Transcripts For CSPAN3 Panel Discussion On Missile Defense 20170512

Including as undersecretary of defense in the Obama Administration. We have a great panel here today. You have already met tom karako, senior fellow here in the international program, director of the Missile Defense program and tom will talk about in particular his report Missile Defense, 2020, next steps for defending the homeland. Dr. Laura grego, thank you for being here as well. Laura is a Senior Scientist in the Global Security program for the union of concerned scientists. And also has a recent report entitled shielded from oversight, the disastrous u. S. Approach to strategic Missile Defense. And well speak to that and a number of other issues, i think. And our third panelists today, major retired general fran mahon. His last posting was a j5 director of plans and policy for norad and north com and headed up several commands for army missile and air defense and at one point was director of tests for the Missile Defense agency as well. So its a great group. I want to thank you, general, especially for coming to pinch hit for keith from the Missile Defense agency who was unable to be here today due to the schedule conflict. So i want to say a couple of words to kick off. Then well turn to the panelists today. As was mentioned by senator sullivan, the Trump Administration is kicking off a major review of u. S. Ballistic Missile Defense posture and policy. If we harken back to the review from the last administration, it placed it as a number one priority for Missile Defense. S our allies and partners can control to the theater Missile Defense for defense of their own key assets and population, and to indeed to support the deployed forward processes. No one should do the job of defending the u. S. For us. It made clear the prior review of the Obama Administration that our Missile Defense system is aimed at north korea and iran. And that is not intended to affect strategic stability, visavis russia or china. One of the recommendations in toms report would say shift that focus a little bit and include as a goal the ability to engage Ballistic Missiles from russia or china and well talk about that issue and any potential implications for stability. But clearly, as we think about Missile Defense today, the driving consideration is north koreas continued missile testing. Its continued effort on the Nuclear Program and while north korea poses an uncertain threat to the United States homeland today, it does pose a threat even today and that threat is likely to grow in the coming months and years. Missile defense is not the only part of the u. S. Approach to that problem. And to our allies approach, but its got to be a fundamental part. Currently, a lot of qualitative improvements are under way. I give great credit to jim searing for pushing these along, including for modified kill vehicle. For improvements to command and control, bmcq and to the sensors as well. A lot of work under way. One of the questions to discuss is whether the pace is appropriate on the qualitative side. And if there are any places that are missed. We want to discuss as we get into the panel whether we should be looking today to grow beyond the 44 ground base intercepters that are deployed and that we would like ready for operations if ness. If necessary. So these will be among the issues we discussed. Theyll be among the issues that the new administrations Missile Defense review what have to discuss and i think well get a good start today. Well start with tom. All right. Well, good morning. So im tom karako. Also i want to thank jim and the other panelists for joining and to thank senator sullivan for coming out this morning. As jim mentioned im going to give an overview of the report of Missile Defense 2020. And on the basis of both the ndaa and president ial directive as jim mentioned, the administration will be looking at Missile Defense policy, posture and strategy and also by explicit president ial direction, the relative balance between homeland and regional. You know, every month or so north korea lately seems to be doing something new. In terms of missile development. And theres other new threats out there as well. And i think that given the circumstances we find ourself in, i would not be surprised to see a relative rebalancing in the near term in favor of homeland, at least relative to where we have been in recent years. We kind of hope that this report lays out a menu of options or a kind of road map for how one might do that. Before i get started i want to acknowledge a couple folks including my coauthors. Ian williams and wes rumba are both here. I want to thank the smart people in and out of government who let us bend their ear about this. Its been Ongoing Research for a while. And those who kindly gave us their time and finally to the csis ideas lab and particularly carolyn who put together some great graphics of helping to communicate some of this stuff. So let me say that, you know, one of the reasons we wanted to put this report together was that i think that the conversation about homeland Missile Defenses remain too polarized and underinformed or misinformed. To some extent thats pretty understandable. Its hard to keep track of all the different kinds of kill vehicles and all of the all the Different Things in development. Gbi math has its own rules as well. So one of our secondary purposes here is to kind of serve as a compilation. Maybe a guide for the perplexed on all of the kind of complexity. Bring stuff together in one place. But i think the problem with how this is frequently discussed runs a little bit deeper, including with a lot of historical baggage that tends to confuse the debate. And i think with respect to homeland Missile Defense in particular, the discussion is too frequently divided between on the one hand cheerleaders who dont take special account the difficulties and on the other side kind of a folks snickering or deriding. I think that both a better understanding of the past and the Current Program of record might help mollify some of that. So the report tries to do three things. First, to bring together a bunch of information in one place. Kind of a reference guide of where things have been. Secondly out of a menu of options for looking at the benefits of a lot of those. And third, make some of our own findings and recommendations. So i will say that i think the Current Program, both gmb and related systems need a range of reliability, capability and capacity improvements relative to where we are today. And as well some policy and budgetary adjustments would be in order in the forthcoming mdr. So theres been a lot of back and forth policy wise and programmatic wise over the last 20 years or so and in the report we deliberately try to highlight and emphasize the continuity. On the one hand the strategic continuity but also the problematic continuity. On the strategic side, i think go back and read president clintons speech in 2000. One where he said, he was not going to decide to deploy national Missile Defense, then look at the speech that president george w. Bush gave in 2001 announcing the withdraw from the abm treaty. I think theres a lot of continuity there in terms of not necessarily the exact smentsdz of the assessment of the readiness, but in terms of the strategic rationale. The idea being very simply were not unwilling to accept complete vulnerability to certain kinds of threats. Were unwilling to accept and risk deterrents failure with concern to certain actors. I think appreciating the evolution of todays program is also important. Looking at really the roots of gmd and mmd for instance. I also think one cant really appreciate the some of the reliability issues of the ekbs and silos today. If you dont appreciate that in many respects they are still the advanced prototype design, put together in the 1990s under abm treaty restrictions. And that furthermore the 2002 decision to field a limited defense capability in two years left little choice but to embrace the kill vehicle still under development and to adapt cold war systems that had not been designed for this in short order and put them to use. So ever since then were still i think kind of waiting and life extending the program in different ways. I will say i think the conversation is a result of some of these things suffers from an unfortunate and weird dynamic. An old dichotomy gets embraced. The dichotomy that regional Missile Defense is good and effective. But homeland Missile Defense is bad. And the perception extends beyond the particular systems to the mission itself. Regional Missile Defense is effective so goes the argument. You can take it as an article of faith that homeland Missile Defense is impossible. I will say that the cheerleaders who do not sufficiently i think acknowledge some of issues out there dont do the issue justice either. So what we try to do is to kind of be fair and candid in both directions. That means we get criticized from both sides so ill just say there are a lot of shortcomings, but i think that the path forward that you heard about about the rkv really is really is a good one. And that especially it begins to that dichotomy i mentioned is important. Because the path forward is going to leverage a lot of that path testing. A lot of that development thats taking place in the regional systems and applying it forward. So thats commonalties between xo kill vehicle on the one side and xo atmospheric kill vehicle on the other side. So let me start to walk through a little bit of this. Jim mentioned the the bmbr highlighting homeland Missile Defense as the highlight. This actually is just a general overview, you know that kind of xo atmospheric intercept is taking place with an xm and sav and this is the historical emphasis between homeland and regional really going back to 1996. So its fluctuated a lot. There was a big surge especially for the capel investments in the 2002 to 04 time period. This is the overall emphasis, green being homeland and blue being regional. Well have these online for you so you can download them to your pleasure. I also want to put this in a little bit of a historical perspective. This is i think senator sullivan mentioned it. This is the relative modesty in terms of the number of intercepters we are talking about. If you look on the far right thats 2017. That will be in the ground by the end of this year. But compare that for instance to the clinton administration. The three phases of the clinton administration. 