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Mr. Chairman and distinguished members, it is an honor to appear before your Committee. I have been asked to discuss with the Committee the subject of National Missile Defense (NMD): Test Failures and Technology Development. As part of this testimony I will also explore the relationship between the ABM Treaty provisions and current proposals to design, test and deploy an effective missile defense system as well as the need for that capability.

The debate over the development and deployment of national and theater missile defense capabilities (NMD/TMD) by the United States essentially boils down to two fundamental issues. First, is there a need for such capabilities and second, can effective missile defense systems be built within a reasonable time frame?

In 1998, I had the privilege to serve on the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the U.S., better known as the Rumsfeld Commission. As you may recall, the prevailing National Intelligence Estimate on the ballistic missile threat to the U.S., NIE 95-19, forecast the emergence of new ballistic missile threats to the U.S. over a fifteen-year period. The Rumsfeld Commission, made up of individuals appointed by Majority and Minority Leadership of the House and Senate, concluded after reviewing the data that a ballistic missile and associated WMD threat to the U.S. was developing much more rapidly. Furthermore, the report went on to conclude that several nations unfriendly to the U.S. and its allies were developing both short and long-range ballistic missile capabilities that could be used to threaten the U.S within a few years.

In view of the rapidly emerging ballistic missile threat to the U.S. and our allies around the world, the need for the development and deployment of both theater and national missile defense systems by the US is driven by five major factors. 1) The preservation of U.S. freedom of action in the world by preventing ballistic missile blackmail. 2) The maintenance of U.S. security guarantees and alliances. 3) The deterrence of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. 4) The deterrence of missile and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation and 5) Denial of an enemy's political/ military objectives if deterrence fails.

The first three factors are directly related and stem from a very important lesson that was learned by much of the world as a result of America's overwhelming victory in the Gulf War. This lesson was that the key to deterring U.S. military intervention in a region or effectively fighting the US in a war was to avoid conventional conflict and instead resort to asymmetric warfare using such weapons as ballistic missiles armed with WMDs. The coercive power of asymmetric weapons could be especially effective if the US homeland could be threatened. Consequently, to avoid international blackmail and self deterrence from asymmetric weapons or from an actual attack by nuclear, biological and/ or chemical weapons, the US and its allies must expediously develop and deploy highly effective national and theater missile defense systems. Other types of asymmetric warfare, such as cyber, terrorist attacks and suitcase bombs are also real possibilities and will require still other types of defenses.

When the U.S. makes the commitment to deploy robust missile defenses, two additional benefits will result. The first is that many of our potential adversaries are likely to be deterred from further ballistic missile proliferation activities. This will occur because they will be unable to match the level of technology and resources the U.S. can devote to the problem and will find ballistic missile and WMD proliferation to be an increasingly futile endeavor with rapidly diminishing returns. In essence, U.S. deployment of NMD and TMD systems will deter proliferation by diminishing the single biggest incentive to proliferate: the relatively cheap, easy and high leverage nature of acquiring ballistic missiles. The second is that for those adversaries who remain undeterred, the U.S. will eliminate a major vulnerability and deny any potential military advantage from possession of these types of weapons. This in turn will restore the importance of our conventional military advantage and diminish the threat of both war and escalation.

While the need for the development and deployment of effective missile defense systems by the U.S. and its allies is self-evident to many given the growing ballistic missile and WMD threat, this perception is not universally held. Some believe that while this threat exists it can best be handled by nuclear deterrence, arms control and other diplomatic means. The problem with this approach is that it has been practiced for decades and has led to the current world situation where both the missile and WMD threat continues to grow and proliferate. This in turn has given rise to potential situations where deterrence as we traditionally understand it may no longer be effective. The answer to a failing policy is not more of the same but the formulation of a new policy.

While nuclear deterrence and diplomacy will continue to play important roles in U.S. counter-proliferation policy, missile defenses and other military measures will strengthen U.S. counter-proliferation policy, providing substance and therefore more diplomatic leverage. Arguments to the effect that U.S. development and deployment of BMD systems will trigger a new arms race are specious in view of the fact that the proliferating nations are already racing at full speed. What we must now do is try and counter the growing threat.

Many missile defense critics have questioned the technical feasibility and testing methodology of ballistic missile defense systems. This is especially the case for NMD rather than TMD, since as a result of the U.S., Coalition, and Israeli experience of being attacked by ballistic missiles during the Gulf War, the need for theater missile defenses is now widely understood and accepted.

Technical feasibility and testing questions can be addressed from the vantage points of both U.S. experience and technology. There is in my view no technical reason to doubt the ability of the U.S. to deploy several NMD and TMD systems that would be highly effective against the existing and foreseeable ballistic missile forces of all potential adversaries with the possible exception of Russia. This view may seem to be at odds with much of the U.S. missile defense testing to date, but that testing must be considered in a realistic context.

