so when the justification for the european missileDefense System is no longer iran, its 30 countries with Ballistic Missiles. You look at the list in almost all of them are our friends. A few problem programs we had to deal with. I dont what the iranians retesting Ballistic Missiles. They dont have a good air force, so this is what they used to threaten saudi arabia and their adversaries, but lets negotiate with iran to reduce their Ballistic Missile capability. I dont want the North Koreans to have Ballistic Missilesball threatening the us. Missile lets negotiate with the North Koreans and put a limit on their program. We have done so in the past with other nations. We have done so with iran and the nick of the program. This is the only way. This is why theyre so much emphasis on missiledefense because missiledefense proponents dont want to have negotiations with these other countries. They dont want to have a deal that would legitimize these other countries. One, they dont believe it and number two, they would rather have regime change on north korea, regime change on iran, so you have to examine the whole complex of rationale and discussions with this before you buy the myth that theres a missileDefense System out there were soon could be that could actually protect us. There is not. Thank you. Im old enough to remember why nixon decided ballistic Missile Defenses and that was not just because of syria, not the cousins you know better than me what was the real incentive of missiledefense. One by one and nixon came to the conclusion that he had no choice to negotiate. Doesnt feel he was wrong, but Political Considerations were important as a deterrent. Seems that when we are talking about major Strategic Moves and thats what were discussing now , its a very major strategic move. We should ask ourselves not only where we are going to be after, but where we going to be after forcible and even likely responses . We are now preoccupied with a russian interference in american elections. There is no doubt in my mind that there was russian interference. After the us and europeans decided to interfere in russian political process supporting the position, giving money to an type blood recruitment groups and type Vladimir Putin groups. We are not doing what the russians have done because we are doing this openly in the russians have done it secretly. We want to promote democracy and the russians want to undermine democracy. To think about likely concept of their actions, surprise surprise i learned about this surprise when i was at a place called casablanca. I dont want this to be in this situation again. If we decide to proceed with a major problem of improving missileDefense Systems, i think we need to do so the way you suggested. We need a commission. We need conversation. I would want to hear, for instance, what are we going to do when china and russia close together which would be against strategic interest. Interes russia as he put it is in violation of agreement and spirit and indepth. Its normally our own prediction which is not quite a violation, but what worries me more was a statement how it would be to our advantage because we would not allow this as humans to have russian Cruise Missiles and then we would be able to do it in europe. Im not sure how they would feel about that, but if i was thehe ukrainians of the word because if russia comes to the conclusion that allowing the ukraine to become fully independent, that would mean american Cruise Missiles on ukrainian territory. That could change. Make a when president obama was elected there was Public Opinion poll ii russia conducted and the question was who is more popular in relation with this. Number one was still Vladimir Putin, slightly less president obama. Number one is joseph stalin. Im quite concerned when we improve defenses, but simultaneously provoking. Maybe we come to conclusion [inaudible] we need a various strategic conversation. First, the one, you want to solve this debate or at least inform your decisions moving forward you have independent commissions looking at the state of technology. Evaluating the tests for their realism and in dependability and give us some baseline so we can make an informed decision on what we want to go forward with this missileDefense System or another missileDefense System that might be better or whatever. Number two, you if youre going to make Strategic Moves with an adversary you should have a Strategic Dialogue with the adversary. This is what we did during the cold war. We didnt always agree with the russians then and we wont now, but we talked with them. M. I would say that is true of north korea, also. Lets have a dialogue with north korea. Number three, i dont know why senator caught is getting ahead of himself. Why senator caught cotton believes russia needs the ins more than we do. I believe russia is in violation. They are deploying a new groundbased Cruise Missile which exceeds the ranges permitted by the treaty. This is in violation and under the agreements we had we have mechanisms for correcting a violation and pressing to get that correction doesnt mean the treaty is Nolan Bordeaux we had advocated. We dont want the russians to have free range to deploy Nuclear Weapons in europe. Thats against our Strategic Interests and we dont need to deploy Nuclear Weapons in europe. We could hit russian targets fine from the systems we have. We dont need it. And they do. That would be a power play for them to intimidate europe took one last thing on the defensive system, the launcher system we put in romania that we are