100 to 250. Before that kind of the gpals. Right, who was job it was to go after the limited threat of 10 to 100 rvs. Before that, kind of sdi phase one. Safeguard and sentinel and that sort of thing. But in terms of the overall context, i think you really see that modesty. Sorry, i keep looking for the keyboard down here. The other context here, another important context here is the legislative environment. This past Year Congress went back and updated the 1999 national Missile Defense act which by the way was 17 years old. A few anachronisms were in there. First of all, we dont talk about the National Defense anymore. This is talking in the future tense about we ought to deploy and well, we have done that. So i think congress correctly has gone in and weve updated this. I think unfortunately theres been a lot of hyperventilating about the update. That to my way of thinking proves that the schools do not sentence sentence diagramming anymore. All the focus has been on the adjectives like limited. But it is a complete sentence. And that the subjects and objects of defense in that sentence have changed. It is no longer about national Missile Defense, but also as you can read allies and forces and, you know, the word limited may not apply in the same way that we used to think about it in 1999 or sort of the gpals kind of context. So i actually think you look at these these adjectives, you compare them to the 2010 bmdr. There are a lot of a lot of continuity. The overall budget top line this goes back to 1985. Sdio, you do see that surge with mda with respect to the deployment. In the 2004 time frame. But just within the past ten years as we heard about this morning and i hope you can see this, this is specifically the homeland elements that we have broken out. This is a kind of a falling tree graph. Those are the fideps and the actual spending that you see there. As we heard this morning a 24 decline over the past decade for the top line, but then some deeper cuts for here well go deeper now into the gmd. These are the various components. That goes out into the but the trend is pretty clear. I can show you about 50 graphs here. Theyre in the book. They all kind of look like that. Now, let me im missing the key board again. Let me walk through we have a chapter on intercept develop, sensors and well blow through this. Let me just put up here the long view of interceptors, the lineage really of where we are today. One limitation of the gbi fleet today is its a lot of different kinds of intercepters going on. Its also the case, you can look here at some of the c1s, c2s, relative frankly to other deployed systems today. Unfortunately the c2s dont have the on demand communications to the ground for instance. The ekbs of today. That theres also a shortcoming of the three stage booster that the intention to go out and get a two stage booster was never done. An nba is looking for a selectable way to get at that flexibility but what that means is youre not able to buy more time and fire later. You have to fire sooner. Because all three stages have to burn out before the kill vehicle can be released. Especially if youre operating from alaska. Thats going to be thats going to limit you. Let me move to the mdas three phases. This is kind of the current road map. The current road map for going forward, enhanced robust and advanced is kind of their categories but what it really is is what we are this year, getting the 44 gbis in the ground. The cg 2s. The second one being the centerpiece of the advanced homeland Missile Defense. Although rkv is not a dramatic departure its that kind of design turn that should have happened a decade ago but never did. The good news is theyre not starting from scratch. Theyre going back and leveraging a lot of the parallel work thats been going into other programs but the idea is to make ek 4 cheaper and have fewer points of failure. These are the kind of reliability issues that have come up again and again. Getting to that rkv will also reduce kind of the did versety diversity in the fleet. Ill show you a chart that shows how many different types are in todays gpi fleet. The rkv in particular will draw the seeker, kind of the telescope, a lot of discrimination algorithms have been floating around and draw upon all of that. So its not going to be starting from scratch. Then further out in the future to the advanced section is the mlkv which we heard about this morning. That again is, you know, quite a bit far behind. Relative to where the plan was, multiple kill vehicles, atop a single booster to kind of compensate for some of the discrimination challenges and really improve your effective magazine capacity. Unfortunately the time line is currently 21 plus. Its really pretty far out to the right in terms of that. This chart right here is actually kind of the center piece of whats going on and what the agency currently plans. We call this the skittles chart. You can taste the rainbow and kind of see a lot of different muscle movements of whats happening there. The green at the bottom is the ce 1. Thats kind of the oldest kill vehicle put in place in 2004. The red is the ce 2. The blue is kind of the ce 2 plus or ce 2 block one. The orange, Pay Attention to the orange thats the rkv. Thats supposed to come online kind of in the 2020 time frame. Testing in 2018. Potentially deployed 2020. Now, this as i said is kind of i think the best snapshot of whats going on. Whats intended to be going on. We would point out a couple we think short falls of what mda currently plans. One of them is what is likely to be under current plans a big gap between the things that are put in place this year, the 44 by 17. After that were going to presumably wait, wait for the rkv to come around. Especially if rkv goes to the right it can kind of retard some of our efforts to increase capacity and might unfortunately hurt our rkv later on. A second limitation is that, as we heard earlier, notwithstanding a recommendation notwithstanding a recommendation in 2013 by the department of defense to go and buy some operational and test spares that wasnt done. After we get down to 34 well go down. Every time we test one, they have to pull one out of the ground to test it. Theres one less operational. That kind of starts to add up until you begin to get to the next generation. Thats kind of the current picture. Thats why i think thats one of the several reasons why youre hearing folks talk about the performance of capacity to instead of going down, go down i think by at least four if not more in the next couple of years and then before rkv comes online. Again, the schedule that you have been hearing 2020 for rkv that could be too ambitious. If thats too ambitious then that reduction might be more important. Then the third limit is fortunately or unfortunately mdv, i think, is planning to put rkv on some of the oldest boosters and thats, perhaps, for cost. And that might kind of reduce some of their effectiveness. All right. So lets talk into testing. Im sure well have a bit of a discussion about this right now. I want to walk especially through first of all, an instance of the testing budget. Theres some good reasons why the testing budget is down so much. They had to go back post 2010, and really figure out they had to take apart the ekv and figure out some of the problems, then put it back together again. So some of this is kind of the overall top line reduction pressure and some of it has to do with that that choice. But i think it really is the case that this is one of those probably the best instance of the mischaracterization of the testing record of gmv overall is with the test. With maybe one exception that i mentioned, that they went back and had to fix with the imu. Most of these are not hightechnology problems. These are dumb problems. As everybody attests, its kind of manufacturing stuff. Its the maybe workmanship or Something Like that. But its not high technology. One of these failures is because of a the silo cover not opening and the missile not coming out, you know . Thats the sort of thing its not about the kill vehicle. Its about that kind of difficulty. So i think mda has in the past