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Dear Members and Friends,
This is our 73rd Congressional Roundtable. It is on persistent sensors and glide missile defense. These two areas are significant gaps in our nation's missile defense systems, having overhead persistent sensors and not having the glide phase missile defense capabilities. It has been a requirement by our combatant commanders, probably for over a decade, they come up on posture hearings on the Hill, specifically our CENTCOM, specifically INDOPACOM, specifically NORTHCOM, and request these requirements for the best defense of our forces. It's been a windfall. Last week, the United States Army announced a $4 billion program going towards dirigibles, overhead persistent surveillance, a tremendous win for this. And last week in our previous virtual with MDA director, excuse me, MDA Tim McRae, we put forward that the capability of putting a glide phase missile defense system can be done by 2030 instead of what the timeframe is right now at 2035.
We've had great momentum from great leadership. The turning point has been driven by the warfighter. I give a lot of credit to General Kurilla of CENTCOM to make that movement to get the U.S. Army to provide the capability. I also can go back to Charlie Flynn and INDOPACOM to also support that effort. We also recognize General Glenn VanHerck, who was a former NORTHCOM commander and the current NORTHCOM commander, General Guillot, to be able to move forward with these requirements coming into reality.
We at MDAA have also played a big part in this. We have believed and advocated for these two mission sets. We built our USC SHIELD program four years ago, where we brought in, I think, 76 graduates, where we brought in our warfighters, our acquisition people, our civilians, and to study eight months a year on that. We've developed 23 capstones. Most of them have been courses of action, and most of them have had congressional law done. Two of them, specifically last year on dirigibles, and the other one the year before on guide phase missile defense, have come to fruition. So, we recognize that, and we want to bring forward the challenges, basically, why has it taken this long to get something that is required by the warfighter? And what is exactly that, as much as we can explain it?
So, from my perspective, it certainly can be part of the golden dome architecture for our country and for the world. And we know that these overhead persistent dirigibles are working. They're working in Israel today. They're working in Poland today. And that's great to see.
[Riki Ellison, MDAA Chairman and Founder]
Click here to watch the virtual event
Click here to view transcript
Click here to view USC SHIELD
Click here for USC SHIELD Capstone on Accelerating Solutions to Defend Against Hypersonic Threats Capstone
Click here for USC SHIELD Capstone on An Assessment of the Viability of Dirigibles in Support of United States Missile Defense and National Communications Capstone
Speakers:
Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery
Former Director of Operations, U.S. Pacific Command
Maj Gen (Ret.) Charles Corcoran
Former Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations U.S. Air Force
Mr. JD Gainey
Former Senior Analyst, USINDOPACOM and National Security Affairs and Advanced Technologies
Mr. Riki Ellison
MDAA Founder and Chairman
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