Several Defense Department leaders testify to the House Armed Services Committee during a hearing to evaluate the president’s fiscal year 2022 budget request regarding the DOD’s missile defense and defeat policy, priorities and requirements.

Witnesses include: Leonor Tomero, deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy; Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerk, commander of U.S. Northern Command; Navy Vice Adm. Jon A. Hill, director of the Missile Defense Agency; Army Lt. Gen. Daniel L. Karbler, commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command; and Space Force Lt. Gen. John E. Shaw, commander of U.S. Space Command.

Transcript

You will come to order. The purpose of today’s hearing is to receive testimony on the 2022 budget request for missile defense programs. First, I’d like to ask unanimous consent that non subcommittee members be allowed to participate in today’s hearing. After all, subcommittee members have had an opportunity to ask questions. Is there objection Then without objection, non subcommittee members will be recognized for the appropriate time of five minutes. I would also like to ask my colleagues this is not a unanimous consent request that we try to keep our public comments as brief as possible so that we’ll have a maximum amount of opportunity for the closed session which will follow this one Ideally we will start that one at 4:00 if not earlier because the more time we have in that session the better. Today’s distinguished witnesses are Miss Leonora. Tomorrow, well known to the subcommittee who is now Deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for nuclear and missile Defense policy General Van Herck, Commander of the United States Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Vice Admiral Hill, director of the Missile Defense Agency. Lieutenant General Car blur. Commander of the United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command and Lieutenant General john shaw, deputy commander of the United States Face Command. We have a breadth of experience with this panel and I thank you for participating in fy 22 budget requests this administration continued efforts across the Missile Defense Enterprise to improve our U. S. Missile defense capabilities. The administration has properly funded the hypersonic and ballistic missile attract space sensor a top priority for our indo pak. Um, stratcom and North com commanders. I’m concerned regarding the emission of the homeland defense radar hawaii because we must ensure that the entire United States gets maximum advanced warning against threats from rogue nations like North Korea. I’m optimistic that the pentagon and Missile Defense Agency are addressing issues which had led to the cancellation of the archive program as they pursue the next generation interceptor. Lastly, I look forward to hearing from both Lieutenant General car blur and Lieutenant General Sean how space command is affecting our missile defense requirements. I now turn to my ranking member, Mr. Turner for his remarks. Mhm. Thank you. Mr Chairman. Thank you for all of our witnesses being here. Um, there’s certainly been especially challenging year even with covid and high deployment rates for our war fighters, we appreciate everything that you’ve done to support our men and women in uniform. I’m going to begin with just a brief comment on the bidens fiscal year budget. Uh, I’m very concerned and that’s where it has placed us and that it is so late. Having received it in june, it inevitably means that we’re going to be operating in a continuing resolution. I would like you and your comments to please address how that might affect the importance of your operations. I think missile defense research and development and certainly our nuclear modernization or areas that are most particularly impacted by cutting resolutions. I continue to point out that the fiscal year is congressionally mandated. We have the ability to move the fiscal year. I would hope that Congress might take this up and we could look to move the fiscal year to the calendar year. We would save the Department of Defense three months every year of um, uh waste end and shut down in important programs. And of course, um, as I expressed before, I’m disappointed in the top line in the president’s budget number. The mental defense budget is just one example of where the biden defense budget comes up short. The biden missile defense request is 8.9 billion down from the 10.5 billion enacted last year and is the lowest since 2016. Key programs are underfunded, such as missile defense for Guam funding for the homeland defense radar hawaii, the elevated radar for cruise missile defense of the homeland and the proliferated low earth orbit arctic communications program. There are key budget priority priorities that should have been included in the FY 22 presidential request. In my opinion, we must protect the homeland with the next generation of missile defense technology. One of things that I am struck by and reviewing the written, written, written testimony of our witnesses is the key partnerships that we build with our allies through missile defense. We have Aegis ashore in Romania and the Polish site is 90% complete. Um, We also have partnerships with Japan and South Korea to other great partners that live day in day out with the threat posed by north Korea turning to the Middle East just this past month, we saw our partnership with Israel pay dividends with the iron dome program. It is now clear that we must replenish the iron dome system and help advance next generation missile defense technology developed by the United States and Israel. And I always like to point out that prior to the deployment of of iron Dome, uh the critics of missile defense used to say that it is too expensive, it is escalatory um and that it won’t work. And what we’ve seen from Israel is that not only is it cost effective in the amount of damage that is avoided. Uh it works and it’s actually de escalatory because it gave Israel of the ability to to weigh what its options and its responses are. I hope that we look to our own missile defense doctrine as we look to our missile defense review to understand how those proven concepts should affect us policy. Um I want to thank the chairman again for holding this hearing and I look forward to your presentations. I think the gentlemen will now ask each of our witnesses to make their statements, which hopefully will be fewer than five minutes in length. Your written testimony will of course, without objection, be entered into the record in its entirety. And by the way, I think this hearing may hold the record for the number of acronyms used in the testimony. So I congratulate all the witnesses for that. It might be an olympic record. So the first witness will be Mr Romero. Yeah, thank you. Mr Chairman, Chairman Cooper, ranking member Turner and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today before you in my previous home uh to speak about missile defense threat in the department’s missile. Could you pull the microphone a little closer? Thank you. Sure. And the department’s missile defense policy and priorities. It’s an honor to um it’s an honor to testify today with General Van Herck, Vice Admiral Hill, Lieutenant General Shaw and Lieutenant General Cobbler along with left of launch capabilities and our nuclear and conventional forces. Missile defense plays a key role in US defense. As missile technology matures and proliferates the threat to the US homeland, our allies and partners and our deployed forces is increasing the democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Dprk continues development and deployment of more capable intercontinental ballistic missiles that have destabilized and reshape the security environment in East Asia, Iran’s short and medium range ballistic missiles comprise the largest missile force in the Middle East. Additionally, Russia and china continued to develop and field increasingly advanced and diverse regional offensive missile capabilities as part of their anti access antonin I’il strategy intended to deny the United States freedom of action to protect military power and to protect our allies and partners to adjust these evolving challenges. The department will review its missile defense policies, strategies and capabilities to ensure that we have effective missile defenses. The review will nest within the National Defense Strategy and contribute to the department’s approach on integrated deterrence. We expect to complete the strategy in January of 2022. The department is committed to defending the United States against rogue States missile threats. The department recently initiated development of the next generation interceptor. The N. G. I. Will increase the reliability and capability of missile defense of the United States as this program moves forward. It will align with the administration’s defense goals and priorities with regard to regional missile defence defences. Will also remain central to maintaining the U. S. Enduring advantage to flow forces into a militarily contested regional environment and to safeguard those forces should a conflict arise. Additionally, the department will continue to ensure that we bring a more integrated approach to air and missile defense to address various types of ballistic missile threats and enable defense against cruise missiles and unmanned aerial systems. I am do you will feel interoperable and integrated missile defense sensors, interceptors and commanding control to improve capability against a range of threats with regard to enabling capabilities. In addition to improving today’s operational systems. Where in examining new enabling technologies, Secretary Austin has noted the importance of enhancing our global network of integrated sensors. Space based and land based sensors enable variety of capabilities such as detection, tracking and targeting through all phases of flight for incoming missiles. U. S. Commercial innovation is already transforming this field In Fy 22. We will continue to develop the prototype hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor that will allow the tracking of hypersonic threats and add resiliency to our sensor architecture. The department’s approach for regional hypersonic defense will first focus on defense in the terminal phase. Information superiority is critical to the future battlefield and necessary to enable rapid planning and employment in a joint operating environment. To that end, the department is developing multi cyber harden advanced all domain awareness for a commanding control architectures that will enable timely and accurate decision making to address emerging threats. And we will continue to develop capabilities for left of launching missile defeat that will play an important role in effectively countering limited missile defense missile attacks, sorry, engaging and working with our allies and partners to enhance our collective missile defense efforts is a core focus area of the department. Cooperative missile defense with strong allies including Japan, the Republic of Korea Australia and our NATO allies uh will continue to be a strong priority in the Middle East. Us Israeli Missile defense collaboration demonstrates the mutual benefits of technology sharing with our allies and partners and we continue our efforts to strengthen missile defense cooperation with key gulf cooperation council countries. In this context, my office leads a series of dialogues to discuss modernization efforts and seek new opportunities for joint research, training, co production and co development. In conclusion, as a department prepares for its strategic review, I assure members of this committee that we are steadfastly committed to key missile defense missions, priorities uh and capabilities including working with our allies and partners to meet the challenge of growing missile threats in a cost effective manner that strengthens regional and strategic stability. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you. General Van Herck, the chairman, cooper, ranking member Turner and distinguished members of the subcommittee. It’s a privilege to be here in front of you again to testify. I’m honored to serve as the Commander of United States Northern Command in the North American Aerospace Defense Command and I’m grateful to appear alongside my colleagues is their crucial partners in the defense of our homeland. United States. Northern Command NORAD are separate commands yet we work seamlessly to accomplish the critical mission of defending North America against all threats whether posed by our competitors, natural disasters or a pandemic. We are in an era of a renewed strategic competition and this time we’re facing two nuclear armed near peer competitors. Both focused on circumventing our homeland defenses. Additionally, North Korea’s recent unveiling of a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of threatening Alaska hawaii and the contiguous United States is meant to constrain our options in a crisis. I remain concerned about my ability to defend the homeland as our competitors continue to develop capabilities to hold our homeland at risk from all vectors and in all domains kinetically and non kinetically and to exploit a perceived gap between our nuclear deterrent, which I believe is the foundation of homeland defense and our conventional homeland defense capabilities. To close this perceived gap, we must accelerate efforts to transform our culture to think and operate globally and across all domains and factor homeland defense into every strategy plan, force management, force, design, acquisition and budgetary decision. United States Northern Command and NORAD are aggressively pursuing a left of launch framework to provide the president of the United States the Secretary Defense less escalatory options that will increase decision space and deterrence in strategic competition. Vice, focusing on in game defeat in conflict with the missile defense agency. Leading the effort, progress on the next generation interceptor is on the right trajectory. But further delays will be detrimental to our defense and deterrence by denial capability. We must also capitalize on globally layered multi threat detection systems such as over the horizon radar and hypersonic and ballistic missile tracking space sensors to adequately address both the capability and capacity of emerging threats the additional capabilities. United States Northern Command is pioneering, as demonstrated by our latest global information dominance experiment. Are focused on prying data from existing stove pipe networks to enable global and all domain awareness by ingesting data into a cloud based architecture where the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning is unleashed. we can drastically reduce processing times across the globe to rapidly enable information dominance and decision decision superiority. All 11 combatant commanders induce endorse fielding these capabilities as soon as possible for United States. Northern Commanding NORAD, if we do not possess global all domain awareness sensors and the networks, data standards and infrastructure to share information quickly and efficiently our ability to defend the homeland against emerging threats such as improved ballistic missiles, hypersonic, long range, low radar cross section cruise missiles will slowly degrade the United States Northern Command. NORAD take solemn pride in executing the Secretary of Defense is top priority by standing watch to defend our nation. I’m grateful for the trust and responsibility you place in the United States Northern Command and NORAD. Thank you. And I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. General Now. Vice Admiral Hill. Chairman Cooper, a ranking member of Turner and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for your time today. Uh for PB 22. NBA is requesting 8.9 billion to develop and deploy homeland defenses against the rogue state threat and to improve our regional defenses against existing and emerging threats. The evolving threat can be summarized as a less predictable ballistic threat with decoys and multiple warheads potentially with nuclear payloads. Hypersonic cruise missile threats present high speed and global maneuvering challenges to our sensor command and control and weapons architecture. Now, despite the pandemic restrictions, we have maintained momentum by advancing the program on several fronts this year. So I’ll go through a few of those. I’ll start with C two BMC command and Control Battle management Communications. We continued our spiral upgrades to integrate sensors and weapons across the Joint Force supporting our Quebec commands and services with tracking, queuing and discrimination data. The hard network integrates with Nazi too. From a space global capability perspective to improve detection, tracking, queuing and discrimination. Hypersonic ballistic tracking space sensor or HP. TSS. That development continues under two competitive awards focused on an on orbit demo in Fy 23 for tracking dim boosting ballistic missiles and hyper glides. And this is a critical part of the hypersonic defense architecture. Space-based kill assessment or Scott that is deployed today. Uh full of constellation has participated in several uh flight tests were on track to deliver operational hit assessment for the Homeland in 2023. Moving up to Alaska to the long range discrimination radar. Despite the pandemic, we have delivered both arrays. The light off is underway now which means we are radiating in coordination with the FAA. To make sure that we take care of the local Bush pilots. We will go to government acceptance this year, which is initial fielding uh and uh F Y 22. Our focus will be integration into the ground based mid course defense system and then we’ll transfer to the lead service of the Air Force for Space Force operations in Fy 23. From the homeland perspective, continuing the G. B fleet reliability efforts through the service life extension programme has been going very well. And what that means for us is we can harvest age hardware from The silos for our stockpile reliability program. We now have hardware-based analytical background to our reliability estimates while expanding the missile field capacity and missile field for I’m very proud of the soldiers of the 100 missile defense brigade in the 49th Missile Defense Battalion. The next test for the GMD system is boost vehicle 203 B B T 03 developing capability to use our three and two stage G. B I. What we’ll do is we’ll fly instead of the full kit. Matic burn will burn only to the second stage so that we can increase our battle space and enhance the timelines that is on track for later this year, N. G. I development was mentioned. We are underway with two competitive contracts focused on round emplacement earlier than the 2028 government estimate. We switch over to one of our regional systems that we just integrated air and missile defense. We continue our deliveries of the SM three Black would be missiles the workhorse of the fleet through a multi year procurement. SM three block to a missiles developed in cooperation with Japan. We are now in production And we continue our close coordination with the Navy to leverage the SM six missile for sea-based terminal, which I’ll talk about in just a second. I want to say a little, a little bit about FTM 40 for flight test Maritime 44 that we conducted last november based on congressional direction. To complete that test in 2020 we successfully uh intercepted a simple rogue state I C B M with the mighty ship, USs John Finn a new construction. I am the destroyer with the S and three block to a missile. We leverage the design robustness within Egypt’s and within SM three. What I mean by that is we are outside the requirement space and we were successful in that mission in a defensive hawaii scenario. Back to the pandemic that affected nearly every construction project. We had to include the aegis ashore in Poland. But the great news today that I did not report last year is we have all force fire raise now in place in the site. We have the fire control system in place and this is a forcing function to get us to install and check out of the Aegis weapon system which we removed from storage. We did all the digital signal checks on it. We’re doing hardware upgrades and that site is on path to complete construction and coordination with the Army Corps E. J. S. C. Based terminal increment to is deployed today and it represents the first regional hypersonic missile defense capability. Increment three is underway and delivers in Fy 24 now based on real world data collection and leveraging the proven Egypt’s engage on remote capabilities. PB 22 accelerates are hypersonic missile defense, glide face interceptor which allows us to intercept prior to terminal. We’re evaluating industry proposals now and we’re going to make sure that that design is extensible to land based batteries shifting over to the terminal high altitude air defense. We continued our interceptor procurement, our production training, support, developing capabilities to address the evolving threat in very close coordination with the army. Will go to the last of the Patriot integration testing this year. Now in for defensive Guam and PB 22 it includes funding for the initial development of the survivable and operationally effective I. M. D. Uh integrated air and missile defense leveraging mature regional systems. I had a conversation with an alkaline a last night and his requirements are clear defend the people defend the forces and do it on a near term timeline. He has system agnostic but when you look at the ballistic, the hypersonic cruise missile threats, it drives you to mature to mature proven systems integrated with the joint force and operational in the near term. So in coordination with Indo pay, common Cape, the technical merits of proven regional systems will point to the architecture for our