couple of years has been much more forthright about kind of articulating really these failures. And the true causes of them. So sensors you know, no Missile Defense system is better than the sensors that tell it where to go and what to kill and it is we have what we call the mother of all testing charts in here. It not only goes through all 31 flight intercept tests and what became of them, the failure explanations and things like that, but also what sensors were involved. You see from kind of the late 1990s to where we are today a pretty consistent increase as more Early Warning radars are stitched in. As aegis and other things are brought in. You see a lot more of that. Thats a good thing. Theres probably a lot more to do on the sensor side. Probably the single most important thing that we recommend on the sensor side is a space based probably infrared tracking and discrimination sensors. You get that field of view from which you can inform not only gmd, birth to death, but also all these other programs as well. Overall, you know, vice admiral serling has characterized the test record as nothing you wouldnt expect from a test bed for a prototype. I think in sum that really fits what we are. The key of where we need to from here to the future is to get out of that test bed. To get out of that prototype and get to the rkv design term. This right here is just a quick picture of a lot of the sensors that have evolved over time, over decades. That are slowly coming online and lrdr at the top is some of this. This is the sensor budget. You know, some of these highend Capital Investments dont need to be made or continued. Look at the bottom. And these are broken down by category. The last category at the bottom is the space based. Thats really whats kind of gone off the cliff. This is mda space based budget overall and you get the youll get the idea. In terms of future options, you know, we kind of put together a lot of the uva directed energy, some of the boost phase concepts that have been circulating and are continuing to come back. The budget is not there for them. We had another report last year, talking about the budget pressures especially on the r d account. You see what we call the r d valley of death between about 2010 and onward and, admittedly, some of its still potential. But thats the mediocrity for the mdas r d. Some good things going on, but i think in relative terms, r d could be doing a lot more. Let me sort of run through the recommendations. Im not going to read them all. Thats why we gave you the book. But i think in terms of the policy, i think we should continue to have a more robust and layered Missile Defense for a variety of threats. Against both ballistic and Cruise Missiles. Thats part of the mdr report explicitly. We dont go into a lot of programatics. Frankly there arent a lot of programatics on that side yet. Restore homeland Missile Defense for being commensurate with the First Priority and to prioritize rkv and look at accelerating mlkv and directed energy. In terms of interceptor capacity, continue the current coarse that mda is doing but look at accelerating mlkv as well. In terms of thats the capability. In terms of capacity, i would say continuing to look at adding to the 44 or the 40 in the coming years and continuing to grow that out. We heard about that this morning. Ft. Greely has a lot of capacity. Were going to talk about activating the hedge that was described in again that 2013 dod hedging strategy. Activity ating the hedge, which is very explicit in that report. If you want to do that, growing out ft. Greely is the most Cost Effective and nearest Term Solution to do that. Now, theres a lot of i think a lot of attention on kind of the east coast site possibility. We encourage some more cost or less costly approaches to that. We dont want to exhaust the entire mda budget on new capital improvements. If theres some way to add capability and battle space with transportables or some underlay that covers the east case in terms of quality, thats probably the most costesquive way to get at it. I think theres more interest in it. But we we get the idea of adding the capability, but there might be cheaper ways to get there. Then in terms of sensors and testing, i think really the spaced base sensor layers, the most important one there. Im going to leave it off there and turn it over to other folks. Thank you. [ applause ] tom, thank you very much. Very nice presentation. Terrific report. Credit to your to yourself and to your team. Laura grego, youre up next. Okay. Hi, so thanks so much, tom, and csis. Im grateful for the opportunity to participate in this panel. I expect i was invited because i coauthored a report last year on the ground based Defense Program and its a pretty detailed report. Id be happy to give you a copy if you were unable to get one. We were pretty tough on the system. You can probably tell by the title. We were tough on congress. We were tough on the Missile Defense agency and the bush and the Obama Administrations policy and stewardship. Our intent though was to spark detailed engaged discussions about the role of the Missile Defense in our country. I believe that these were well informed conversations are essential to u. S. Security and to Global Security. We cant have an informed debate about the current value in the future potential of the gmd system without a clear eyed assessment of it. So i also appreciate csis taking on this topic. Separating myth from truth is critically important when the topic is contentious as Missile Defense is. And tom alluded to the longstanding debates. Since its been almost 15 years and 40 billion sunk into the gmd system after its inception, we thought wed see where we are, what the capability is and how we got here, and what the lessons are, if any, that we can learn from that. Our work was based substantially on the findings of the official u. S. Government sources. We drew heavily from the gao. From the pentagons own testing office. The director of Operational Testing. We eventually found that the system is in worse shape than most people had realized and i think thats an area of substantial agreement between our reports. And we tried to take a look at why it ended up this way. So we ended up looking a lot at the oversight and the accountability systems set up around the system. We thought we found that it undermined the gmds system development. Rather than summarizing the whole report, im just going to make three short points that i think reflect the differences in agreements between our reports. I think tom the first is we agree that the system is in pretty poor shape. Tom and his coauthors describe the gmd system as being in its at adolescence or certainly an advanced prototype, and notes that the system has some serious reliability issues. This is an area of substantial agreement between the both of us. I would note that in nine of the 17 tests since 1999, the kill vehicle failed to destroy the target and that record hasnt been improving over time as youd expect for a system thats maturing. So keep in mind also that the tests were essentially developmental in nature so as tom mentioned sort of advanced prototype type of tests. They were conducted under simplified conditions not operational conditions, which are certain to be much more challenging. Instead in each test the missile defenders because of the nature of the test had significant information about the time and place of the targets launch, how it would look, the conditions hadnt varied all that much. Essentially i think were set up for success. Just the way that the csis report describes it, its difficult to assess whether the improvements have made the test as realistic as they could be. I actually think we have quite a bit more information about the realism of the test program. We have a specific office in the pentagon to evaluate that. We look at the Missile Defense endeavor every year and provides advice on the program. In that report the chief testing officials assessment was that the test to date, quote, insufficient to demonstrate that the operational use defense capability exists. Some of the shortcomings, as we agree, its yet to be tested against the icbm range target. We expect to see that later this year. Hasnt used a salvo of intercepters against the single target or hasnt used the salvo interceptor against targets. Some of the conditions youd expect the system to be facing in the real world. Nor really against a set of complex countermeasures. So further that dotini report says that the reliability of intercepters is low and that discovering new Failure Modes during testing. So heres where we agree, that the robust testing is critical. We strongly agree with the recommendation for improving the realism and pace of the testing program. Testing not only helps Reveal Design and Quality Control issues but provides the information you need to assess reliability in a quantitative way. So if the u. S. Plans to launch multiple intercepters to make up some of the ground for the interceptors with lower reliability, unless the effectiveness of the interceptors is already high. You need to know what the reliability of your interceptors are. And launching doesnt help unless theres a common failure, which needs to be discovered in testing. So the second point i wanted to make is why did this