The testing of systems, subsystems and components, especially early in the developmental cycle of a program, is designed to achieve two fundamental objectives. The first is to validate the engineering models that have been used in the design of the system, subsystems and components, and the second, is to find and characterize things that were not included in the models but need to be considered. In short, the purpose of system testing, especially in the demonstration/validation phase of a program, is to learn and improve the design rather then achieve immediate success. The more complex the system being developed, the more rapid and funding-constrained the development, and the less experience the developers have with similar systems, the more system testing failures one should expect. All of these conditions apply in some degree to the tests that have been conducted to date for both theater and national ballistic missile defense systems using "hit to kill" technology.

In essence, a politically driven insistence on low risk and early success in developmental testing poses a severe threat to U.S. leadership in the development of advanced technology in general and cutting edge technology weapon systems in particular. Systems that are required to be low-risk from the outset must avoid the introduction of new and frequently untested technologies. Since the development and early introduction of new technologies is America's strong suit, insisting on low risk and complete early test success is tantamount to giving up much of the strong, asymmetrical advantage that the U.S. has acquired through its enormous investment in advanced science and technology. The time to hold weapon systems to a high standard of test success is in the late phases of engineering development and especially in operational test and evaluation. By this time the problems encountered in system development should have been worked out and the system should be nearly ready for deployment.

In view of the above observations, it should not be surprising that TMD and NMD systems have had several failures in their developmental testing programs. However, there is an unusual, disturbing aspect to the failures encountered so far. In most cases they have not occurred in the new, cutting-edge technology aspects of the systems tested, but rather in technologies that were developed decades ago and are well understood features of rocket and missile design. The failures to date are typical of those caused by a lack of systems integration experience rather than a lack of knowledge in missile and rocket systems design, and may be related to several characteristics of the U.S. defense industrial base. These include the rapid down-sizing of the defense industry over the last decade, the small number of new systems that have been developed in that time period, the absence of new systems being produced, deployed, and operated for several decades and the inability of the defense industry to attract new technical talent and mentor its technical workforce in the face of strong economic competition from the high-tech commercial sector. The U.S. is learning once again that engineering, programmatic, and operational experience is a difficult and expensive capability to acquire, and an easy capability to lose.

What is also clear is that hit-to-kill missile defense systems have performed very well in their terminal homing and hard body intercept phases when the target is "in the basket" of the terminal seeker and the interceptor is operating under autonomous control. This is, from a technical perspective, the newest and most challenging part of hit-to-kill intercept, and therefore the aspect in which test failures are most likely to occur. To date, the results have been very encouraging. For targets "in the basket", hard body intercepts have occurred in the majority of the tests, which is an excellent record at this point in the development of the technology. Collectively, almost 80% of the time "hit to kill" interceptor technology has worked when given a chance to perform its mission.

Some missile defense critics have claimed that the reason for the 80% success rate of "hit to kill" interceptors is that missile defense testing is rigged. This charge is based on a misconception of how a proper test program is structured. A successful weapon system test program begins by trying to demonstrate proof of principle for both the system concept and its underlying technology. Frequently, this is done by adopting a building block approach to system testing which progresses from easier to more difficult testing objectives. The predecessor tests to the current NMD program, HOE and ERIS, used cooperative targets in a few of their tests to demonstrate proof of principle. For THAAD and the current NMD testing regime, non-cooperative targets have been used. While using representative threat targets today, future testing will become even more rigorous as both systems move through their development programs. For NMD there are at least 16 more flight tests planned before the initial system is deployed, and very stressing targets will be used in the later phases of the test program.

Even with the anomalous character of the system test failures to date, if missile defense systems are evaluated by the normal testing standards for weapon systems rather then the "unique" testing standard the critics want to hold these systems to, their track record compares favorably with most defense programs. The following chart graphically illustrates this point by comparing the developmental testing results of missile defense programs to date with some of the most successful rocket, missile and satellite programs in history.

It has also been asserted that missile defense systems, and especially the NMD system, are being "rushed to failure". This charge ignores the fact that the ballistic missile threat is real and growing dramatically. In addition it ignores the fact that the U.S. has, in an on-again, off-again manner, been developing and trying to deploy missile defense systems for over 40 years, with the last 20-year period devoted to the development and deployment of non-nuclear systems. The principal reason for this long gestation period is not technology and engineering problems, but political problems having to do with consistency of purpose and the associated funding commitment. The critics like to point out that since 1983 alone when the SDI began the U.S. has spent over $ 50 billion on missile defense programs with very little to show for it. This contention fails to acknowledge the fact that the US was ready to deploy an effective NMD system based on ERIS/GBI, GBR and GSTS as early as 1996 before funding was cut and the programs reduced from system development to technology base status in 1993. With consistency of purpose and reliable funding levels, the U.S. can still deploy highly effective and robust TMD and NMD architectures by 2010, with the initial capabilities fielded around 2005. Unfortunately, the President's recent decision to defer construction of ground-based NMD facilities this year will delay the fielding of an initial NMD capability by at least one additional year.

