During a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) questioned General Gregory M. Guillot, Commander of the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, about the role of aircraft in missile defense plans.
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00:00Chair, I now recognize the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Bacon, for five minutes.
00:05Thank you, all four of you, for being here.
00:08I was fortunate to do missile defense in Israel in 2009 and 2010.
00:11We worked with the Aero Missile Team, put in a radar satellite support,
00:17and I would never have thought that we could have shooted down 99% of 110 ballistic missiles
00:22and then later 180 ballistic missiles at a 99% PK.
00:27So thank God for missile defenses.
00:29Israel has seen the impact of a system that works.
00:34And granted, we've got a different problem set, we're a lot bigger,
00:37but I think our country will be well served to have a strong missile defense as well.
00:43My first question is to General Gio.
00:45I'm a little worried about some of the cuts in our National Guard.
00:48Your predecessor had some concerns about having enough aircraft to do the alerts.
00:54How does the air portion of this mission fit in with Golden Dome?
00:59I mean, is it – you would think it would be more radars and interceptors, but I think aircraft play a role, too.
01:07Congressman, I think you're exactly right.
01:09As we envision the entire network, it would include space-based AMTI, airborne moving target indicator,
01:17which would detect and track aircraft and cruise missiles, a land-based capability such as over-the-horizon radar,
01:24and certainly fighter aircraft with capable interceptors missiles to defeat cruise missiles,
01:32which, in addition to the ranking member's question that I answered on ICBMs,
01:37I think cruise missiles is probably the biggest advancement that we've seen over the past six years,
01:42and that needs to be a part of this integrated system.
01:48Do you get a voice when the services are looking at reductions?
01:54Because your predecessor had expressed concern on the reductions with the Air National Guard,
01:58and they're the ones who are providing the alert capabilities.
02:01Do you feel well enough coordinated with it, and is your comfort zone good right now with what we have?
02:07Yes, sir, to both.
02:07I do get a voice, and I am very comfortable with the Air National Guard's presentation for our alert force.
02:13Okay, thank you.
02:15General Collins, yesterday we voted on a $150 billion plus-up to our defense spending.
02:21We want to get us to about 4% GDP spending, which is the norm.
02:25Right now we're at 2.9%.
02:26It's inadequate for all the systems we want to fuel, plus taking care of our troops.
02:31So I'm excited about what we're going to be able to do this next year to right-size our defense spending.
02:35I think we're going to be spending $5.6 billion on missile defense with this, the money that we apportioned.
02:45What do you think is the first steps for you, and what do you need to feel for space interceptors and things like that?
02:53What's your first priority with this influx of money?
02:56Thank you for that, Congressman.
03:00We certainly do see the opportunity of a reconciliation to begin quickly and bring much-needed resources into the missile defense enterprise.
03:10It really is probably not just one thing.
03:12I think there's really, I think, two lanes to look at when we look at the missile defense enterprise.
03:16And number one is making sure we have the capability capacity with the kit we have today to improve the defense posture today or as quickly as we can.
03:25We can make a difference today with systems that we have.
03:28And then the second piece would be really looking at the disruptive technology piece and pushing on that development piece and getting into an agile prototyping construct as quickly as possible,
03:40whether that be directed energy non-kinetics or space-based interceptors.
03:45And I think we'd look to do a very heavy cyclical prototyping phase to get after that and mature that capability as quickly as possible.
03:53It would seem to me you would have to have a really good sensor system first before you can intercept.
04:00And I know something we've talked about before, obviously ballistic missiles from the sea, from the continent, but the hypersonics are very hard to track.
04:10And so I would see a real need there to really work on the sensor problem first.
04:15Yes, sir.
04:16Much of the kit that we have today, we certainly have proven censored architectures to track ballistic missiles today, ground-based.
04:24And we are one year into our prototyping experiment with the HBTSS, the Hypersonic Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor,
04:34which has been going very well and showing a very positive performance against a hypersonic threat.
04:40And so as part of that, we would look to then expand that.
04:45The Space Force and the Space Development Agency already had a plan to integrate HBTSS into the proliferated warfighting space architecture.
04:52We would look with additional resources to accelerate that as much as possible to bring that capability to bear.
04:58Thank you so much.
04:59And even if we have a differing of opinions on the actual missile defense,
05:02it seems like the sensor stuff is something we could all agree to and we need.
05:07With that, I yield.