happen. Heres why we make some divergence from this report. In 2002, Missile Defense was brought under a different system, and those those systems were set up to prevent premature and expensive fielding, most call it try before you buy. It moved into the special system which allowed engineering corners to be cut. It was also giving an unrealistic timeline for deployment, which ensured that those corners would be cut. And we find that that has had real and lasting consequences. We document that in the report but it show up in the csis report, too. And we dont really see that the problems with the gmd system were due to the lack of budget. There instead because the development has been driven by the schedule rather than technical readiness. I think this has been fairly well accepted even in circles less skeptical than mine. A key example is because Missile Defense is exempted from the obligations to fly before you buy that other especially in the past, that other major Defense Programs are subject to, the pentagon was able to field essentially untest ed prototype. In fact, nearly every gmd intercepter was fielded before having undergone a successful intercept test. So the Failure Modes and flaws are discovered the fixes had to be made to the fielded intercepters or as we see in some cases the fixes just didnt get done. And i think this is a serious problem especially when youre developing something as complicated as a gmd system. Its an enormous endeavor. One of the most complicated projects the pentagon has ever take on. We saw improvements to the missile acquisitions defense process during the end of the Bush Administration and at the beginning of the Obama Administration, but they dont seem to be sufficient to the task of preventing a recurrence of many of these problems. We continue to field intercepters with known flaws based on imposed deadlines rather than their technical maturity. We still see tests being conducted under heavily controlled conditions. And which are not rigorously evaluating the conditions under they waste time and the money that could be better spent. I see congress exploiting this lack of accountability by adding into the strategic Missile Defense portfolio projects have not been asked for by the pentagon such as the third continental intercepter site or theyve been repeatedly shown to be dead ends, such as spacebased intercepters. This lack of rigor allows Wishful Thinking about how well the system works to dominate discourse about it. In our report, we collected more than 30 quotations from defense officials over the last decade and a half in which they state theyre confident that the system can currently protect the u. S. With a missile attack, despite no testing evidence to support those assertions. Im concerned about that because believing that it works better than it does can lead to riskier Decision Making. It can reduce the incentive to vigorously pursue other perhaps more effective approaches to the problem of Ballistic Missiles. If you think youre defended you may be less prone to engage in the very difficult negotiations that are necessary to slow or stop and push back the north Korean Nuclear Missile Defense programs. Nuclear and missile programs. So the third point i wanted to make is a recommendation for moving forward where we have certainly some overlap and some differences. I really appreciate the work in this report. And really laying out a menu of options. I would have loved to have seen more sfwhalsz price analysis and pricing and prioritization to see which ones you think are further since we have so many budgetary constraints for the foreseeable future. But given the analysis in our report, we dont see a reason that spending more money will buy us our way out of the problem without making tough decisions. We have seen in 15 years under two administrations and under the most flexibile Acquisitions Program we have designed we havent got a working system. I understand the desire to be more agile and efficient. Im a technical person. Im not an acquisitions person. So i see it from the outside. But i am concerned without due attention we run the risk of repeating the same thing that we had had of 40 billion system that the d. O. T. And esc has demonstrated real world capability. I think that rather than holding on to this flexible approach that we should be demanding the highest rigger, highest accountability and really making tough choices. This issue is especially acute for program such as strategic Missile Defense which is highly politicized. Has strong entrenched debates. But especially because we incur the financial and the strategic costs of deploying Missile Defenses. Whether or not the system works. Right . Not only complicating our Decision Making but it provides strategic Missile Defense provides an incentive for russia and china to increase the capabilities and sizes of their nuclear arsenal. And the disincentive, again, for the u. S. , to engage on the issue of north korea. Those are costs that we bear, whether or not the system works. So while the csis report makes a number of interesting recommendations for Technology Paths that could be used to improve the u. S. Ability to defend the homeland, i come out really with caution that the ideas be vetted. Really strongly by rigorous of an alternative process. Congress should not be creating programs of record such as a third site or spacebased missile program. And i especially find spacebased Missile Defense program problematic. This is one of the recommendations of this report, but i think at this point its unwise and premature. Weve had, you know, lots of good analysis and the highest advice about this subject in 2012, the National Academy of Science Sciences published its mandated report about Missile Defense. It was asked, tell us what you think. And they concluded the spacebased options would cost ten times as much as other basing options and more than 300 billion for what they called an austere capability. And recommended the u. S. Government not spend a single dollar more on Missile Defense. I havent seen any revolutionary technology that would change this assessment. Its so this is a prime example where the process, i think, is important to keep us from our worst impulses. Research and development is one thing, but putting intercepters in space just as Even Research and development would be the first time that anyone has place aid dedicated destructive weapon in space. Thats a bridge we havent crossed yet. And that sets a precedent that would make things more difficult for the u. S. Military, civilian, scientific, economic. And putting a test bed in space provides no defensive capability, and actually provides no offensive capability in space we dont already have. So i agree that we should be building more bridges between skeptics and boosters. And i would hope that both proponents and critics would welcome a dedication to rigor and real thoughtfulness and real hard decisions. You know, its a necessary, although not sufficient, step to develop working technology. And critics should welcome it as a process that keeps untested equipment out of the field and provides credible information about how it actually works, and what its potential in the future is. Which is essential to any debate about the value of the system. So that includes real hard testing. I think that our wellfunctioning oversight system provides a reality check on the miss that accumulated around a politically charged effort, that includes a Missile Defense. Ill leave it there. [ applause ] laura, thank you very much for that presentation. And fran, over to you. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. And tom, thank you to your team for all of the great work they have done on these reports. Im kind of the pinch hitter here for keith englander. And, you know ive got the come on down late yesterday. But im happy to be here. I think its a very good topic and a very interesting topic. And if you know my background, im a little bit of an operator, a little bit of a programmer. I was a little bit of a tester. And ive been around the system in air and Missile Defense for a long time. My comments are brief. Okay . Some of them reinforce, some of them challenge whats been said. But i think the basis will be the dialogue we have when the questions start coming. And the entire bmds is a challenge. Challenge from a technology aspect. Challenge from a battle space aspect. Fighting across 15 time zones as a system. Challenges from a fiscal aspect. And advocacy and support. And priority has been given, you know, waxed and waned over time based on the distance of a threat. Theater has always had the nearterm threat. The homeland has not. In 15 years, thats changed. And 9 11 significantly changed the attitude. It was get something sooner rather than later. And i wont say haste makes waste, but haste can force you to make decisions you would rather not. It can force you to settle on a design or a technique you would prefer not to commit to at this time. It can compel a decision that may limit your options in the future. And when faced with a Decision Point and national security, decisions get made. And we accept the limitations and the future constraints and well have to work through them. And its kind of where we are today. And toms paper talks about infancy, adolescence and teens. Are