PB 22 investments. So I’ll wrap up by saying space, land and sea based sensors along with the network weapons integrated through C T B M. C. That will tie the jazzy to set the stage for hypersonic cruise missile defense capabilities. Thank you. I appreciate your time today. Thank you’ve said, well, you’ve covered a lot of territory. There is even more in your testimony. Uh, Lieutenant General Car blur, Chairman cooper, Ranking member Turner and distinguished members of the subcommittee. I’m honored to testify before you today. Thank you. Especially during the unprecedented health crisis of this past year for supporting our service members, civilians, contractors, and their families and your continued support to space and air and missile defense. I’m here today as the commander of the joint functional component, Command for Integrated Missile defense. And as the Army’s proponent for air missile defense forces and capabilities, I’m responsible for providing General Van Herck, the soldiers who stand ready to defend our nation from intercontinental ballistic missile attack, as well as the soldiers who provide critical missile warning to army and joint war fighters. As air and missile threats become more diverse and numerous from adversaries worldwide. The Army Air and Missile Defense Enterprise continues to work hard to ensure that our war fighters and our homeland are protected. I would like to take this opportunity to briefly thank and highlight the mission accomplishments of our team of nearly 3000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, guardians and civilians and is challenging code environment that we continue to endure during this past year. In support of stratcom, space. Com and nowhere at north. Com, these outstanding men and women provided the Army and Joint force with satellite communications, space, situational awareness and missile warning and defense and protected our homeland 24 7365 from ballistic missile attack. Even in the pandemic environment, they did not miss a beat to outline one of numerous examples of putting mission first and how army families have sacrificed during the pandemic. Members of our ground based missile defense Cruz adhere to 12 consecutive months of stringent measures ensuring the uninterrupted execution of their mission, including sequestering crew members from their homes and families. Essentially, our missile defense crews lived in a bubble throughout their operational rotations on this essential no fail mission. While they and their families who reside in colorado springs, colorado and Fort Greely Alaska, the crew members were basically deployed away from their families for extended periods of time. A positive I’ve drawn from this pandemic is my daily realization that I’ve never been more proud and thankful of our greatest asset, our people. Every day I am awed by their dedication and unwavering sacrifices to our nation. I consider it an honor and a privilege to lead and serve alongside them. The continued support of Congress is critical to our ability to recruit, develop, retain and resource. Such a highly qualified and mission ready team. I look forward to addressing your questions. Thank you. Thank you. General Lieutenant General Shaw. Yeah. Okay. Why? Mike? What? True. Mhm. Point. Okay. Better. All right. Good afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Chairman cooper, ranking member turner and members of the House Armed Services Committee subcommittee on Strategic Forces for the invitation for to join my fellow witnesses today and discussing critical national security issues. I am pleased to speak today on behalf of our commander, General Dickinson in the 18,000 military, civilian and contractor members directly engaged in and supporting the missions of the United States Space Command. As directed in the Unified Command Plan. One of those missions as the nation’s Global sensor Manager requires us to quote plan, manage and execute assigned Department of Defense, Space, situational awareness, missile defense and missile warning sensors unquote. I’m pleased to offer you the United States Space Command perspective on that slice of our mission set. And I look forward to a discussion on how within the context of duties overarching national Security strategy, our Global sensor manager activities complement those of NORAD Northern Command, the Missile Defense Agency and the Space and Missile Defense Command. An accomplishment of their respective missions. The Unified Command plan outlines us based commands tasks as a supported combatant command in a newly declared war fighting domain with a clearly defined if rather large area of operations. It also outlines a series of supporting tasks through which U. S. Space command enhances the mission effectiveness of our fellow warfighting combatant commands. It is in our global sensor manager role that you see one of the best examples of the confluence of are supported and supporting roles Within the 3rd of General Dickinson’s key five tasks for the command which is maintaining key relationships exists. The subtask of enhancing interoperability, our success at the strategic level and building the key relationships necessary for protection of the homeland depends on integrating weapons system operations at the tactical level. That is why US basic man works so closely with north um stratcom, M. D. A. And S. And D. C. Among many others to provide missile warning and missile defense capabilities while simultaneously and seamlessly accomplishing our space domain awareness missions. It’s an example of the classic aphorism that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts the ability to find synergies among these seemingly disparate missions. Functions and systems employed by distinct and separate combatant commands will significantly enhance our effectiveness in protecting and defending the United States and our allies. I look forward to your questions on this and other examples of the coordination collaboration among the agencies represented here this afternoon. Thank you. Mr Chairman. Thank you. General will now have member questioning and I’m going to defer my questions for the closed session. Mr Turner is now recognized. Great thank you, Admiral. Start with you. Continuing resolutions. They impact missile defense. Are any program that’s based on ingenuity um and news starts and our nuclear modernization programs I believe more uh than than even just basic continuing operations. Could you please describe some of the situations that you’re placed end with continuing resolutions and its effects on your programmes? Thanks for the question, congressman Turner. Uh, it’s got a broad impact across the program. And let me just kind of start where it really matters when you get out to the fleet. Um, and you look for support to get the ship ships underway right? We’ll have to work very closely with the Navy. Um, If we try to execute a flight test will often find that the test ranges are suffering from the same continuous resolution and everyone will have different budget cycles. So execution of tests is at risk when you back up. Can you explain why a test gets impacted more than just the general operations of a facility? So if you look at the way we fund our warfare centers, for example, on the on the Navy side, and the way the ranges are funded, they will come to an all stop with the continuing resolution. So we can get a ship out on station and operational ship there. But we will not have the test support to do that. We can’t get the sensors underway, we can’t deploy the aircraft that are going to collect data. So, so that’s that’s a clear impact. So frequently you can be undertaking resolution for a quarter of the year. So for three months out of the year, your your schedules are set back, Your work product is set back well and and we’ll we’ll do our best to catch up on schedules and deconflict and reschedule where we can, but it’s a significant impact when it comes there. Then if you back up even further to say production, uh normally will be okay. We can we can carry production for some period of time. but if we start, you know, holding up payments to the contractor, you won’t see us proceed in those areas. So it could be a shortened gap there or something that cascades to the right and that that really translates the cost, right? So when you back up to development, um now it comes to the stability of the team, right? So just looking at the government team, um you know, it it casts a shadow right on on the future of their careers and often time we find ourselves losing talent during that sort of phase. Um and then if you go again to warfare centers and government labs that are reimbursed, reimbursable funding and those sorts of things, we we put them in an all stop and freeze them. Um does it affect costs and time delivery? Absolutely. It’ll always have an effect on cost and time delivery cobbler. Uh, examples ways in which continue resolutions affect your operations. So much like what Admiral Hill just talked about. Uh, we uh, we run the Reagan test site. So again, it affects our ability to support those tests that we do for the D. O. D. Out of out of the Reagan test site on Kwajalein Atoll. Mhm Van Heart, don’t show this is your chance of a commercial anything You need anecdotal stories. You want to provide any information as to how you’ve seen continuing resolutions be detrimental. It’s about predictability, congressman and being able to move forward based on a plan to execute it strategically for me directly and defending homeland defense. Uh, I’ll be able to continue that mission the most direct impact. And as you heard, my opening statement is keeping pace with potential threats and adversaries and the programs that Admiral Hill and General Carballo talked about. If we further continue to delay those, the risk is we fall further behind in defending the homeland. Thank you congressman. I just, I would just echo what General Van Herck said that combatant commands or demand capability as soon as they can possibly get and any continuing resolution that delays the capability, whether it’s testing or fielding or development is a delay in our ability to sustain readiness against an adversary. Mr Mero. Um, In the um, 2017 India, a fiscal year 2017, a um. the secretary of defense was required to designate a single entity as a lead acquisition organization for defending the homeland. I’m gonna ask you this question in the general, you are in the unique position of playing catch with yourself. Uh, there’s a bunch of things that happened while you were here that you now have over at the pentagon, um, things that need to be completed that or not, um, that you even had a significant interest in and occurring. What are some of the priorities that you have to make sure that the pentagon finishes and gets over to Congress, things that you worked to compel them to do. Ranking member. Thank you. Yes, it’s it’s an honor to, to get sorry. It’s an honor to catch those congressional requirements. Now in my new position, um, with regard to designating the single authority for cruise missile defense of the homeland. Uh, that is something that the administration is going to look at. My understanding is that the previous administration looked at it and decided not to designate a single authority. We do understand that there are capability gaps. Um, we need to look at where and how to prioritize cruise missile defense of the homeland. There are cost issues. I know the Congressional Budget Office identified um significant cost ranging from 75 billion to 8100 and 80 billion over 20 years. So that would include acquisition, also operates operation, operate uh operationalization of the system maintenance um over the long term. But I think what what we need to look at is what is the viability of our capabilities? What are the costs and how do we prioritize um uh that defense. Are you back? Thank you. Mr Langevin. Thank you. Mr Chairman. Can you hear me? Okay? Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Mr Chairman. I want to thank our witnesses for your testimony today. In particular. I want to welcome back uh welcome to the committee. Uh Mr Miro. And uh and I enjoyed your work on the committee when we work together. And uh it’s really a big loss to the committee when you left by the departments gain and I wish you well. I want everyone for your services are joined nation. Um, I want to begin on a directed energy question. Uh, I have to say I’m really disappointed uh, that the president’s budget canceled NBA’s directed energy program. Uh, This program provides promising ballistic missile defense technology and then really addresses cost imbalances between offense and defense. Admiral Hill, uh, who made the decision to cut the program and why constantly german. I thank thanks very much. Great. Great question. Um, I would say it was a department uh effort to consolidate directed energy work within the department. And so I will uh, you know, work closely with the under secretary for research and Engineering and when these capabilities reach the power levels and the sizing and levels that that we need being control stability, lethality capability, then we will adopt those technologies and bring them into the missile defense system. Okay. I’m in I’m unclear was the decision made or recommended under this administration or the previous administrations? Prior prior administration? Yes sir. I say thank you. Um how how much transparency and input will you have into this new arrangement to ensure the technology fits uh missile defense requirements? Yes, sir. Thank you. Uh I think it’s on us to ensure that we stay close to the undersecretaries lead for directed energy uh so that we can influence the requirements so they understand what our power levels are, what our concept of operations are, how we would leverage that technology. Um I don’t see that that’s an issue in terms of having access and transparency into the road maps and those capabilities going to industry. Okay. Um is my understanding that you have very little transparency into the into the funding though? That that is true. I I don’t have a good looking into the funding. All I know is that the funding was removed from the missile defense budget. Um So I just want to say, I think that that that decision from the last administration should be reevaluated. That’s my assessment. Uh if you move these programs out of your agency, uh well, I believe that we’re gonna keep them in their labs, the technology, the labs to test them to death and they’ll never get to the warfighter at best. It’s wasted money at worst, our systems can’t keep up with what adversaries are developing. So uh the decision also cut the dial pumped alkaline laser program. Um and I’m concerned about that, but um let me get to uh something else in another area. Um So our adversaries build electronic warfare systems that are specifically targeted to undermine our technological commanding control. And it is a special disease general cobbler in Admiral Hill. How effective is our missile defense network in a contested spectrum environment? And what improvements do we need to make? Okay. Thanks congressman. So every day, every day uh within our missile defense systems that we have, uh we gotta practice, we gotta have cyber protection. Uh we have resiliency of the ballistic missile defense system. We collect analyse, report digital data. We deploy and maintain our network defense tools. We’re constantly um evaluating our network defense operations. And then and then we respond to incidents and we work very closely with the Missile Defense Agency as as any of those potential incidents come up. Yeah. Yes, sir. And then, uh from my perspective, you know, working closely with the combatant commands and with the operational forces and services because all of the, you know, when you look at the missile defense system writ large, it cuts across all of the above. And so we have to do a lot of coordination there, but we are doing the the overall uh you know, insider work, we’re doing the adversarial assessments, we’re just now starting to work with D. O. T. Me to do something called persistent cyber operations. Uh where will be 24 7 monitoring and in healing the networks as we go. Uh For me, I want to know where vulnerabilities are. So it becomes a very sensitive topic right away, but we’ve got a great relationship with the U. S. Cyber com with strategic commands, cyber group and and of course uh D. O. T. Any. So I think we’re in a much better place if you’d asked me this question about three years or so ago we’re learning how to crawl. We’re definitely walking very fast right now and almost about ready to run as we go into a persistent cyber operations. Gentlemen, thank you. I know what I’m expired. I have some questions for the record. I appreciate you responding. Thank you. Are you back? Thank you john Wilson, thank you Mr Chairman and thank each of you for being here today and your service for our country uh and Miss uh Secretary tomorrow um Israeli families face the threat of larger, most sophisticated rocket and missile arsenals every day provided by Iran to Hamas and Hezbollah to address this mounting threat. Israel United States are working together to develop and deploy and multi tiered missile defense system. The us Israel memorandum of understanding on security assistance provides for $500 million dollars in funding for annual missile defense cooperation with Israel. Do you support the continued funding for the joint U. S. Israel missile defense programs including Iron Dome David’s Sling and Arrow. And can you speak on the progress of the development of Arrow four Congressman, thank you very much for for that question. Yes. Uh there is strong support for continuing um those those programs um they’ve had a record of success over a long time and and we continue our very close collaboration and cooperation with Israel. Um I think on the details of the development of Arrow, I’d like to differ to Vice Admiral Hill. Uh Sir Aero Four is going very well in terms of laying down the requirements for that system. In fact, as soon as the covid 19 restrictions lifted, we had a team on site working very closely with I. M. D. O. To lay out requirements and to lay down the development path. So I think we’re on a good place therefore. Thank you very much. And secretary tomorrow, another country that is under threat and and an inventory of short range missiles will provide and improve Taiwan’s ability to deter chinese aggression by incredibly disrupting degrading and interdicting chinese command and control nodes, military airfields, supply depots and reinforcements in response to an attack. Does the administration support Taiwan’s ability to defend itself through layer deterrence by including enhanced missile capability? Uh, Congressman? We we strong strongly support uh, deterrence uh, and um, and are investing in capabilities um, to deter a chinese attack in the area. Okay, thank you very much. And additionally, general cobbler. Uh I’m grateful that the support uh which is provided for funding Israel’s combat proven iron dome system and the Fy 22 budget requests. The army has purchased two iron dome batteries and has been reported, the department is considering purchasing more. Has the army determine where and when the batteries will be deployed? Is the army not considering purchasing more batteries? Which parts? The system can be incorporated as part of an indirect fires, forced protection capability? Yes, I had a chance to go visit the iron dome. Uh, the U. S. Army soldiers who are on the two batteries worth of iron dome equipment up at White Sands missile range. So I visit them a couple of months ago as they go through their training. Uh, at the end of this month, we’ll see a iron dome live fire executed by those soldiers. And they’ll wrap up their field training exercises and certifications with the goal that the first battery will be ready for worldwide deployment by september of this year and then the second battery. Shortly thereafter discussions about the future employment. I’d like to take that into the closed session if I could Absolutely gosh, that’s very encouraging. And uh, Admiral Hill, uh, the value of american territory of Guam is a key Western pacific theater operations, logistical hub for our navy, making a a priority target for the Chinese Communist Party. The missile defense agencies FY 20 to request includes 118.3 million to develop an architecture for defense of Guam. Your agency has not yet actually detail what type of system this would be given china’s increasing hostel pressure and the largest peacetime military build up in the history of the world. When can we expect to have a detailed overview of the system and its deployment timeline? Thanks congressman. Thanks Mr Wilson. We were working at uh very actively last night. I mentioned in my opening comments discussing this with an A. La Colina last night. You’ll see those details when we deliver the report to Congress. We’re on path to deliver that from M. B. A. To the Cape and and have a discussion with Indo pak calm within the next couple of weeks. I think we we had promised june but given the complexity of it, it’s gonna take us a little bit longer to get there. But we will definitely outline with the detail based on the threat set, which is ballistic, cruise and hypersonic. We’re going to leverage a mature systems and we’re going to procure those areas that we that we need for long lead in order to hit the timeline. It’s it’s a very aggressive timeline given where we’re at. Thank you very much. Yes, sir, are you back? Thanks to gentlemen Mr moulton. Uh, Thank you Chairman. Uh, Mhm threat detection and reaction time are clearly key to effective missile defense. And both of those depend on software. But it seems that our current system of acquisition is designed to keep us a step behind because we lock into contracts with a single company or single consortium for years at a time, assuming that that company has ability