Continental Defense in the 21st Century

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This transcript was generated with the assistance of AI. Please report inconsistencies to comms@afa.org.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Good afternoon, everyone. I am Jennifer Reeves, senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute’s Space Power Advantage Center of Excellence. Welcome to this afternoon’s panel, Continental Defense in the 21st Century. Continental Defense in the 21st Century marks the next great evolution of homeland security. At its core is integrated and integrated security. At its core is integrated air and missile defense, strengthened by today’s proven architectures and tomorrow’s emerging technologies. Together these capabilities will shield our nation from threats across every domain, land, air, sea, space, and even cyber. This is a once in a generation effort and it will demand a whole of industry mobilization. That’s why I’m thrilled to be joined today by four industry leaders to explore both the challenges we must overcome and the opportunities we cannot afford to miss. So to discuss this topic, I am joined by Steve Arnette, chief operations officer for Amentum. Welcome, Steve. Robert Lightfoot, president Lockheed Martin Space. Welcome, Robert. Dr. Rob Fleming, corporate vice president and president Northrop Grumman Space. Welcome, Rob. And Ed Zoiss, president Space and Airborne Systems, L3Harris. Welcome, Ed. Gentlemen, thank you for being here. And without further delay, let’s dive into some questions. Air and missile defense isn’t new, but today’s threat environment is far more complex than anything we’ve faced before, even during the Cold War. Robert, can you unpack the threats facing the homeland today? Do Russia’s strikes against Ukraine and Iran’s air and missile strikes on Israel foreshadow what America could face?

Robert Lightfoot:

Well, I think one of the challenges that we have as a nation is we’ve had the advantage of the tyranny of distance. We have two oceans separating us from other locations and from a lot of our peer adversaries. The difference now is they have capability to reach us. They can reach out and touch us in a way that maybe none of us are going to be comfortable with when we think about that threat. If you take that threat, the threat that they can reach us now, and you take the threat that we’re seeing in space, where space has become a contested domain, it’s an area where we as a team have to come together to see what we can do to protect our homeland. I think the systems we have today were built for a different fight. That’s the fight that we have to address. I think if you go back to some of the data that’s been released by the Space Force in terms of what the Chinese have done, how many satellites they’ve put up, how many different things they’re doing, the operations you’re seeing in space that they’re doing, there’s a real threat not only to the space domain, which is pretty key to most of our terrestrial activities, but there’s also a threat that keeps us from protecting the homeland with some sort of a defense mechanism that we’ve got to put in place. I think that’s the threat. I think that’s the difference. Everybody always asks, “Golly, we tried this in the ’80s. What’s different?” I think what’s different now is we’re not as probably protected by those oceans as we were in the past.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Speaking of the past, our ballistic missile defense architecture of today is rooted in technologies really dating back to the Cold War. But as we’ve just heard, the threat environment has changed drastically. So, Rob, why is it so important that we continue to improve our ballistic missile defense architecture in light of these adversary threats?

Dr. Robert Fleming:

I think that’s pretty self-evident in terms of protecting the nation. To Robert’s point, the threats are evolving quickly. We’ve been moving since the Cold War, advancing our capabilities, putting investment in as a nation. But really, a lot of the solutions were focused on a smaller problem set. It was more around sort of rogue nation and sized for those types of threats. So, as we look forward at the problem that we have now, to Robert’s point, you’ve got fractional orbit bombardment systems. We also saw those publicly circumnavigating the globe, presenting new kind of threats. There’s a multi-orbit variant of that. We’ve seen from the conflict in the Middle East, you know, raid scenarios where large numbers of weapons were launched by Iran in that case. Just really challenging and stressing on the systems. Now, as a nation, you know, and my colleagues and I and the rest of the defense industrial base has a ton of capability that can be brought to bear. So, you know, as we go after these threats, it’s whether they’re ballistic, whether they’re hypersonic, whether they’re in raid configuration, you know, thinking about the C2, thinking about the ground systems, the fire control, the interceptors themselves. I mean, that’s the substance of what needs to be done. I know we’re up for it. I think we’ll spend a little bit of time talking about that today.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Yeah, I think so. That’s exactly what we’re going to talk about. So, we’re not starting from scratch, as you mentioned, when it comes to continental defense. We have existing architectures and capabilities in place, but we will need to expand and integrate new technologies. So, let’s hear from Ed, your industry perspective, and talk to us about this dynamic, and tell us about the opportunities it creates, as well as maybe some of the challenges.