we an adult, are we a mature adult. Just look at the sensor family. Here are the sensors, use them. Although they werent designed for the task were being asked to do. So that patchwork of sensors has had to grow as we have had to grow a family of interceptors. The variety of gbis is large. If you ever saw the variety of components inside the gbis, you would say, my god, what a fruit salad this is, and that looks like a vegetable. Yes, the test record has been spotty. Four consecutive successful tests before ioc. Youve got to remember how you test and what you test. And what are your attributes and criteria youre trying to verify. And we have had, you know, test failure since ioc and we have had test success. You know, all tests, as i say, its what are you pursuing. Set your objectives. You design your test to evaluate those objectives. You assess what happens. And then you determine, do i need to retest an objective . Have i found a flaw . Or a shortcoming i need to work on before i go to my next test for that objective . And the 2014 return to flight was a most challenging intercept test. And a and a significant valuable test to the agency. You think of strides in theatre bmd. We have been here before. And the theatre fight we had technical challenges. We had setbacks. We had budget issues and we had advocacy issues. I mean, how many people here, you know, in 1990 thought hit to kill was going to work . Ill tell you, there were a lot of people who didnt think it was going to work. But we endeavored. And hit to kill, i think, works. Because now its the basis of all of our missile systems, okay . Patriot pack 1. Not a term you hear very often. 1988, the first bmd capability. And it was mainly software. Okay . And it gave us the ability to track Ballistic Missiles. Pack 2, the missile. The interceptor designed to kill a theatre ballistic missile. You know, we went to desert storm with two, two missiles. Thats all there were in the fall of 1990. Okay . We can argue what happened in desert storm, what happened wha didnt happen in desert storm. It was kind of, you know, reverberated with me when five gbis. Not much has changed. But what we learned in desert storm was valuable. We went to desert storm with no ttp, with no doctrinal foundation. By 2003 on the eve of oif, we had gone through countless Software Hardware upgrades. And we had the pack 3 interceptor. We almost literally lost it, hit a jrock in fall of 2002, because it failed to achieve one nuance in the kpp. We got it through the jrock. 70 of that kpp was good enough. And we went to oif in march of 2003. Not with two missiles, with a full quiver of 13. 13 big ones. Two of them fully instrumented for test. Taken off the range and sent forward. And so what im getting at is, you know, its a long, hard road to get a capability to the field. And you can look at aegis. Aegis has come massive strides. I dont know where navy area is, or navy theater from my youth, but aegis today has arrived. Thaad has arrived. Okay . All these programs had their ups and downs, funding, political challenges and technology issues. But they all arrived to contribute to the ballistic Missile Defense system at theatre. And i would argue, as the question was asked, i think the aegis capability, when you harness it into the system with the tippy 2, with the other sensors in ctbmc, starting to stretch that operational theatre award to the strategic bubble of war. But none of these have the Global Operating environment that gmd must operate in and deal with. The enormity of the battle space is staggering when you stop and think about it. And we cannot afford to walk away from gmd. We may be able to discipline the process that has gotten us here. I dont think we should say its a traditional Acquisition Program or process. And we must not forget that its not the only thing we can focus on. So we cant cease all effort in the theater and the regional or cease all effort in air defense, and focus solely on gmd, because our adversaries are not. They are advancing. Just look at north korea. Longerrange, sub launch capability. Solid fuel. Mobile launch. Air, sea, land, launch Cruise Missiles in the last year from one of our future adversaries, potentially, okay . Battle systems being used by conventional forces and unconventional forces. For gmd, we need to improve our sensors, create that tighter shot group for the ekb. I think as the senator laid out, were on the right path. The rkb is critical. It will enhance our ability to improve the system. Sensors are critical. The tighter the shot groove you can give me, the better likelihood im going to hit the object. And growing gbi fields or more gbis, yeah. More robust quiver would be good. The ability to be able to cycle rounds in and out of there, so you can do modifications without loss of overall capacity is good. Im not certain where the location should be. Increase one of the two we have now, create a third. Because based on where those fields are, and your sensor architecture, that affects how you can engage different threat aspects. Director of energy. Yeah, thats nirvana, okay . 2004 is the deputy at ft. List, the air defense center. I received the task to deploy a counter rocket artillery system in one year. We had no requirements documents. We were outside of the acquisition process. We had 365 days. I love directed energy. And all of those believers were in my office. While the reality was, it wasnt going to get there in 365 days. And im still waiting. But were making progress. But we met that requirement, and we deployed a system that was pretty will you go ugly, and its still in theatre today doing its task. And we put it through tests, and you know what . It was kind of like a d i dont know whether it was a d plus or c minus. Something is worth a lot. Its been improved. With respect to, you know, the five points the senator put out there, i think hes spoton with respect to testing. Testing is important. Its an element of the you know, Systems Engineering model. But you just cant say every 12 months were going to take a test. Because that would be a waste of resources. And testing is difficult. Difficult to plan. Its difficult to structure. Its difficult to execute. Especially in the gmd realm. Look at the battle space were trying to replicate. Okay . You look at the places you can and cannot operate from. You look at the Environmental Constraints and restraints. I once had to negotiate the closing of International Air space during storm, a storm that had taken my air space away, because airliners were diverting into my air space. So i could get a gmd test off. Okay . So just stop and think about that. We ceased i was losing my window of test opportunity. While i had ships, sensors and everything strung out across the pacific taking a pounding in this bad weather. We ultimately got the approval, and we held International Air traffic to allow us to execute our test. But we were down to about the last 15 minutes, our test window. Not simple. You build your test, you assess your criteria that you need to test. You execute your test. You evaluate your data. And then you say, did i validate, did i invalidate, have i found something new and organize and do the next test. The integrated master test plan lays out numerous tests that will get after different criteria, different attributes that we want to assess in the system. The challenge is, i cant just reach out to 2021 and pull that test forward and execute it in 2018. Because theres a whole litany of preplanning and pretest simulation that had to be done before i could get there. There are targets that have to be built, and some of these targets are oneoff or one of a kind. So you just you know, although we developed a test plan, and that test plan is out there and dote signs off on that test plan every time its updated, the ability to pick and choose what test im going to do this year is a difficult and challenging thing. Im going to end there. Because i think ive run my gums enough. I think a key thing we need to focus on is we do need to move forward. The threat has brought a back into iamd. And a, in my opinion, goes well beyond Cruise Missiles. When you look at the whole operating environment, air supremacy no longer guaranteed. Neither is air superiority. As we move forward, as we do a review in the coming year or years, and we are going to expand it, i think, to include Cruise Missiles, i think it ought to be against the entire mission set. Not just the missile side of it. Ill end with that. I look forward to the dialogue and your questions. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, fran. What we would like to do is have a conversation here. Ill ask a few questions. I would like to leave a few minutes for questions from the audience, as well. Lets start with lets start with talking about the goals of the system. Then well talk about questions of size and qualitative improvements and capacity. And then well talk about testing. Senator sullivan talked about a goal specifically with respect to north korea. And as i recall, he said the system should have near certainty of destroying at least three to four north korean icbm. So im going to build off of that with a threepart question. It will start with you, tom. And then well ask both laura and fran to respond, as well. So is that the appropriate goal, or should we be thinking about dozens of potential north korean rbs, right . If you project forward to the possible threat. Second where does iran figure in that . And third, and particularly for you, and we can take a little time on this question. Should should we and for you, why should we design a system that is explicitly aimed at engaging russian and chinese reentry vehicles . Let me stipulate that. If we design a system for north korea and iran and if a missile is launched at us from russia or chiena the system would try to engage without a question. But should it but should it take as a defining set of threats missiles and reentry vehicles from russia and china, which we would expect to be more advanced Counter Measures, as well. So first on north korea, then iran, and then russia china, for starters. Okay. Lets get started. Well, on north korea, i dont recall the particular 304 youre speaking of. But i would say that the question of how many north korean missiles do you defend against. Thats obviously going to be in terms of the new threat assessment. One was done, as you know, back in the 2010 bmdr and then again kind of in the 2013 timeframe. At that point, folks looked around and said okay, this is worse than it was in 2013. And i guess i would say whats happened since 2013, i think the new administration will take a look at that. Its not like anybody has a crystal ball to say there is going to be 37 as opposed to 39 icbm threats that you need to deal with. Thats what the new administration is going to look at. Take a look at the threat again. Last time i checked, i dont think were better off than we were in 2010 or 2013. And so i suspect that theyll take a look at that in realistic terms. And where do you place iran currently in that mix as you think about the jcpoa . But recognizing that either iran could cheat or break out, and after a period of now eightplus years, theyll begin to have more rights under that agreement to go forward with enrichment. Right. So we didnt make any particular prediction about whats the year that the iranian icbm is going to come around. As you point out, the jcpoa does get looser in some respects as it goes forward. You know, i dont think anybody knows whats going to happen in eight years. Whats going to happen with u. S. iran relations this year. We heard the exchange, there is always the foreign assistance problem. Its not simply a function of what you do they do in their garage alone. But they get assistance from folks. And so, you know, i think that the frankly, the past administration took a look at this and said we have to hedge against that to some extent. And so, you know, you dont wait for the icbm plumes out of tehran to say, maybe we need to think about a radar on the east coast of the United States. So we say lets look at some options here. Is it an lrdrlike thing . Is it a is it sbx on the ground . Is it sbx ashore . Is it some expand radars at some uewr sites . Right now our Sensor Network is not only extraordinarily groundbased or ground and seabased, but its also pointed in the other direction. And so the omni directional or beginning to recognize that we have been fairly focused on one particular trajectory for a long time, and our Sensor Network to a remarkable degree reflects that focus. And so i think actually what were seeing there is nothing special. You see they have been talking about that for a couple years now. So i dont think thats anything surprising. And then with respect to ill tell you what. Could i ask . Thats a terrifically detailed answer on north korea and iran. Lets get laura and fran in. And then well come back to russia and china. I put people to sleep, is what hes saying. No, no. It was an excellent answer. Laura, let me ask in somewhat broader terms. Do you agree that the objective or an objective of the gmd system or of u. S. National Missile Defense should be to stay ahead of the threat from north korea and iran . In other words, that system thats deployed at any given time is prepared to deal with not just the known threat, but the plausible threat for the relative nearterm . Sure. I think looking at a verified intelligence assessment and make those plans accordingly. Normally, thats part of the requirements process, which isnt part of the same way we do Missile Defense. But i think i think, yes, certainly a formalized process and staying ahead of the threat i think in some senses weve been pretty lucky or fortunate that these icbm threats have not matured nearly as quickly as may have been predicted. 2015 came and went and we didnt see tested and deployed icbms from either north korea or iran. And iran has made much slower progress. Even its liquid fueled space launchers havent been tested very often and we havent seen its solidfueled space launcher. Possibly there was a test last year. Its unclear. Havent seen that maturity. So i think, you know, really being keyed into that intelligence is important when planning. Thank you. Fran, do you agree with that objective, and are we wellpostured to meet that objective today . Yeah, i agree with the posture, or the objective of, you know, shape your defense to the most likely threat. As you build that defense, dont ignore other potential threats, i think would be the way going forward. Dont make a decision that precludes your ability from lifting and shifting. My mind its always been about 360degree capability. You may weigh against the most likely avenue or adversary. I think thats the way we approach the problem. The aspect of iran. You ought to keep that in your mind and is there a Decision Point that now i must act because now maybe they are a really relevant threat and now i need to start investing. Or if im going to invest additional capacity, gbi field, sensors, wherever i put that next sensor, knowing my first concern is north korea, how can i posture it to help that defense and maybe set the stage for a defense to the east. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Tom, ill give you relief from having to answer first. The next question after this. Lets come back to russia and china. So on the one hand, as i noted, if either of them launched a missile at the United States, you, of course, expect that the system would be directed to attempt to engage that. The question is whether we should attempt to design a system that is explicitly aimed at dealing with even limited threats or limited attacks from a russia or china. So your report suggested so. Do you think theres a high probability of an unauthorized or accidental attack from russia or china, or do you believe that its important for the United States to have the ability to negate a more limited attack for strategic reasons, the reasons in the midst of a conflict, and are you concerned that this is a leading question are you concerned that that requirement will in terms ever both quality and quantity begin to drive you to a much more complex system, and that it could actually compete with the ability to get the Current System and planned improvements to that system in place to deal with the north korea. Okay. So let me first begin by quoting back to you the 2010 bmbr, which says its a very finely written sentence that the gmd system would be used against a missile from any source. But right . But that phrase. Any source. Thats the phrase that appears in our report. Its also the phrase that was used back in the early 1990s. With respect to the gpanels. Should it be designed im getting there. Im getting there. So the question is, first i want to establish kind of i think that the u. S. Policy there is frequently overstated. To kind of say that we are have nothing to do with that. But then the second the second part of that is, you know, what would you try to do. And i think it came up earlier i think general man, you emphasized the other Cruise Missile problem. And that is explicitly one of the three things that the missile defeat review tasks the department to go out and look at. Well, whose Cruise Missiles are we talking about . Are we talking about north koreas missiles, north koreas air force . No. Were probably talking about russia or china. Congress, i suspect, had that in mind when they put that into the into the bill. And so i think in the first instance, i think it makes a lot of sense to look at those called them nonstrategic Cruise Missile threats to the homeland. Ive also said we ought to be looking at that in a serious way for forces and allies in nato. Again, the nonstrategic socalled for the Cruise Missile threat. And i think in terms of the strategic ballistic thing, i think if you were to go that way, at most you would be pursuing the purpose of raising the threshold for the time being. Or perhaps for protecting some kind of asset. And that may not be gmd. That may be Something Else entirely. But i think that every administration should ask and answer that question. How do you think that makes sense. Thank you. Thank you. Let me go to fran on this. And laura, im going lead off the next question with you. Sure. I welcome your comment on this, as well. Fran, are you confident that we know how to develop even a very limited system against a russia or china threat that has advanced Counter Measures . And second, are you confident that we have an understanding of how to develop and deploy a Cost Effective cruise Missile Defense that involves advanced