or incentive to update the software on the system at the speed of relevance, which often they don’t. The world has long since become software centric, but D O. D. Is still stuck on hardware determined development. So Vice Admiral Hill, what is your organization doing to make sure that your systems software can be upgraded regularly? Will be upgraded regularly? Because I struggle to imagine an area where it would be more important to have the fastest and most accurate software running our defenses. Uh Thanks sir. A great great question. And I’ll just highlight 22 programs and and give you some handsome some other areas. Um, We have adopted agile software processes across nearly every program within the missile defense agency in coordination with the services. So we’ve got very strong linkages with the Navy on Egypt, for example, when you look at the command of control battle management, which is that hard network that brings everything together. That is our all domain uh networking that will be tied to jazzy to downstream. That is in a spiral upgrade that program early on, we recognized because of the numbers of sensors that change the weapons that change along the way that that one has to be a spiral and in constant evolution. That’s another great example of very agile quick software turns and delivery to the command command because that happens to be where the warfighter touches the system through C two B M C. Uh And then the last thing I’ll mention is on the new contracts for next generation interceptor. It’s actually written into the contract and the program offices two of them because we have a competition here are definitely tied into deficit cops. Uh, the agile framework and using digital engineering, that’s a whole new thing. We’ve got the latest and greatest tools to go execute that and that will become really the standard that we use across the agency That our model if 10 years from now within the missile’s lifetime, a different company has a better has better software or you simply have a company outside the consortium who has a better discriminating radar? Some component like that. Do you have the ability to go outside and pick this component to add to the medical missile system? Absolutely. We do. Um, and so by having modularity as a requirement and N. G. I, for example, that gives us the ability to go to those third parties those innovation sites. In fact I’m going to visit the United States Navy’s forge uh new establishment that they have now for the Aegis system. And we’re gonna talk about modularity and the complexities of bringing in innovation and the third parties. I’m not quite sold that we can do that right yet. But we’re having a very close conversations on on incorporating exactly what you’re talking about. How do we bring in the small business? How do we bring in you know different thinking? Uh Now you have to have a structure to that but we’re working our way through that. Okay. Until you’ve said we rely on nuclear deterrence to address more complex threats to include near pier hypersonic missiles. But I’m concerned we do not have a vision for managing this emerging threat, that there’s not potentially increase the risk of a nuclear response so far. I’ve I’ve asked this question a couple of times and have yet to receive a satisfactory answer on what the department’s vision is for how we approach the emerging threat from hypersonic missiles or pursue our own hypersonic capabilities in a way that deters rather than destabilizes. So by several Hill is deterrence still sufficient in the face of this evolving capabilities. Uh Congressman I think uh policy would be better to answer that. I will tell you for hypersonic missile defense. We are targeting the regional threat. Um and but I’ll turn it over to to miss tomorrow to talk to you about the overall policy. Great, thank you. Mr. Thank you. Thank you congressman. Uh Yes, this is something that we’re going to take a close look at as part of the missile defense review, the nuclear posture review. Um and as they feed into looking at a more integrated approach to deterrence, looking at the threats across um domains and looking at the risk of escalation. So uh so the challenge you um alluded to is is one of the Mr Merritt. Look, I understand that this did not originate with this administration that is the last administration that has failed to develop any strategy here. But let me just point out how insane it is to be pouring billions of dollars into an advanced weapons system that we don’t know how we’re going to use and worse, might actually make the turns worse. So this has got to be an absolute top priority. Mr Chairman, I go back, Yes it is. Thank you. Thanks gentlemen. Mr uh Lamborn, thank you. Mr Chairman Admiral Hill. I’m wanting to talk to you about the 44 deployed ground based interceptors. And uh is there a point over the next few years in which we will be dipping below that number, Congressman Lamar, thank you. Great, great question. When we had this conversation about a year or so ago, we saw reliability, uh, you know, falling off a lot earlier than what I actually believe it will fall off to. Uh and that’s mostly because of the support from Congress and the service life extension program. So our ability to take those oldest rounds out of the ground, you know, there’s three classes of G. B. The oldest ones have never been DM placed. And so by taking them out replacing the boosters, fixing one shot devices, upgrading the process, is updating the threat libraries that raises the capability uh, from what we have today. So, in addition to keeping the number, we’re now going to increase the capacity because the capability goes up. And that is something that North. Com can consider as they look at assessing their shot doctrine. So that the slept program very important if you were asking about that timeline to get the N. G. I. The criticality that reliability program uh can’t be stated more strongly than the fact that we’ve got to do that work so that we’re hardware based and we really know as opposed to the analysis that we showed you last year, which was based purely on analysis. Now we have hardware by which to do that and we have some number of those that we’ve removed all ready to do that replacement. So there’s some period of time where we will have a little bit of a dip but we’ll coordinate that with North come before we do that. But again, capability being increased is the offset. Okay. Thank you. And I want to follow up briefly on something my friend and colleague James land have been brought up and that is funding for directed energy. Uh Apparently the money there will still be money on this research and development in other parts of D. O. D. It’s just the M. D. A. Segment that is being cut for this year. Is that correct? That’s correct. So because I’m so focused on this mission, which is very discreet and has a totally union requirement on how we would leverage directed energy. It just means I have to change the way I do business. Right? So rather than direct funding and transitioning to industry, I’ll rely on the under secretary’s office to to do that for me and then I’m working very closely with the service. Is one example would be that when the Navy deploys its base defense of the lower power directed energy, we can take that and use that once it matures and and raise the power even more to go do the ballistic missile defense mission. So it just changes the way we do business. Okay. Thank you. That that is reassuring. And uh, compared to how it first appeared and then second along that line. Uh, just a comment, I’ll make not a question. And that is, we’ll continue to work on cooperative programs with the state of Israel on joint research and development of directed energy in the missile defense, especially short term short range missiles and rockets. Um, uh, Mr miro, I’d like to ask you a question. It’s great to have you in the uh, I guess on that side instead of this side of the, of the chairs here, but now that the new administration is working on a nuclear posture review. Do you anticipate any changes of policy pursuant to the results of that review when that comes out compared to the last administration? I mean I think they’ll be continuing in certain areas change in other areas. Um and we’re about to start the posture review in in a couple of weeks. And so that will be, you know, the analysis and reviews uh will uh be performed over the summer. Uh And so what I can tell you is that we are going to look at um where there might be some change but that will be underpinned by analysis uh and thorough reviews. Okay. I’ll be watching it with keen interest, hopefully more continuity than than disruption and change. Um And lastly, General Van Herck, you have previously testified that with regard to the current North korean I C. B. M. Capabilities, you are comfortable with our present, comfortable with our present missile defense capability, defense, a little glitter. But please add time back to my clock. But in your best judgment, do you still agree with the assessment that the North Korean threat will begin pacing our homeland defenses starting in 2025. And so we’ll need to supplement or enhance the current GMD system to maintain parody or overmatch. Actually, congressman, I believe we should talk about a classified forum. I’ll tell you I’m comfortable with the programs that we have in place right now for the next generation interceptor Fielding by 2028 with incentives, incentives to pull further left. If Abel between the two companies that are competing, happy to discuss further in a classified environment. Okay, thank you very much. Mr Chairman of Quebec. Thank you. Mr Morelli. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and thank you to uh all the witnesses for their uh expertise, their time and and certainly their service to the country. I had a couple of uh just brief questions if I can. For general Van Herrick. Uh by the way, thank you general for uh engaged in uh appreciate our offline conversation a great deal. Uh yesterday I was reflecting on it and I think you and I were talking about the nature of conflict having become a global engagement. And I was I think I was commenting as I’m new to this committee about the combatant commands being more regional in nature. And we were having this conversation as I was reflecting, I wondered if I could ask you to just talk a little bit more about the nature of it, how it is really become a global engagement and our combatant commands are structured regionally. But could you talk a little bit more about how you see it and specifically how having domain awareness is a critical element to the success of that global engagement and then a little bit maybe about the challenge is potentially that it poses for you, congressman. Absolutely. So in today’s uh global environment, what you see is all problems for the most part especially with the Russia or china. But even with the invention of the internet and non kinetic capabilities, even uh rogue state actors or even non state actors have the potential to have global influence through their activities both in a day to day competition and in crisis. My homeland defense design doesn’t start with defending the homeland inside the borders of the North America or the United States. It actually starts from a global perspective relying on my fellow combatant commanders, other nations such as NATO Nations and our allies and partners around the globe to have domain awareness. They have sensors and capabilities. And if we share information from under C2 on orbit to include human information to give us a global picture will be in a much better position. So our homeland defense design focuses that way. I hope that helps clarify. Yeah, I’m just um any challenges that poses Or do you feel as though the design is sufficient? There’s enough situational awareness that the regional Combatant command approach can sufficiently meet those global challenges. Congressman from a domain awareness perspective, I still I still see challenges. That’s why you’ll see in my unfunded priority list after we saw the FY22 budget is for uh the top of it is over the horizon radar capabilities to give us that global domain awareness. The the competitors have extended their range to be able to hold our homeland at risk. In addition to that, you see arctic communications on my unfunded priority list, which gives us the ability to share data globally uh and to operate in the arctic. The same thing is uh has represented our uh ranking member tournament. Shinde is the elevated radar as well. Here is an unfunded priority to give domain awareness against potential cruise missiles and finally over the horizon polar radar capabilities. So I think there’s room to grow. Uh I’m encouraged by the budget for ballistic missile defense. I think we have room to grow cruise missile defense domain awareness. I’m also encouraged with what the navy did with regards to undersea domain awareness. With almost a billion dollars in their undersea domain awareness. Um In just a little more than a minute that I have general, we talked quite a bit about ballistic missile threats. Can you talk to me a little bit more about cruise missile threats? Um, and has that changed over the last few decades? And there’s anything we should be concerned about, Anything that you’re concerned about, congressman. Absolutely. Uh Russia has developed the capability through long range cruise missiles that provide a very low radar cross section that are incredibly challenging to detect to our legacy north warning system uh, and to our platforms that exist today. That’s why, again, domain awareness is as a priority for me to give us that longer range ability uh, to detect that in the not too distant future. 5 to 10 years china will be in the same position. Russia has developed capabilities from undersea with their advanced, very quiet nearly on par with our submarines, uh, to feel that capability and their bombers uh to include polar over the rising capabilities and and also surface vessels. So I’m very uh concerned about the cruise missile defense of the homeland and something we could talk more about in the classified session. Sure, Well, I look, I appreciate very much your insights and MR chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to uh offer those uh those questions and with that I yield back. Thank you. I thank the gentleman is down to the final 2nd. Congratulations. Mr brooks. Thank you. Mr. Chairman Vice Admiral Hill. The Missile Defense Agency will be undertaking a new major development effort with the next generation interceptor program while concurrently restructuring the existing ground based interceptor program going from a single contract to multiple contracts. What assurances can you give this committee that the M. D. A. S approaching this program transition away That reduces risk while continuing to meet or exceed the current schedule. Thank Thanks congressman brooks. The uh we we did a top down bottoms up restructuring of missile defense agency writ large at the beginning of 2020. A lot of folks call it M. D A two point. Uh And what what we mean by that is when we stood up the two contracts as we prepared to make that award, we have to start early on constructing two separate program offices with the right certified board leaders that we’re gonna be in charge of. That put all the uh conflict of interest issues on the table, make sure we had all the firewalls up. We brought in a technical direction agent, uh new for the GMD program, uh, so that we can leverage the yorks and FFR DCs bringing that additional talent coming in. I mentioned before that we’re moving to Digital Engineering and def sec ops. We we are that program, to me is a model program within the Department of Defense in terms of how we’re doing business. Two contracts competing pressure on industry reducing risks. We’re seeing Iraq investments being made in the critical areas that we were concerned about when we’re with dealing with the R. K. B. Program. Uh, so I think we’ve got it right. Plus we’ve got a great set of operational needs statements coming from the Command command. We’ve got a strong set of requirements that were endorsed by the J Rock. This is a new and different next generation interceptor and uh, and I think we’re poised to take it on. We’ve got the right professional team in place. Another question unrelated to the previous one, china is rapidly developing multiple hypersonic weapons systems. America’s developing hypersonic missile defense programs at the speed of relevance is necessary to deter chinese aggression and defend against future attacks. The missile defense agencies unfunded priority list for fiscal year 2022 includes a request for additional funding for hypersonic missile defense efforts. Will you please share with this committee how the requested funding would accelerate development of this capability? Yes, sir. And if we were to rewind and go go to last year, we were focused on the science technology of operating in that very unique environment of the glide phase. But after viewing many of those uh real world flight events to include, you know, actually US test events. We were able to show that with our our models of the systems which are very high fidelity that we can in fact close the fire control loops. And so one of the reasons we’re focused right now on the Aegis capability. With this proven engage on remote capability is the fact that we can track in glide phase. We can have a ship upstream before you ever get the space constellation in place, pass that data to a ship and close the fire control loop. So what’s what’s missing in that equation is the interceptor. Um and so we put out a broad area announcement earlier this year and then in P. B. 22 you see an acceleration of that program. So moving away from an S. And T. Program that was focused in on the mid thirties to a program that’s on the program that’s focused on this decade. And and so that’s that’s what we’re doing. So when you look at the plus up area that will continue some of the parallel work to reduce risk in that program. Can you update the committee on the status of the hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor capability which is absolutely necessary for tracking hypersonic missile threats from launching throughout the missile’s flight. Yes, sir. Thank thank you for asking about hB TSS hypersonic ballistic tracking space sensor. So as you know, we took a very measured approach to this. We started with a number of companies in the concept of development. Then we neck down to four companies that we put through what we call a clutter management demo which meant were coming from space, looking down on the Warm Earth at warm targets. You know, and could we develop the algorithms to extract those targets out of that scene? And we were very successful in the ground. So where we are now is we’ve down selected to to contractors. So we have a competitive approach again. So to to companies in N. G. I. We’ve got two companies on the glide phase interceptor program and we have two companies on H. B. T. S. S. That that competitive pressure. And we’re gonna put two of those up in orbit In Fy 23. 2 different companies with the requirement to be interoperable and we’re going to connect them to our flight tests in the Indo pak um region. So uh H. P. T. S. S. On path to get to demo on orbit in Fy 23. Thank you. Mr Chairman. I see. Only have a few seconds left. I’ll yield back. We appreciate the extra 16 seconds there. Mr horse food. Yeah thank you. Mr Chairman and thank you to our witnesses for testifying today. It’s really great to have your expertise and insight. It’s been very informative. Vice Admiral Admiral Hill in March of 2018. General heightened testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee and when it when it comes to hypersonic weapons specifically china’s DF 17 hypersonic boost glide vehicle. Quote, we don’t have any defense that would deny the employment of such a weapon against us. Last week, you testify to the same committee that the Aegis sea based terminal is quote the first regional help yourself. They can hear you right now. No, we can hear you. Okay. Last week you you testify to the same committee that the S. C. Based terminal is quote the first regional hypersonic missile defense capability that is deployed with the aircraft carrier strike groups today. And it’s important that we have that capability now because the hypersonic threat is there now. So my understanding is that last operational test of the Aegis system and the E. S. Uh sm three blocks to a interceptor was conducted in november 2020 against a simple ballistic I. C. B. M threat during F. T. M. 44. So I’m curious if any additional advancements have been made since General heightens 2018 testament testimony that have changed the D. O. D. S. Assessment of the effectiveness of Egypt’s against the hypersonic threat. Okay, constant. Thank you. So I’m going to separate two things for you. F. T. M 44 with an S. And three is a mid course engagement of a ballistic missile so that’s separate and distinct when I say Cee Biggs terminal that is leveraging the SM six missile down in the atmosphere where it was where it is maneuvering and going after a high value unit. And I think that’s what your questions are really centered on. We’re on what we call increments to today with a upgraded version of S. M. Six and we’re testing that over the course of the next year. Uh increment three will bring in a broader set of those threats. So it was a true statement last year because what we’re really designing against in the early increments, it was against the maneuvering threat, but it was still pretty much a ballistic missile. But when you actually take a look at the maneuver space of where we are today. And with the increment to capability, that is hypersonic threat because it is maneuvering at very high Gs and it’s going at a very high speed. So we’re building upon that, that is that first layer. And when I talk