The Next Challenge for Missile Defense" Remarks by Peter B. Teets, President and Chief Operating Officer, Lockheed Martin Corporation before the "Ballistic Missile Defense: Requirements & Contracting For Joint Mission Area Acquisition" "
 
Conference ; Arlington, Virginia, February 23, 1999
 
 
Thank you, John (Morton), and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am indeed pleased to be with you today -- and to have this opportunity to speak -- because I cannot think of any more critical national security issue facing our country than ballistic missile defense.
Long isolated from potential threats by two oceans, most Americans have been accustomed to thinking of the United States as a safe haven from the violence that stalks so many parts of the world. But this past year marked a turning point; the American people have been finally forced to confront the encroaching danger of that violence. In this context, I recall the grim observation by Trotsky earlier this century: You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."
A few years from now, we will look back on 1998 as the year when America realized that there are numerous forces on the world scene that would indeed like to bring "war" or at the least, terrorism to our shores. 1998 will be seen as the point when the weight of evidence persuaded us to give up the illusion that we were somehow immune to the aggression and instability that drive the planet’s more extreme regimes.
In this regard, the year’s pivotal events were the nuclear testing duel staged by India and Pakistan last May, the publication of the seminal Rumsfeld Commission Report last July, and -- as if on cue in the wake of that report -- the launch of the three-stage Taepo Dong missile by North Korea a month later.
These events brought home two harsh realities:
One: Despite our longstanding efforts, the nuclear genie -- along with its cousins, biological and chemical weapons -- has escaped its bottle, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is no longer a theoretical threat but a real one.
Two: The threat to the United States and our allies posed by ballistic missiles in the hands of possible adversaries is not a faint image on the distant horizon, but one whose specter grows day by day. I recall the observation a few years back by a Chinese official who asserted that the U.S. would not intervene in any possible military action against Taiwan because American leaders "care more about Los Angeles than they do Taipei."
Now, what these developments mean in the context of today’s discussion is that the case for the threat of missile attack has, I believe, been settled. As the Wall Street Journal recently editorialized, "The long debate over the vulnerability of the United States to ballistic missile attack is over." The threat is real and it is growing. Opponents of missile defense make the argument that ships or pick-up trucks could deliver weapons of mass destruction to America’s shores. That’s true, but the fact remains that ballistic missiles appear to be the "weapon of choice" for more than 20 countries that are either building or have deployed ballistic missiles. All told, there are some 35,000 missiles that pose at least a theoretical risk to the U.S. today.
So the ballistic missile threat looms over the U.S. and, indeed, the entire Western World. It is now time to move on to the next major challenge for ballistic missile defense namely, fielding systems that work and that the public believes are worth the expense. What I would like to do now is set forth some basic principles about BMD, reflecting my perspective as a member of U.S. industry and also as a citizen of the United States with a passionate interest in our national defense.
Having established the threat of missile attack, the next question becomes: Do we have the basic technological tools and insights necessary to confront that threat effectively? Despite the rhetoric of missile defense skeptics, those of us here today understand -- and have understood for some time -- that the basic technology already exists from which we can fashion an effective ballistic missile defense.
Over the last 15 years, America’s BMD "brain trust" has demonstrated the viability of technologies needed to intercept ballistic missiles. These include the Homing Overlay Experiment, ERIS, ERINT which is now called PAC-3 -- and other critical, if less dramatic, programs that were nurtured by the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, its successor, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, and the Armed Services themselves.
Lockheed Martin is proud to have played a key role in many of these efforts. To those of us who have been in the ballistic missile defense business and have seen up close the progress we have made since President Reagan set forth the goal of national missile defense, the debate about whether effective defenses are feasible is another question that has been answered. Which is not to suggest that every aspect of the technology has been resolved. After all, that’s what development programs are all about.
Which brings me to the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, which is being developed by Lockheed Martin. I am sure that everyone in this room is familiar with the testing problems the THAAD missile has experienced over the last three years. I don’t minimize those problems, but let me note that we have responded aggressively to THAAD’s setbacks by redoubling our focus on building quality hardware and software. This means we have brought in experienced management to improve our processes and procedures for assembling and testing THAAD; and we have taken steps to improve the quality of the THAAD missile by an extensive recertification program including, as necessary, rebuilding critical missile components.
Let me also quickly add that, with regard to THAAD, despite its well-publicized problems, a great deal of development work has been accomplished. I think Gen. Montgomery, in his comments this morning, did an excellent job of presenting the results of the THAAD flight testing. In addition, I would point out that the current phase of the program is 95% complete, with 28 of 30 test objectives having been met and full weapon system integration having been demonstrated. The THAAD ground hardware -- radars, launchers, and BM/C4I equipment is in the hands of the U.S. Army. Soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the 6th Air Defense Artillery operate, train on and participate in the THAAD flight tests.
Lockheed Martin’s involvement in missile defense is not restricted to THAAD. We have an important role in the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) program, as well as supporting the U.S. Navy Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (NTBMD). As prime contractor for the PAC-3 missile, we are developing an advanced technology missile that will significantly improve the performance of the existing Patriot weapon system against tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and other air-breathing targets. We plan a flight test of the PAC-3 missile later this week, and after additional flight testing we will soon be producing and fielding this new missile. We are also working with the U.S. government and our NATO allies Germany and Italy on the multi-national Medium Extended Air Defense System or MEADS a jointly developed theater missile defense system.
Furthermore, as prime contractor for the U.S. Navy Aegis Combat System, built around the SPY-1 radar, we are fielding a highly integrated ship-based system that detects and engages a full range of targets, including ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and aircraft. Of particular note, we are implementing modifications to the Aegis Combat System to support Navy Area TBMD, and defining the combat system modifications required to support Navy Theater Wide TBMD in the future. The recent LINEBACKER tracking test off Hawaii has shown the area TBMD system is ready to engage ballistic missile targets from Aegis ships just as soon as the Navy’s Standard Missile is ready. We are proud to be adapting this long-standing partnership with the U.S. Navy to new threats and new missions.
Finally, Lockheed Martin is involved in boost-phase intercept programs, including the Air Force’s Airborne Laser program for theater missile defense and the Space-Based Laser program which someday will provide capabilities for worldwide missile defense from space. The significant advantage of boost-phase defenses Is the ability to destroy missiles before they leave enemy airspace.
I would point out that two of these systems THAAD and PAC-3 -- employ "hit-to-kill" technology. Some have asked whether a "blast-frag" proximity warhead could be substituted, thus allowing a more "forgiving" system of engaging ballistic missiles. One problem with this alternative approach, as numerous studies have shown, is that it lacks the needed "lethality." An essential capability of any missile defense system must be to assure that any type of incoming warhead whether nuclear, chemical or biological is destroyed. Only hit-to-kill assures that when a warhead is struck, it will eliminate the threat. Hit-to-kill is a technology that has worked under experimental conditions -- and we are confident that PAC-3 and THAAD testing this year will demonstrate that the technology has matured to the point where it is ready to proceed into the next phase of development.
One cannot discuss BMD today without acknowledging setbacks in the testing programs, especially of THAAD. Many of our critics seem to have forgotten that testing is an essential part of any development program. In fact, the history of major new systems is replete with examples of initial testing failures eventually giving way to successfully deployed systems and let me add that these systems have provided crucial elements to our national security and the successful resolution of the Cold War. To cite a small sample of such programs:
Corona, the first space-based reconnaissance program, had 12 straight failures before its first success, and then went on to become the key source of information about the Soviet Union during the early years of the Cold War;
the submarine-launched Polaris missile had only four successes out of its first 17 attempts, and then became the backbone of America’s sea-based leg of the nuclear Triad;
the AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile program had 13 straight failures before its first success, and then went on to produce over 110,000 missiles delivered to 27 nations.
The characteristics shared by any missile defense system with these legendary national security programs include:
- very challenging technical requirements in a complex system;
- accelerated schedule; and
- critical national security goals.