Cruise Missiles with significant stealth capabilities coming off of coming off of ssns. I would tell you from my perspective on the first question i dont think the technology is sitting on the shelf. I i cant say definitively effort has been put against it. I think its you know, i think the technology could be achieved. And it would take time and effort. The dynamic comes back to whats my resources. Whats the threat i know im going to face, whats the threat i might potentially face, and where do i put those resources. I think we shaped it correctly in our overall strategy with the gmd effort. On the cruise Missile Defense, for my time at norad north com, and we looked at it and assessed it, that kind of goes back to the basic air defense tenets. I cant defend everything. I do not have an umbrella over the nation. So tell me whats important. And i will do my best to defend that. Do we have the capability today to give you a confident cruise Missile Defense . All depends how closely you want that Cruise Missile from the asset were trying to defend. I will be honest. Ive said it before. A loss of jlens is a tremendous loss for cruise Missile Defense capability. As ugly as people thought it was and as laughable as they thought it was, i was in key west last week. We saw the aerostats down there flying. They must be contributing, because they have been there a long time. And we got them flying over in the aor, and i know we have lost them and we have replaced them. They have been contributing. So the jlens capability or a capability like jlens i think is essential to getting after a Cruise Missile and maybe essential in getting after uavs. I agree with that. That final comment in particular. Laura, in the interest of time and to let the audience comment, im going to ask just one more question. But ill let each of you respond, as well. Laura, as you think about the requirements and acquisition process thats been used for the gmd system, if you were going to if you were going to now use regular order, essentially, for both requirements and acquisition, what do you think how would you apply it . In other words, would you stand down current efforts to improve the system pending going back through the process . Would you say, okay, as of a certain point in the future were going to apply this this regular order acquisition and requirements approach . Or how would you do that . Second, on testing. On testing, what do you think would be an appropriate number of tests per year on average, understanding that as fran pointed out, it varies by the place the program with respect to its development . But for an operational system, one would expect a regular pattern of tests. What are your thoughts on first on requirements and acquisition. Second, on the timing and battle for testing. Thanks, jim. This is actually not an easy question. Im not an acquisitions expert, and i know we are flush with them here in washington, d. C. But the way i would look at it is, what i would ask from that requirement system is to save us from our worst impulses, or to set up the incentives right. If were not testing as hard as we can, because we want to see successes, and if if a system like the gmd doesnt have a clear path to being owned by a service, and in a services budget, for example, as something goes through developmental and Operational Testing and then gets offloaded into someone like was moved out or has moved out, are we is that acquisitions process still doing what it ought to do to move the gmd system forward . In the sense that is there a credible way to replicate if it doesnt go into j5,000, for example, to make sure that intercepters dont get fielded before theyre well tested. Because if normally youll have to go through operational tests in order to be procured. And tom makes a really good point in his report about the gmd budget sort of acting like a Procurement Fund but really being rdt e funding, which really sets up this dichotomy where its its perpetually in research and development. Just to be clear, if i could. Yes. Do you think that the gbis on the ground today have been adequately tested . I dont. And do you therefore think they should be pulled out of their holes so the United States would have no defense at all . Or do you think that we should go from where we are and have what defense we can, based on based on what appears to be a very real and growing north korean threat . I would leave them in the ground, of course, yes. And i would maybe experiment with rkv and really put it through one of these the j5000 process or better description of that. In terms of testing, i think testing officials have often said and i think we just heard this from general man, its pretty hard to up the tempo, because there is a lot of prep and analysis afterward. And even throwing money at that problem doesnt really make it much better. There are only so many place ice can launch that big missile from towards the two test sites, that potentially you can launch the intercepter from. Its a difficult dynamic. Fran, do we have a cultural problem in expecting test success and should we be addressing it . I think we do have a cultural problem. And every time we launch an interceptor, we expect to see something go bang and flash in the sky or flash and bang, the way it should happen, i guess. I agree in one sense, you know, laura. And having been joint staff, service staff. I say you complain about something long enough, you end up on the other staff where youre responsible for it. Or play in the solution set. The agency and the gmd have kind of been given a cart blanc. Go forth and do. Back in the 90s, we had a requirement document on the shelf. You can pull it down. What is it supposed to do and how to do it. Im not certain i could find that today if i had to for the gmd system. On the other hand, when you look at the jsids process, and its rigidity and its cut and dry, buddy. Deliver the kpp or youre done. Boy, thats a waste of effort of time and money. So we need something maybe in between of what are we going to do with this capability. What do you hope to achieve in this capability. Put your marks on the wall. Good. And lets develop, lets test, and if you come back with a 67 score against the requirement of 85 or 90 , well, then we ought to have a dialogue. If im at 65 today, 67 isnt much value added. If im 0 today, 67 is pretty good. You know, the babe ruth, how many times did he get on base . A little more than a third. And hes a hero isnt he . Can i jump back . I think, again, the 2010 bmdr looked at this. And decided that they saw no benefit to moving mda back to the to that jsids process. You know, maybe theres insufficient folks looking over the shoulders. Maybe thats possible. Sounds like theres quite a bit of oversight going on. Last time i checked. But pause right there. I would throw this back that, you know, thadd under that process wasnt going so great in the 1990s. And what do we see for thaad and sm that has gone forward outside that process . Whats the record . 13 for 13 for thaad. 33 or 34. How do you account for that record and that Development Progress outside of the jsids . And this if thats the cause of gmds problem, how do you account for that . I think basically the bottom line is, the ekb never got the design turn. Everybody knew it was a prototype back in 2004. And it never got that second wave. And thats why were sitting here, lifeextending it along. And thats why the next design is so important. Tom, thank you. We are almost up at 11 30. I have to ask you, how hard is our stop . We have a couple minutes. Lets go over a couple minutes. Raise your hand, please. Wait for the microphone. And gentleman in the second row, please. If you would let us know your name. Sure. John harper with National Defense magazine. Tom, in your opening remarks are you mentioned the importance of spacebased centers, and senator sullivan touched on that, as well, earlier this morning. I was hoping the panel could flesh that out a little bit more. Obviously, we have satellites that can detect missile launches. What would a spacebased layered system entail . And looking forward, how realistic are they from either a technical or a budgetary perspective . So i actually think this is maybe the most important good question. Most important thing that maybe ought to be added to what were doing now. You know, after rkb. And that is to say that, first of all, every administration left five administrations have had a spacebased central layer not detection but tracking and discrimination. Every one has had it on paper as a critical element of longrange Missile Defense. And nobody has done it. For whatever reason continues to get pushed back. And so this is something that i think that the administration has indicated they want to look at and they should look at. And has said where the threat is going, space is a must. But right now it continues to be a maybe, because we dont have it under way. Having said that, demonstrator satellites, right theyre demonstrating. They have dramatically increased the launch of remote on aegis in the past couple of years. But they havent finished that out. They necessarily have to be battle star galacticas. Thank you, tom. Richard. Thank you. Richard fieldhouse, former Armed Services senate Armed Services committee. Currently independent consultant type. Thank