about to put in poland, these are interceptors, new versions of interceptors and they use the same launch a system we use on egypt cruisers and destroyers one of the problems with this is that we also launch tomahawk missiles in that launch a system and one of the things the soviets keep complaining about is yes, we are putting defensive systems in there now, but how will they know if we put offenses systems in. I think there is an answer to that, but they say what if you change your mind and yuppies launcher systems put in place and you can quickly put Nuclear Missiles in there and read as with almost no warning time. Flight time would be Something Like eight or 10 minutes. This is a real problem for us. We need a dialogue. I was not so much talking about that. I was talking about our own commission. Our own commission. Thank you. I would say that i would agree with you that we need as a country to devote more time and attention to intellectual capital and to give out and thinking abouts one, two, three steps down what our actions will do because we have assessed a lot of intellectual capital and thinking about deterrence against the cold war and we have moved away from that. Again, to keep talking about how we need an objective analysis of the current technic technical capabilities. We have that. We continue to assess and evaluate. They have not been easy to please. They have been hurt very tough and they have once again said the groundbased Defense System provides the us with the capability to defend against icbm. Without gmd there would be nothing. Even if it is not perfect, i would say we look at the capabilities it hasnt build on that. The other point i would make is again, i dont know how you can say that this is again driven bipartisanship or some sort of weird consider conspiracy to help defense contractors when you have combat commanders across administrations and Democratic Administrations that are not intuitively in favor of it, but had been persuaded by both the threat analysis and that the briefings onby capabilities to move forward and expand these capabilities in addition to the evidence provided by our allies. You watch what happens with israel and the iron dome Weapon System and then you understand why you want why are south korean allies would say we went the capabilities to not intercept every single weapon that can come our way, but to actually absorb some of what can happen to us to give the us the ability to control the escalation bit better and and hopefully prevent that from happening in the first place these are calculations thatns li countries are making looking at the evidence themselves and they are all coming to the same conclusion that it makes sense to add defensive capabilities in their overall strategic mixes. The last point i would make is that russia continues to develop its missileDefense System. Its not something that was just going on in the cold war. They still have nuclear tipped Missile Defenses. You almost never hear from armscontrol Community Concern that the russians are going to upset the strategic balance. We are always beating up on ourselves with our own defensive capabilities. Again, in a room like this you think it doesnt need to be said, the countries will act in their own interest. They wont do anything for you. North korea has determined it in its interest to have a nuclear capability. We have tried across administrations to use diplomacy for the North Koreans to give up their Nuclear Weapons. I am in favor of diplomacy and every other ability that the us has tried to persuade the North Koreans to give up their Nuclear Program that is not work. Makes no sense to intentionally remain vulnerable when we have capability, however limited it may be to keep the us vulnerable to north korea and nuclear icbm when they have not been able to be convinced to get rid of their program. Each regime will act in their own interests and they each have Different Things they value and Different Things they would like to hold at risk. Said the us has to take that into account and try to deal with an armscontrol and that can simply must not be the endall beall to enter the problem. This is more like a tactical level question. We have icbms which are relatively coming in there i mean, interceptors are expensive and to properly kill these things you will need more than one, two, three, four, five. God knows how many. We wont know. Hopefully one to quickly we wont needed at all because it has deterrent effects. I mean, like missiles anyway, at some point, i mean, how do we get the cost, the ratio of like how much its costing us versus how much it cost them to a reasonable level . At some point we put up these sensors, this will be a very very expensive proposition. How do we get in a place where we arent a big corrupting great question. Couple points on that. T. One, i think the question we should ask is how much are we willing to spend to protect thee Us Population against these missiles, so if we get fixated on how much is the defense of interceptor costing versus the offense we will find ourselves crazy, but if we look at what damage can this interceptor due to the us economy and american lives that the calculation we look at and what are we willing to spend to make sure we close that gap. Now as the first question and i would say that a new linecalculation youre looking at is actually not the right one. The right one is we are talking about the us homeland and how it expensive it would be if a missile hit the us and what are we willing to spend to close that ability. But, there are things we