Previous IFPA-Fletcher Conferences

National Security Strategy and Policy:
Planning for and Responding to Threats to the U.S. Homeland

October 28-29, 2004
Ronald Reagan Building
and International Trade Center
Washington, D.C.

Lieutenant General Henry A. Obering III, USAF, Director, Missile Defense Agency

Introduction By: Dr. Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr.

Lieutenant General Henry A. Obering III: Thank you very much. As a fighter pilot and knowing that I'm standing between about 200 people and the bar, I will move fast.

We have an evolving security environment as it relates to ballistic missile defense. The proliferation of ballistic missiles continues. When we signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972 with the Soviet Union, there were about eight nations around the world that had this technology. Today, there’s 20-plus and growing, and many of those nations are not very friendly to the United States. All of you have read in the press about the continuing nuclear programs in nations like North Korea and Iran. The non-proliferation regimes that we tried to put into place are necessary but they're not sufficient. So one way you can view what we’re doing in Missile Defense is we are the ultimate non-proliferation regime when everything else fails.

Now, Missile Defense is rapidly becoming a core competency of the US military. We saw the success of the PAC-3 and the Patriot systems in Iraqi freedom, and we now begin to have an additional capability to defeat the long-range missile threat as was mentioned earlier.

Of course, the withdrawal from this ABM Treaty that we accomplished a couple years ago has really allowed us to begin to layer new and effective techniques as we build an integrated system. And that’s exactly what the Missile Defense Agency’s mission is, that we develop an integrated, layered system to defend not only the United States and our deployed forces, but our friends and allies as well. And it is to defend them from ballistic missiles of all ranges and engage them in all phases of their flight.

Now, characteristics of an effective defense are depicted on this slide. We would like to get the intercepts early. Layered defense is even better because it allows the creation of synergy between the various phases, the boost, the midcourse and the terminal phase. We like to have a variety of basing modes, land, sea-based and space-based, to allow us flexibility and persistence at the same time. And geography counts. International cooperation is mandatory in a ballistic missile defense program.

END OF TAPE 5
TAPE 6

--all the way down to the way we construct our contracts to be able to interject technology, to adapt to that technology and to adapt to the threat changes. But what you see is a series of layered defensive programs, from the boost, to the midcourse, to terminal phase, beginning with an airborne laser in the boost phase, a kinetic energy interceptor that’s able to intercept the missile in the boosting or ascent phase, from either a sea-based platform or land-based. The midcourse, of course, is the ground-based midcourse defense that’s in the news quite a bit. Those are the interceptors that we’re putting in the ground in Alaska as well as California. We are also developed an Aegis sea-based missile defense that will be capable of intercepting the medium-range and shorter-range ballistic missiles. And I’ll talk a little bit more later about the multiple kill vehicle very briefly.

Of course, in addition to the Patriot in the terminal phase, we also have our terminal high altitude area defense weapon, or THAAD, along with the international program, the MEADS program that we’re building with some of our European partners.

Now, all of this is supported by the family of sensors that you see across the top of the slide, and it’s built on a foundation of integrated command and control battle management communication. Now, realize we have to execute a real-time mission across eight or nine time zones, in three or four areas of operations, with three or four combatant commanders working simultaneously. That is a significant command and control challenge, but we think we’ve met it.

This is what integrated defense looks like in action, by the way. We are not just developing a collection of programs that are flying in loose formation. We are actually integrating these programs together. What you see depicted here is a defense satellite program would detect an enemy missile launch. An Aegis -- in fact, we have two right now operating in the Japanese area -- would be able to provide sufficient information into the system to begin to cue the other sensors and we can actually launch an interceptor with that type of information.

We pick it up, in this case a land-based radar like Cobra Dane in Alaska, and then we fire the interceptors, we provide in-flight updates as it goes in to hit the target. This could also be Aegis. This could be our Patriot-3 system or the THAAD system. We begin to mix and match all of our sensors and our shooters, our interceptors, and you begin to greatly expand both the detection zone as well as the engagement zone over any one particular system.

Now, it is in the law, that National Missile Defense Act of 1999, that we will deploy as soon as technologically possible an effective missile defense. Now, the reason for this is because we didn’t have one, and we were basically defenseless against this type of threat. And what 9/11 did is it showed us not necessarily how we may be attacked, it showed us that there were people that had the will to attack us. The means of that attack is going to be what is available and what they perceive our weakness to be.