you all. I want to ask sort of a question that gets somewhat at your answer to jim on russia and china. And somewhat to the discussion of testing. And it wasnt clear to me, tom, from your answer. So ill put it this way. Would you agree that any of our homeland Missile Defense efforts should both be intended to and have the effect of improving our security relative to, say, strategic stability question. Which is a russia china question. And that all our Missile Defense systems should be tested and demonstrated work effectively before theyre deployed. And that goes to the russia china issue, which i think is what jim was getting at. If we say were going to design a system specifically to try to intercept their Strategic Missile systems, its relatively easy for them to increase their capacity, their systems their capacity, their systems, over we will am, et cetera. So i wanted to try to pin you down on that. So what i would say is im going to quote back another one of your colleagues, rose goj miller who said in 2014 that even at 44 we are 24 less than the number of interceptors moscow deemploys today. And we didnt sit around looking at the strategic ability that they have today on us. And the reason i pull out that quotesy think were just so far away from that in terms of number as much as anything. And so while i think that the systems that we are advancing today, sms, as well as gd, continue to blur the line between national and regional, as it were. I think that were just so far from that. If you get to a point where you begin to have that capability, you would still have to have a lot of numbers to really affect it. And i think actually that you could have improvement on strategic stability rather than hurting it. But, look, that was the concept of the safeguard, right, was to protect certain critical assets and raise the threshold and support the overall deterrence posture. Its not crazy, thats been kicked around many times making sure that you have strategic surviv survivorability for Different Things, thats what informs strategic stability. And thats what we emphasize when we talk about russia here is look at how it might improve strategic stability. Not as some kind of perfect umbrella, but with these particular side issues. Ill put a name to my concern very briefly and that is that if the requirement is established to be able to deal with even relatively limited russian and chinese threats that resources will go toward that end. Im skeptical that we have the ability to defeat the advanced counting measures of today let alone those of tomorrow. And if we begin to pursue that and if people believe that it must be done, they may come to say, for example, okay, were going to throw more money at the qualitative side, and that could be a large hole if not an infinite hole, and ii secondly lets say its 10 effective, lets build ten times more. So im concerned about the cost implications in the event that russians and chinese believe our system may be more capable than it is as theyre doing their planning. And i think its its an important set of issues that i think it administration should address. I dont rule out the possibility of looking at that capability. And, as i said, i believe that if a missile is launched at the United States, whatever system we have should try to engage it. Would you say the same thing for Cruise Missiles . The challenge with Cruise Missile threats is that we dont yet have a viable concept for nationwide defense. Fran alluded to this. And what we do have a reasonable concept for, and it aint cheap, as you know, is for selective defense of the National Capital and of and so on. But you dont see that as an impediment to strategic stability is selective defense . No, i dont. No, i dont. And i dont disagree with your point there. Yeah. I think what well do is have one more question and the gentleman here in front. Yes, im russ relevant kane retired federal employee p. M. I have a question about missiles in the south. The gulf coast is vulnerable from missiles coming from the south irrelevant colluding missiles flown over the south pole. As we know in latin america there are regimes that have Close Relationships with missile events powers and in 1962 we had a threat coming from cuba. But if i look at figure es 3, im not seeing any Missile Defense assets south of the gulf coast or at the gulf coast. I thought eggland air force base had some sort of Missile Defense assets but im not sure. How do we consider threats in the south . Are they important enough to put in this Missile Defense framework . Tom, do you wanted to go. Theres nothing there. Theres nothing there, not just cruise but ballistic. Were all looking in the other direction. You can correct me if im wrong on that, but this is why weve got look for maybe, you know, what are you trying to defend against, is it the venezuelan irbm program . I dont know what that is. But i think that the principle of flexibility and mobility might be more valuable, like transportable and all these sort of things, so if something happens, if it happens, were able to adapt to it. Thats what we emphasize in our report, you cant line the United States coastline with defenses. We cant do go back to conrad or the continental regional air defense of the 50s and 60s. The past year ive been part of a series of tabletop exercises that are this Defense Agency has done for the combatant commanders. For some of the other combatant command rerz are not north com. We have done off access attack where weve picked a nation, you know, who today is not really an adversary but weve declared were playing 2030 in the future, their governments come apart and their an adversary and they have a capability, be it limited and we roll that across the table. Commanders got the assets hes got in that year, whatever it is. Son of thaad, sm 6, seven or eight or whatever. And we play the game to say this is the capability youve got now youve got a different threat, how do you deal with it . Ive not known though i was part of a test about if we had a threat out of south america how would we deal with it . And at that time i hadnt seen coverage diagrams so i couldnt tell you what we could do. Might be able to deal with it in the gulf oar a put a ship on the other side of mexico, but they played thaad at the time. Okay, ill defend dlal dallas puts want new or lins covered, ill cover new orleans. But im not covering the state of texas. Its selective what i could do at that time with the technology that we had. But thats the die maamic the what if. What if canada goes rogue, what are we going to do then . So you kind of focus on whos the bad guy today, whos the potential bad guy, and then the what ifs and the wild ones yeah, thats an interesting point. We could roll that into an exercise once and see highway people deal with it. I think thats a good place for to us conclude, i just observe that as both of you and tom noted that the mobile and particular seabased assets give us some ability to deal with any threat that might emerge within the region. And in the meantime, weve got our hands full first and foremost with north korea and with establishing posture visavis the rant to reduce their incentives to want to good back to their Nuclear Program with respect to because they could see that they would not be able to threaten the United States. They have other aims or they would have other aims to restart, but its an important, in my view, an important part of our deterrence posture visa veez a iran as well. And those two are pretty significant challenges and id like to see us address them well as a starting point. Thank you all for being here today. Please join me in a round of applause for our great panelists. [ applause ] sunday night on after words, physician and journalist Elizabeth Rosenthal examines the business side of healthcare in her become an american sickness how healthcare became big business and how you can take it back. Dr. Rosenthal is interviewed by dr. David blumenthal, president of the Common Wealth fund. So i was wondering if your book gave you any thoughts about whether healthcare is a free market, whether we can solve our problems in healthcare through free Market Forces. Well, i think what weve seen is the answer is probably not. I mean, the beginning of the book i i put a somewhat tongueandcheek list of the economic rules of the dysfunctional Healthcare Market where if you think of healthcare as purely a business proposition, a that the market will solve, you know, you get to crazy places like, you know, a lifetime of treatment is preferable to a cure. Now, i am not saying for a second that anyone really thinks that, but that is where Market Forces put you right now. Watch after words sunday night at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. This coming monday morning washington journal will be live from the offices of axios an online venture launched this year. Well discuss the mission and funding as well as the financial and editorial challenges that a startup News Organization facings. Washington journal is live from arlington, virginia, at 8 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. And the threejudge panel at the ninth Circuit Court of appeals will hear oral argument on president trumps revised tral ban order in state of hawaii v. Trump. They were the first state to s