can do. Im also a fiscal conservative and i believe the us has not always done Missile Defense thee most costeffective way because we start and stop these programs. We dont have predictable funding streams and one of the things we can do to get the cost down for interceptor is have predictable funding streams so our contractors can actuallyms h predict and assess what we need to do to keep these lines openke rather than constantly firing and hired people to get the production line going again. The other thing we can do is buy more interceptors at once. Like anything else if you only buy a couple here and there are each interceptor cost more money if you decide to have emptynee space and we have done in carmeo impact study and we have fields laid out and we know where we can put the silos, but they are empty. W so, we are ready to go and if we want more bullets in the chamber you buy more at once. Each interceptor cost will go down for item. Thats a very smart way. [inaudible] i think they should, i mean, we can go backandforth and spend all day, but the overall question, we should continue to talk to our allies about investing in their own administration and i think this administration is doing great work in that regard. The us committed to giving them missiledefense and as they can contribute, they should. The polls dont want missiledefense. They dont care about missiledefense. They want american troops. They won a trip wire, a that the us is the ambassador is shaking his head. Thats what they want. They want to make sure they wile get the same defense that germany and france get that a there are us bodies on the line here in the missiledefense plan was offered to them under george w. Bush and adapted by president obama and they took it. You can take those out and put a deployed battalion there and they would be just as happy. They dont care about the missiledefense part. Us contractors care about the missiledefense part and heres the other secret. The military doesnt care about a national Missile Defense system. This has always been true. Its nice to have and if you can do it let me give you one brief example. When president clinton came in after all the reagan a star wars years in the debates he is the joint chiefs of staff what we should do with the missileDefense Budget and they recommended we cut it 3. 1 billion and that two thirds should be spent on peter missiledefense. Thats what the military wanted. They want to protect their troops against a short and medium range threat, so my proposal for how to handle this is to give the military a bigger say in the budget. The Defense Budget despite the best efforts that rebecca and senator cotton will not go up as much as it needs to to buy the weapons currently on order. Its not going to happen. Choices have to be made. Struggled with the joint chiefs jews they dont choose missiledefense or nuclear. They choose planes and ships and tanks and weapons they need, so this ballistic Missile Defense organization which only exists for an inhouse lobbying shop, this disband that and give the system back to the services and let the navy decide on the interceptors we need. Let the army decide how me patriots we need and then get the forces you need to make sure we have a balanced defense and are not propelled into spending ourselves into bankruptcy by a handful of ideological contractors. I know some of you have been here since 11 30 a. M. , so we will leave it there. Thank you very much for your time. [applause]. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] this weekends cspan city tour takes book tv and American History tv to portland, oregon, as we explore its rich history. Saturday at noon eastern on the tv we will visit powells books covering an entire city block. We will go inside to see selections and learn about the history of one of the Worlds Largest independent bookstores. When we first moved in we were 15000 square feet of the books and now, we are 75000 retail square feet of brooks. I think its a reason that some authors moved to portland. We hear that often from authors that this is a resource for them. Then former state senator shares her personal and professional journey as an africanamerican growing up in oregon with her book remembering the power of words the life of an organ activist, legislature and community leader. Knowing that we that i be a part of the march and demonstrations and conversations that went on in our local community was very the word i would use now is empowering. Thats what it was and connecting to what was happening on those many many miles away. On sunday, 2 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv we will step inside the historic mansion built in 1914 pick the home belonged to the former owner and publisher of the oregonian newspaper. He worked there for a number of years and pretty much proved himself invaluable. He kept it going and the owner was rather distracted with politics. This past wednesday the House Armed Service committee worked on the annual Defense Authorization bill over a daylong session. Heres a portion of the session were members debated banning Government Spending on properties owned by the president. This is about 30 minutes. The gentlelady is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Our president has said that he does not have a conflict of interest. Some want to ask my colleagues on the committee what we would call this situation. The president decides to host the world leader at one of his resorts. In addition to the foreign delegation, this event requires the presence of hundreds of use