Now, President Bush, in December of 2002, laid out a national policy that we would begin an initial set of deployments in 2004, and it would serve as a starting point for fielding capabilities later. What we’re putting out today is not what we’re going to end up with, but we will continue to grow and build on those and improve those. We won’t have a final fixed architecture, as I mentioned, because we want to be able to adapt to changes in the threat. By the way, we’ve been greatly surprised by the threat. Almost everybody in the intelligence community was surprised when North Korea launched the missiles that they did in 1993 and 1998. We were surprised not only the fact that they did it, we were surprised by the way they did it, the fact of what they demonstrated in those launches, and it took a lot of people by surprise. And those types of surprises, because we’re not omnipotent, are going to continue in the future. So we have to try to adapt to them.

Then, as I said, cooperation by allies is going to be key in all of this.

The implementation strategy that we’ve outlined for this guidance is we’re first going to establish a defensive capability against the North Korean long-range threat. We will evolve a capability against the Middle Eastern treat for the United States. We continue to expand the protection to our deployed forces, and then we would expand and robust this with additional layers of interceptors and sensors.

Now, where are we today? We have five interceptors installed in silos in Alaska. We will have six by November, the middle part of November. We’re also going to have two more interceptors loaded in California, and they will be ready by December. In the Sea of Japan, as I said, available for stationing, we’ll have two Aegis ships and we’ll have about five by the end of the year. The Cobra Dane radar in Alaska and the fire control system for the entire ground-based midcourse has been complete, and all of that is on track.

We will, in addition, by the end of 2005, increase our inventory to 18. We’ll increase our sea-based interceptors that you see there to eight. We’ll continue some radar work to help close off the protection against the Middle East, and we will roll out a very powerful sea-based X-band radar that you’ll see on the next slide.

Our test program has built confidence; we know what we’re doing. We have flown the booster that we have sitting in the silos in Alaska three times successfully. The booster flew exactly as predicted. We have flown a prototype of the kill vehicle that’s in Alaska. Those have been very successful; we were five of six of the last attempts since 2001. And we’re going to fly the operational configuration of that kill vehicle for our next test in December.

This is what it looks like, by the way, Fort Greeley up here in the upper left. By the way, this was frozen tundra about 18 months to two years ago. We have, as I said, the silos up there, the missiles being loaded in. You see the emplacements that occurred beginning this summer. This is the sea-based X-band radar that we’ll be rolling out in December of 2005. Just to give you an idea of size, this is a platform, it looks like an oil platform, it’s semi-submersible and self-propelled. That foot right there is the size of a Trident submarine. This radar can detect basically a golf ball-sized object at 1,000 miles.

We are now in a shakedown period, not unlike what you have in the Navy when we've got the equipment loaded, we’ve got the crews trained and on board, and now what we have to do is take it for a shakedown cruise. We’re learning a lot, we’re working through a lot of the capabilities and limitations and understanding that, and we’re working very closely with STRATCOM and our war-fighting partners.

As we look out for the future, we’re going to continue to add interceptors. We’re going to deepen the depth in Alaska. We’re going to also expand the protection to our European allies. We’re in consultations with several countries in Europe that are interested in hosting an interceptor site in Europe. We’re going to increase the quantity of forward-based radars and begin to move our sensors farther forward, so that we can tie them together to make the interceptors more effective. And we’re going to introduce the boost phase layers that I talked about earlier and continue to expand the ground-based as well.

So what can we expect by 2007? If we keep on this course, we’ll have almost 30 interceptors. We’ll have 18 ships and 28 interceptors by the end of ’07 of the SM-3, which is the sea-based capability. We will work with the Danish government, we’ve gotten approval from them to, again, improve the radar that we currently have at Thule, to robust our defense from the Middle East, and of course we have to respond to some of the Congressional cuts we took this year, which were not bad by the way, but we have to do some re-planning within our ground-based interceptor and our theater high altitude defense system, or THAAD.