Consequently, despite the previous setbacks in the THAAD program, we expect to successfully field THAAD -- and PAC-3 -- and have them perform their important roles in the overall BMD function. My own fear is more what the disappointments with THAAD say about our nation’s collective commitment to state-of-the-art technologies. After all, there has been so much attention placed on these tests that each one assumes "do or die" proportions. In this risk-averse environment, testing may produce the wrong lesson namely, that we cannot test unless we are sure that we will suffer no failures.
This perverse "lesson" raises the bar of testing so high that we become averse to the testing itself. And in a culture where nothing is allowed to go wrong, we will soon find ourselves losing technological leadership with terrible long-term implications for national security.
Beyond the programmatic challenges I have just discussed, BMD must also meet the challenge of "affordability." One might point out that, collectively, BMD programs account for less than two-tenths of one percent of the nearly $1.8-trillion federal budget and in fact represent less than what the American public spends annually on snack foods. But this argument has little credibility in today’s ongoing budget battles on Capitol Hill. What we as believers in BMD need to do is help support those who are advocates for BMD programs meet the challenge of affordability. Clearly, if BMD is not perceived as affordable, this promising program will amount to nothing more than interesting scientific and engineering projects of little practical use to the people of the United States and unknown implications for the future of our country.
While affordability has always been a factor for every new DoD system, there is today an increased emphasis on cost. No doubt the concern about affordability is at least partially a result of the drumbeat of criticism about BMD programs that one sees and hears in the media. It is worthy of note that little of this kind of criticism was evident during the critical days of the Gulf War, when Patriot missiles were intercepting Iraqi Scuds over Israel and Saudi Arabia. It was immediately obvious that any cost differential between Scuds and Patriots was rendered insignificant when compared with the value of the "protected assets" namely, human lives. Another concern about affordability is the unavoidable fact that the nature of the threat means we will need to field multiple, complementary systems. No question, this will mean more expenditures despite the constraints on federal spending and the DoD budget.
Thus, affordability is one of the key challenges of today’s BMD programs, and BMDO Director Gen. Lyles who addressed this conference earlier -- has instituted cost reviews for each of the major BMD systems. These cost reviews are conducted jointly by industry and government and typically focus on several areas, including:
- reducing the cost of key components. We are placing a high priority in our allocation of company R&D dollars on cutting costs in such high value components as the seeker and the divert and attitude control system. These two components alone comprise about 50% of the THAAD missile costs.
- leveraging economies of scale and scope and best practices throughout Lockheed Martin to cut costs.
- examining with the U.S. Army trade-offs between system requirements and system costs that could make additional cost savings possible. Although we need capable systems, we need to be confident that we are designing into them only what is needed to do the job.