about a glide phase interceptor, that is the layered defense to where we go after it earlier in the trajectory before it comes down into the atmosphere and becomes the maneuvering problem. Does that make sense? So as a mission capable kill vehicle for currently filled at hypersonic weapons is the interceptor capable of performing this function. It is capable of performing that function in the atmosphere against a series of threats. And its limit would be the airframe which I can’t talk about today. And that question for miss uh tomorrow other than the deployed Egypt systems, how are we currently defending against or mitigating the hypersonic threat for our forces deployed in the end of pacific congressman? So uh we are uh as mentioned focusing the priority for hypersonic defense as as a regional threat. We’re also looking at um uh increasing the defense of Guam as well uh in the context of a conflict in the indo pacific uh And so those are all uh capabilities that are being further studied uh and looked at both uh from the missile defense agency uh and also with the Office of Cost Assessment um and program evaluation uh And so increasing those investments and prioritizing capabilities will fit into Um the FY 23 um budget request. Thank you. Mr Chairman. I have a few other questions that I will ask. Take off line. So proceeding. Thank you. Thank the gentleman. He’s given me back 19 seconds. Very grateful. Mr Desjarlais. I’ll try to do a little better because a lot of my questions have already been answered in General Van Herck. I think your opening statement laid out a lot of those. It’s clear that the Homeland defense is bearing the brunt of real dollar defense cuts uh and uh that’s gonna require to allocate some risks. So um just briefly, General Van Herk and then Vice Admiral Hill, if you don’t mind, can you each provide an assessment of the threat posed by our adversaries to homeland below the nuclear threshold. Things like the colonial pipeline, cyber attack. And then how comfortable are you with the current defense capabilities to address these threats, congressman, thank you for that. First of all, I believe the foundation of homeland defense is the nuclear deterrent. But right now what you see is after three decades of watching the way we project power forward. Russia and china specifically are developing capabilities to hold the homeland at risk below the nuclear threshold. Those capabilities would include very quiet submarines. They just fielded Russia. Uh, just fielded their second sub class submarine which is on par with ours within a five year period or so. They’ll have 8-9 of those submarines which will be a persistent proximate threat off of our east and west coast that we haven’t had ever in the past. China will be about a decade behind. Russia has upgraded all their bombers to include their nuclear bombers and nuclear capabilities. Russia has fielded already hypersonic glide vehicles launched off of I C. B. M. Capabilities to hold the homeland at risk with regards to non kinetic capabilities. I think if you just look at recent history that you’ll see that there are significant vulnerabilities in the non kinetic, especially cyber that we need to take a look at and probably look more broadly at policy across the board and make sure that were as efficient effective with the limited resources we have for cyber defense, which includes homeland security as well as D. O. D. I hope that clarifies that. That does thank you. Admiral will do everything to add to that. What I’ll just go down to the specifics of ballistic missile defense, I would say what’s changed over the last couple of years and you can read about in the white press, you know, you look at some of those launches that occurred back in 2018 Dogleg maneuvers right, just right right off the bat, maneuvering in space. What I call range extensions, they’re all hypersonic when they come back into the atmosphere. So the what used to be a very predictable ballistic profile that has now changed and it’s a challenge to the sensor architecture. Goes back to general ban hurts comment about all domain awareness because it’s very important that we continue to invest in the sensor capacity that we have against ballistic, hyper sonic and Cruze because they are converging and they’re coming at us. Uh you know, across that that whole integrated air missile defense domain. All right, thank you. And Chairman, I think that’s like real time there. I reeled back. Well, Mr Desjarlais is the prize winner. Two minutes returned. We’re grateful. Mr Garamendi. Thank you Mr Chairman, really a very important hearing. Thank you gentlemen and lady for a participating today. Um I’m gonna take this in a slightly different way. I’ve been on this committee 10 years now and we’ve spent billions upon billions trying to create a defense. And it seems the faster we go. The behind do we get General Van Herk? You just mentioned getting behind on submarines, getting behind on hypersonic missiles, Getting behind on intercontinental ballistic missiles, ground based missile defense and so forth. Um The president is going to be in Geneva tomorrow to talk to Putin. Should he be talking about arms control in the domain in which you are operating. Mr Morrow 1st. Uh Chairman Garamendi. Yes. That we anticipate that there will be uh focus on um the need for increased strategic stability uh and building on the progress of arms control and building on on the foundation of extending new start uh And and so within the Department of Defense, that will be part of the uh look at integrated deterrence. Having arms control is part of that. But also again, looking at across domains and and the risk of escalation across domains including nuclear. So the quick answer is yes. With regard to each of you? General Admiral, General General, what would be the first thing you’d want discussed in an arms control negotiation? Uh Congressman, first of all, I think that any arms control discussion these days should not be unilaterally with a single country with the two peer competitors that we have. And it would be nice to have that discussion with both Russia and china. I do believe there’s opportunities to discuss arms including non kinetic, such as cyber and space where we can establish lanes on the road where I’m very concerned about unintentional escalation in those areas, ideally I would love to get rid of all nuclear weapons, uh, that gene, that bottle at genius out of the bottle. And I don’t think we can. So there ought to be a discussion on strategic stability with the three nations that we’re talking about with regards to nuclear weapons, with regards to hypersonic capabilities, with regards to space capabilities as well. I’ll defer to give them some more time. And congressman, I’m not a policy person, so it’s probably just not appropriate for me. But as a technical geek, I will tell you that the reality is the threat does evolve, it becomes more complex and uh, we’re gonna have to make a decision whether or not we want to deal with that. You know, I’m not gonna let you off the hook that easy. But let’s move on. Mr Cobbler, congressman again, I’m not a policy expert, I’m an air missile defense officer. And so wait, wait, wait. Yeah, the four of you know more about this than most anybody else. So I understand you’re not policy. My question is what would you want to be discussed? Any discussion on arms control? We got to make sure that the parties uh participate uh whatever’s agreed to would be verifiable by both by both countries or whatever countries are parties to that trust. But verify I’ve heard that before. And that’s worked before General shaw congressman. So uh so the space domain is uh it’s not a global comments, an extra global common. And so I would echo what General Van Herck said that whenever you talk about um some something in the space domain, you have to involve all the parties that are participant in that. So we have to be multilateral. I would think the first thing I would want to look at the space domain is norms of of responsible behavior. Within that domain, expectations of what is uh, what is professional behavior versus non professional behavior? Things that would help us to avoid escalation, that domain that could lead to a crisis quibbling. I think Putin has put that on the table already. And two of you. Two of the four have already said that would be a good starting point. I appreciate your comments on this Admiral Hill. You know, I’m coming back at you and going to get into detail and general car blew the same. Uh, well, you say you’re not policy. There’s nobody around that knows more about policy than the two of you or the four of you. five of you. Thank you very much on your back. Thank you, gentlemen. Mr waltz. They’ve called votes so we’re going to have four people remaining. We’re going to end this public hearing in about 10 minutes. So shorter you are. I’ll be quick. I’ll be quick. Thank you. Thank you. Mr Chairman General Van Herck just wanted to commend north com for its arctic strategy which called it was pretty comprehensive, called for developing strategic partnerships in the region enhancing arctic operations capabilities, infrastructure, uh an incredible defense presence. I noticed in your Senate testimony in response to Senator Sullivan’s question where the various services were implementing their respective arctic strategies as part of the president’s budget. Your response was we didn’t move the ball very far uh this year uh in the budget with regards to resources in the arctic. Uh, can you flush that out? What capabilities, what infrastructure would you like to see prioritized by that? Congress that went unfunded in the budget? Yeah, Congressman, I would point to my unfunded priority list first for domain awareness with over the horizon radar capabilities, arctic communications capabilities as well as polar over the rising. You mentioned infrastructure. Infrastructure in the arctic is crucial to be able to project power not only during conflict or crisis, but to campaign and create deterrence on a day to day basis. Additional infrastructure. I I think it would be helpful. And when we talk about competing in the arctic, what I’m talking about is persistence and to have persistence, you have to have the ability to remain in place. And that would include having a potential port north of Dutch harbor for vessels to refuel whether they be Coast Guard or Navy vessels as well. Additionally, some things I think we could do better to compete in the arctic. I believe in a crisis or conflict with the forces that we have. And we’re blessed to have significant forces in the arctic that are assigned to Indo pak. Um, but in the north Kamio are More than 105th Generation fighters. I believe those fighters will likely deploy especially to a european or a indo pacific crisis in that situation. I would love to have the ability to have forces that would backfill them that are organized, trained and equipped to operate in the arctic. Unfortunately, we don’t