As far as our research, development and testing evaluation program, we would like to take our sensors into space, because we get much more global coverage and much better access. So we’re on track for putting two test space satellites in orbit in 2007. The airborne laser, which is that boost phase capability I talked about, is on track. We will achieve, I believe, first light in that laser this year, by December, and we will first flight of the aircraft with the beam control/fire control by the end of this year as well.

The kinetic energy interceptor I talked about, which addresses a critical gap, we’re looking for a first flight of that in 2007, and we have a program that is called the multiple kill vehicle that basically allows us with one interceptor to kill multiple warheads that we released a contract for this year, and that program is on track as well.

In closing, we believe the treat is real and it’s growing, not only to our homeland, but to our deployed forces and friends and allies as well. A lot of money has been invested in missile defense and it is now paying off; we can now begin to put up a defense where before we were defenseless. And we intend to have a current fielding plan that keeps pace with what we think the threat is doing, and as it evolves, we will also evolve our development program to meet the challenge.

With that, I'd like to take any questions you might have. Thank you very much. [Applause]

Questions and Answers

CAPTAIN BRIAN ECKER: My name is Captain Brian Ecker from the Air Force Academy. My question is for you, General Obering. A few months ago, a report came out that Russia has a capability for a maneuverable ballistic missile. What effect does that have on our Missile Defense Agency?

TIM FLYNT: Tim Flynt, SPAWAR System Center, San Diego. Regarding missile defense, who has the firing key for missiles fired from the Far East? Is it going to be PACOM, STRATCOM or NORTHCOM, provided it’s headed to CONUS.

JIM DOWNEY: Jim Downey, Army War College. I guess, General Obering, you're going to get a lot of the questions. I have one regarding missile defense as well, and I guess, Admiral Cross, you might want to jump in. Given the amount of money we've spent over the years for missile defense, and recognizing both the limitations that it has and some thought about the risk and threat that we might face with regard to that, especially in comparison to threats that may come in from sea-based containers, et cetera, I wonder if we’re having a proper balance in our spending in a constrained environment.

GENERAL OBERING: The first question, I think, was about the maneuvering warhead reports of the Russians being able to do that. First of all, I would love to have the credibility and the testing that the Russians appear to have. I wish we were held to the same criteria, but obviously we’re not.

Anyway, yes, we know about this. We’re working this in our development program. We've said all along that the Russians are not the threat that we’re addressing in missile defense. By the same token, we know that we have to keep apace of what’s happening technologically, and so that is part of what we address as part of our development program.

There was a question on the dollars, I think. Is somebody else going to take another shot?

GENERAL OBERING: In terms of the dollars for missile defense, are they being spent in proper balance? I’ll just say this: Yes, we have spent a lot of money in missile defense. The thing about ballistic missiles, number one, is they appear to be the weapon of choice around the world. That’s why the proliferation is growing like it is. And it is also a chess game. You can imagine, what would the context be like if we were facing a nuclear-tipped North Korea, capable of reaching the United States? How does that change our behavior in the world? How would it change our allies’ behavior in the world? We have seen nations be held hostage by the capturing and abducting of just individual citizens. What happens if a nation can hold hostage an entire nation or entire cities with these weapons? So I think the money is being well spent in terms of being able to have a defense against these. Because you have to turn around and say, well, if we don’t spend in this regard, because it is expensive to do this, we have no defense. So we stand basically at the whim of what some other nations may be able to do.

We also know that, unlike the past and the Cold War, many of the nations and the national actors and the non-governmental actors on the stage today are not behaving in what we would consider to be a rational manner many times. So we can’t go through the calculations that we sometimes do and have done in the past.

I think there was a question in there about the sea-based approach. That is something that we very much are investigating quite heavily, as you saw in the presentation, and we are trying to address that threat as well from what would be a more asymmetric type of approach to the United States.

Last is the fire control, I think, between PACOM, I think that question was, if we have the ability to engage from the Pacific theater of operations. That is why I showed that we’re trying to build an integrated fire control. That will be in close coordination with NORTHCOM, and I know General Inge may want to chime in on this, but the operational control that’s exercised over the ballistic missile defense system has been the responsibility of STRATCOM that has been delegated to NORTHCOM for their AOR, and they have to coordinate very closely with PACOM if we get into a shooting war that involves PACOM assets. That’s up to NORTHCOM to facilitate that along with STRATCOM.