Missile defense critics also frequently assert that missile defenses and especially NMD systems must achieve near-perfect levels of effectiveness. This is usually accompanied by warnings that if one or more nuclear tipped warheads penetrate the defense shield, the results will be catastrophic, and therefore a 90%-95% effective system would not be worth deploying. While even one nuclear warhead landing on the US is certainly catastrophic, the argument overlooks some basic realities. First, the primary purpose of any missile defense system, and particularly NMD, is deterrence. Once such a system is in place and especially if it is multi-layered, it will be impossible for a potential adversary to predict beforehand if any of its warheads would penetrate U.S. defenses and which warheads would reach their intended targets. Consequently, given the huge uncertainties involved, the effect of such an attack would be unknown to the attacker, thereby strengthening deterrence. If on the other hand the adversary is an irrational or desperate actor and is impossible to deter, then missiles defenses become America's best insurance policy!

The best way to increase the effectiveness of any missile defense system to high levels is to layer the system. However, this option is currently prevented by the constraints of the ABM Treaty, which severely biases the type of NMD architecture the U.S. can deploy. The current NMD system architecture calls for a single battle management radar and no more than 100 land-based interceptors located in Alaska, a location chosen in large part for its proximity to trajectories of missiles launched from North Korea. This system architecture approximates some but not all of the features of a single site ballistic missile defense deployment permitted under the terms of the ABM Treaty as amended at Vladivostok in 1974. A more robust U.S. NMD architecture would be based on a multi- layered system similar to what is being developed for TMD, with ground, sea, and air-based systems working together in a synergistic manner for maximum near term capability, and space-based elements, including lasers, added as soon as possible to further increase overall effectiveness.

Unfortunately, the options available to the U.S. to create even a modestly robust NMD architecture are forbidden by the ABM Treaty. While the current NMD architecture is not as easily defeated as the critics assume, there is also no doubt that the current architecture could be strengthened. Some of the most important NMD architecture options and measures that are constrained by the ABM Treaty are as follows. The Treaty:

• Prevents the full- scale development, testing and deployment of a territorial defense system for the U.S.
• Prevents the full- scale development, testing and deployment of sea-based NMD systems.
• Prevents the full-scale development, testing and deployment of both air-based and space-based NMD systems, including kinetic energy and directed energy weapons.
• Prevents the full-scale development, testing and deployment of interceptors with more then one warhead on them, thereby inhibiting the ability of the defense to handle the sub-munitions threat.
• Limits the NMD deployment to no more than a single site with no more then 100 interceptors and prevents deployment of that site at any location other than in defense of the national capitol or an ICBM missile field.
• Prevents the deployment of radars at Shemya Alaska or other additional locations if they perform ballistic missile defense functions.
• Prevents all sensor systems (SBIRS Low, sea-based radars etc) other then the fixed ground based battle management radar from communicating directly with the interceptor thereby significantly reducing the interceptor's battle space and defended area footprint.
• Prevents the full-scale development, testing and deployment of mobile ground-based or sea-based battle- management radars or other sensor systems that could be substituted for radars, thereby rendering the NMD system more vulnerable to defense suppression attacks against the fixed ground based battle management radar.
• Limits the testing of TMD systems against certain long range theater ballistic missiles like the Taepo Dong 2 and prevents the upgrading of TMD and air dense systems into NMD capable systems.
• Limits, depending on treaty interpretation, the burnout velocity of certain TMD systems with a proposed demarcation being 3km per second for safe versus treaty questionable systems.

Partially in response to the above ABM Treaty limitations, missile defense critics have asserted that missile defense systems and especially the proposed NMD system would be easily defeated by simple countermeasures. While certainly a cause for concern in view of the constraints imposed by the ABM Treaty, the countermeasures argument ignores a number of technical realities. The addition of countermeasures takes up offensive warhead payload weight and adds deployment complexity to an offensive ballistic missile, providing an immediate benefit from the defense. Furthermore, while it is easy to assert that countermeasures built by developing countries would work reliably, U.S., allied and Russian experience has been the opposite. For example, the press accounts of the last NMD test note that one of the target's decoy balloon failed to deploy properly, which is one of many problems frequently encountered with even "simple' countermeasures.

Another implicit assumption that the critics make is that U.S. NMD systems will remain technologically static while any adversary develops sophisticated countermeasures. The current U.S. NMD program has a number of government sponsored threat teams and countermeasures programs such as BMDO's Hercules countermeasures program to challenge it. In addition, the U.S. has one of the finest technical intelligence capabilities in the world, and as our potential adversaries test their countermeasures, the U.S. will be able to observe those countermeasures with much more sophisticated radar and optical sensors, based on ship, land, air, and space-based platforms, than the adversary will be able to build or deploy. Therefore, we will have better real-world performance characteristic data than the countermeasure developer will have, allowing us to fully understand and adapt to both obvious and subtle features of the countermeasures, some of which will not be known even to the countermeasures builders, while the countermeasures are still in development.

In conclusion, the effect of a multi-layer architecture, when deployed and on alert, would be a strong deterrent to the threat of ballistic missile attack from any country with the exception of a full-scale attack from Russia. The U.S. can develop and deploy a robust, multi-layer ballistic missile defense architecture if the political commitment is made to do so.

This concludes my testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.