Speaking as a representative of industry, we take the cost issue seriously. It is part of our responsibility in fielding a system to make it affordable. We cannot fail to deploy effective ballistic missile defenses, but we also need to make sure we can afford them. Acquisition-reform initiatives have led the way in this arena, with the use of tools such as CAIV (cost as an independent variable), where features and capabilities are rigorously traded against cost in order to remain within budget constraints. Further, the selective adoption of commercial practices and new ways of doing business have driven new economies into the military domain.
One final issue that I believe needs to be raised in this environment is the criticism that BMDO is fielding too many service-specific theater programs to fight synergistically on some future battlefield. Again, I believe this criticism overstates the case. Each service does have specific requirements for its systems. Those requirements involve differences in the type of warhead likely to be encountered, the range and altitude and speed of the warhead, and the type of environment in which the BMD system must be operational. Ultimately, I believe the different requirements of the components of a "family of systems" will strengthen the nation’s overall missile defense and yield more "bang for the buck." I might add that we successfully employed a similar approach during the Cold War with the "Triad" of ground-based, aircraft-based and submarine-based nuclear retaliatory capabilities.
That said, BMDO has reacted to the criticism by using a couple of different approaches that should encourage more synergy in the battlefield use of BMD systems. These are:
- maintaining oversight of a joint TMD architecture and transitioning to joint program offices, which will lead to "commonality" and, in theory, produce more efficient "systems of systems;"
- also, recognizing service-peculiar requirements and enforcing "interoperability" through greater interaction between BMDO and JTAMDO.

Of course, "interoperability" issues are ultimately up to DoD to decide, and a deliberate, objective approach toward the alternative approaches will lead BMD leaders to the correct decisions. For us, system "transparency" would make our job that much easier, and we wholeheartedly endorse the notion that the best BMD system is that in which all approaches including Airborne Laser and National Missile Defense -- are meshed in one, overall, integrated network. In the end, industry will support BMD leaders and do everything within our power to make ballistic missile defense an operational reality early in the next century.
Let me close by making a couple of observations. We still hear from some quarters the assertion that, whatever the demonstrated capabilities of missile-possessing countries, the actual threat to any individual American is remote. In all candor, there is a familiar ring to this argument. I would remind those skeptics of the notion, some six decades ago, that the energy of the atom could be released in a new type of explosive called an "atomic bomb." Very few physicists much less politicians and service officers believed such a technological feat could be achieved.
At the time, Isidor Rabi a professor at Columbia was asked to visit the great Enrico Fermi to ask his opinion of whether a chain reaction could result from the fission of Uranium. Fermi’s reply was that it was a "remote" possibility. "What do you mean by ‘remote’?" Rabi asked. "Well," Fermi replied, "ten percent." Then Rabi quietly uttered the reply that those in the room remembered for years after. He said, "Ten percent is not a remote possibility … if we may die of it."
This is the final reality that everyone in Congress, in the services, and in the country must come to grips with. We face a threat that on paper may appear "remote." In fact, the public believes it to be remote, and polls show that two-thirds of Americans believe that we already have means to intercept incoming missiles. So our challenge, for this conference and beyond, is not only to overcome the technological challenges involved in ballistic missile defense. It is also to become advocates for BMD in our communities and in the corridors of power and wherever we can make our opinions known.
Those of us involved in the business of designing, testing, and building ballistic missile defense systems have a special responsibility to deliver to the United States and our friends and allies around the world a capability that is effective, reliable, and affordable. Personally, I want nothing more than to be able to say that we at Lockheed Martin played an important role in this great effort.
The American public has made it very clear that in the post-Cold War era, it has no stomach for "wars of parity." To their credit, Americans want our fighting forces to be able to win quickly and decisively on the battlefield, with as few casualties as possible. It is our duty to remind them gently at first, but insistently if we must that the concept of "battlefield" is becoming obsolete. There are those in the world who regard Wall Street and Main Street as prime targets in the murky conflict of terrorism.
We recently commemorated a tragic anniversary the tenth anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which took place in December of 1988. A year and a half after that bombing and shortly after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait I read an interview with the Middle East terrorist, Abul Abbas, in the Wall Street Journal. As if to underline the notion that all Western institutions would be regarded as potential targets, Mr. Abbas made a chilling statement that has stayed with me in the intervening decade. He noted, "There is an ancient saying that revenge takes 40 years. If not my son, then the son of my son will kill you. Some day, we will have missiles that can reach New York.
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