have that today and we need to identify some of those forces. I hope that lays out a little bit of the picture uh, that does, that does general. Thank you. And just to be clear, we do not currently have a persistent naval presence or a persistent ground presence uh facing north in the arctic. And I think that’s something this committee overall should take a hard look at. I just wanted to very quickly follow up Admiral Hill. What if your conversations been like with their Israeli counterpart with regards to their recent conflict? President Biden is committed to re supplying Israel with iron dome, uh iron dome interceptors that were extended. Uh Can you give us a status on that? Um I I can uh tell you about our input to that. As you know, we’ve got the partnership co production on iron dome uh co development work that we do with the aero system and with David Slaine uh the conversations that we had with I. M. B. O. Uh we’re really uh to kind of back check, you know, costing of of of what what we developed. So as they put together there there there’s some middle for that special appropriation. Uh They kind of wanted to back check on that and that’s just part of our partnership. But it’s better for Mr Merrill to answer the question because it’s really within the department now for for decision. Uh Yeah that that is uh being considered now and again, we’ll feed into to our reviews. The President’s made the commitment. So I’m curious as to what the holdup is within the department. If it’s been costed out, the relationship exists, The commander in chief has said we’re going to do this. What when when do we expect this to free from the bowels of Osd? The again it’s um the department is working through it uh And we expect that um This will be uh justice of as a high priority. It’s being prioritized at the highest levels of the department. Weeks, months. I don’t know, I don’t know when the Israelis can expect another attack. I’ll get back to you with an answer. I don’t expect. It will be months. Again it’s being thank you guys at the highest level. Um, and there are the department is conducting meetings on it uh, this week, as we speak. Yes, thank you. Mr Chairman Mr Panetta. This will be the last questioner. Thank you. Mr Chairman, I appreciate that. Uh, just quickly, Lieutenant General Shaw, how is space com integrating new roles as the global sensor monitor? So, congressman, I think what we what we are witnessing is a convergence of those mission sets that I mentioned my in my opening remarks of space domain awareness, missile defense and missile warning, meaning that the as the threats diversify um the needs to track those at various stages all start to converge a ground launched anti satellite weapon and anti satellite weapon in space and a hypersonic or hyper glide vehicle. They all start to occupy the same kinds of timelines and needs. And so what we’re doing in our roles, global sense of managers, finding ways that we can network together sensors against all of those threats at speed. Great, Great. Thank you. And just one final question. So at least get a question in there. I see her on the phone. Uh, one question though, to deal with something that’s important near and dear to me and that’s the Central coast and that’s a Navy Post Graduate school. Can how do you think other entities within the D. O. D. Enterprise, like naval postgraduate school work with Space. Com to develop new space based educational requirements that the programs are already aware of? An mps are exceptional when it comes to space education. I think we would want to continue to be that part of our educational infrastructure. Great, so do I look forward to working with you, Mr Chairman. I’m gonna yield back. Mr phonic. Thank you so much. Chairman. Thank you. Mr Panetta. I just wanted to make sure they knew that I was here on the republican side. Um, my question is simple. Section 16 48 of the Fy 21. Nd a required a report on a layered homeland defense system which was to be submitted no later than March 1st 2021. Well, obviously past that deadline report has yet to be delivered to Congress after numerous delays. Admiral Hill. Congress is still awaiting its report on layered homeland missile defense required by the Fy 21 N. D. A. Has M. D. I has India provided all of its input for this report to the pentagon. Uh, congressman Spike. The answer to that is yes. It’s really a policy question technically. Uh, I see no barriers, but it is a policy question that we need to come through. Yeah, I just wanted to get you on record, Admiral Hill, Mr marrow. So we need this report to complete our work for the Fy 22 N. D. A. When will osd submit this to Congress? Uh let me get you a better answer on the timeline. But I can assure you that that um looking at how uh what investments we make for a layered homeland defense, what priorities um, are made uh being uh are the subject of studies again in consultation with the Defense Agency with the Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evolution, Cape. Uh and so looking at um what the options are, what the costs, um some of it can be scaled, what can uh feed into make improvements uh and what can be done in terms of uh cost reduction. And so um we’ve made an initial investment on This in Fy 21. I’m sorry, in Fy 22. Uh, and so those studies are gonna inform further investments in Fy 23. And so we will get you an answer on those studies. Great. That study is, it’s not optional. That deadline is in law required by the Fy 21. Nd A. So I’ll expect that answer from you in your office in OSD this week. Us when we can expect that. My next question is regarding um, the threats and how they have intensified. We know, according to open source reporting that North Korea has capabilities striking anywhere in the US. And there is also open source reporting that Iran and North Korea are working in tandem on missile development. Additionally, open source reporting uh, talks about how the IrgC oversees Iran’s civilian space launch program, which is obvious dual use benefits and capabilities. Do you believe that the missile threats to the United States increase during and since the Obama administration And the reason why I go back to the Obama administration is that admitted, administration said that we should build a third continental interceptor site if missile threats to the US increase. So I want to know on record if you believe the threats to the homeland have increased since the Obama administration. Uh huh. I um yes, that’s for Mr marrow. Yes, both North Korea and Iran are continuing to increase their missile capabilities And having system and 2010 and we know that the West Coast has a more robust protection from missile threats from the pacific relative to the west coast Is the East Coast as protected from threats like a potential Iranian I C B M. Or an S L B M. From somewhere in the atlantic. Yes, All of the United States is protected with missile defense today. Um switching gears to the N. G. I. There are reports that the M. D. A. Plans to buy 10 developmental interceptors as part of the N. G. I. Programme. Uh Would any of those interceptors go anywhere outside of the current G. B. I. Silo infrastructure sites at Fort Really or Vandenberg Air Force Base. Specifically. Could any of those interceptors go to an East Coast missile defense site? I’ll defer to buy sentinel Hill on on where intercepting interceptors could be placed. Yes ma’am. Right now we’re focused on getting to the production numbers and those initial test articles. Uh It will be a global force management discussion on you know anything beyond Fort Greely. But right now we’re planning for Fort Greely. We’ve got the room, their missile field for uh we have all 20 silos installed. Now we’re doing the integration works so we can house them in Fort Greely at the nation. Makes the decision to open a battle space by having a third site. Uh that that conversation will come. Okay thank you. I will back Mr Keheliya is recognized for two minutes. Thank you. Mr Chair. My question is for the homeland defense radar Hawaii. I was disappointed to see that it was zeroed out in the president’s budget. A program a sensor that the previous combatant commander had quoted as saying the best program solution to enable incredible in depth under layer defense for our forces in Hawaii. You know in reviewing all the testimony, whether it’s the department’s the North com commander, the M. D. Director. We all talk about north Korea kim jong un and how increasing that threat is to the United States and the development of their I. C. B. M. S. And nuclear missiles. So my question is for miss tomorrow, what is the Department of Defense current plan to protect Hawaii and address the gap in our ability to detect track discriminate and defeat a ballistic missile for harvey and for Guam. Mhm. Thank you, congressman. I just want to make clear that Hawaii is currently protected today. How is how I protected? It is protected with the current capabilities we have. What sensor protects Hawaii? Well we have SbX. SBX is in the northern pacific. What sensor protects the state of Hawaii from a ballistic missile threat from the Dprk. We have a network of sensors uh including the tracking sensors O. P. I. R. Uh And then as I mentioned we have spx that contributes to improve discrimination. Um So if we need to use Spx for Hawaii then we are unable to use the SBX for the homeland. Is that correct for North. Com? Um, I would defer to kill or general friend Mark on the on the details of the capabilities from. I think the fact is, and I know we need to adjourn is that we do not have an adequate sensor for the Hawaiian Islands. If we’re going to depend on our Ages ages systems, that is a capability that Admiral Aquilino cannot use in the Western pacific. If we’re going to depend on SBX, that is a capability that North com cannot use to defend the continental United States. And it is why we need a sensor in the Hawaiian islands to defend against a ballistic missile threat from a rogue nation state. Like the Dprk congressman. I’d like to talk from the North korean perspective. If you don’t mind about that. Even without spx, I’m confident in my ability to defend against a threat from DpRK to Hawaii. Today I support the Hawaii radar. I believe it gives us additional capability for an under layer that would support defense of Hawaii specifically giving additional capability and capacity. But let’s be clear at this moment in time, I’m comfortable with my ability to defend Hawaii. That doesn’t mean I don’t support the sensor though. Okay. Oh sorry. I would add uh that that we are looking at how to best improve the defense of Hawaii. The defense of Hawaii. I suggest we look at both the defense of Hawaii and the defense of the territory of Guam as we shift to the pacific Thank you. Mr. Chair ideal back both of the gentleman’s time has expired. The Subcommittee will be adjourned until about 5:00 or as soon as votes have ended And we will meet in 20-12 for the closed session. Thank you.