Ed Zoiss:

Yeah, first, I would like to agree with my colleagues here. Look, the threat is real. You know, as Robert mentioned, the fractional orbital bombardment system, it did pose a threat that we hadn’t seen before, a maneuverable threat, a threat that maneuvers around our land and sea-based radars, which is why we have to move many of the capabilities that have been traditionally terrestrial now up into the space layer to handle these complex threats. It’ll also have to really bring AI and fast decision-making in order to counter these, you know, very serious challenges to the homeland. You know, that’s really one end of the spectrum. You know, I want to touch on another end. I mean, all of us have been watching what’s been playing out in Ukraine. We saw how creative and inventive Ukraine has been to defend their homeland, you know, against the threats that they’re seeing. You know, when we look at what happened with containerized systems of small UAVs near military bases, you know, that really speaks to, you know, the amount of containers and inputs that we get as a nation that comes through our ports. And it should all really give us pause that we have a lower-tech threat in addition to this advanced high-tech threat that we’re going to have to face when we think about defending our homeland. Because oftentimes we talk about the exquisite threats. There are going to be low-tech threats as well that we’ll need to have different processes, different screening methods for things that are coming into our nation so that we can avoid the type of tactical surprise that the Ukrainians employed with Russia. So a lot of different pieces are going to need to come together, you know, from very low-tech to very high-tech to really put together this continental defense system that, you know, our nation is contemplating.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Yeah, I agree, Ed. I mean, I think that’s a really good point. It’s a huge undertaking in the 21st century, very different than what we’ve dealt with before. And the infrastructure will likely span the globe. It will extend hundreds of kilometers from the Earth’s surface into space. There’s going to have to be some level of command and control. And let’s hear from Steve about what that means for our existing C2 infrastructure and how it needs to change with our high order threats, low order threats, et cetera.

Steve Arnette:

It’s a great point. I think that it’s worth, while we acknowledge and all of the speakers have talked about the evolving threat, and the evolving threat is going to drive new layers and new capabilities that will have to come into the picture, as has already been mentioned, I think it is worth taking just a second to highlight how, if you look at today, our missile defense system, how much advance and how much great capability there has been built into that system, which can be leveraged going forward as part of future continental defense systems. I know that we’ll have to add layers and capabilities, high tech and low tech has already been mentioned, but there’s a lot there that we feel really good about. If we think about evolving the system in the future, kind of the governing principle I think is the rapid evolution of the threat, as has been mentioned, and it’s a creation imperative for speed. So, thinking about kind of the joint development enterprise spanning government and industry, I think some of what we hear, agile development is something that’s just going to have to be embraced by all, kind of common standards, data protocols that we can all from the beginning be working in the same direction, not get hung up with delays and integrating component systems into overarching architecture. But also, the recognition that because of the speed imperative, we will probably, and I think it bears saying, have to accept incremental more risk in the operational layer. We cannot let incrementally better or ever better become the enemy of good enough, and we’ll have to really bake that into how we jointly develop and deploy.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Yeah, I think I’ve heard some leaders actually, some military leaders talk about that exact thing at this exact conference. So, maybe we should talk about some specifics. Hypersonic weapon systems are extremely difficult to track with today’s space-based sensors. The hypersonic ballistic tracking space sensors, or HBTSS, are designed to actually change that. So, let’s hear from Ed. Can you talk about the challenges hypersonic weapons present and how your colleagues at L3Harris are working to confront them?

Ed Zoiss:

Absolutely. Look, we talk about the Cold War threat with missiles. What we’re really talking about is ballistic missiles. So, if you know the trajectory of the missile at takeoff, then you really know where it’s going to end, the end point of it. That’s not the case anymore with a hypersonic threat, because the hypersonic threat is a maneuverable threat. And so, it’s not good enough just to know what the ascent is at takeoff and plan the trajectory of the interceptor based on a ballistics, high school physics, that we all took on a ballistic trajectory. These hypersonic weapons don’t obey that. And so, what we need is constant custody of these incoming threats. So, we need to know where they’re at all times. And in addition to constant custody, we need to be able to provide fire control coordinates now from the space layer, because these systems, these new threats can maneuver around, as I said before, our ground-based and sea-based radars. And so, we can’t provide an interceptor lock necessarily from terrestrial means. It has to move into space. That was the whole purpose of the HBTSS system that was demonstrated on orbit. It was really moving that fire control layer to space in order to provide interceptors on the ground, those real-time coordinates for that intercept. So, the system has been proven, it’s successful. In fact, it was called out in the President’s Executive Order. It was one of the only items that was called out with the word “accelerate.” If you go back and look at the Executive Order, it was the first part of it. It said, “Accelerate the HBTSS system,” because it’s so important.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

That’s spectacular.

Steve Arnette:

If we could maybe just add one comment to the HDBSS, which, credit to Ed and team, that’s been very successful. I did want to mention, thinking about the go-forward, we have been honored to develop the ground system that supports HDBSS and everything from the space enterprise architecture to the hosting of software and operations and sustainment and all the rest. And the reason I mention that is HDBSS, certainly the advanced sensors and that capability that Ed mentioned, but even the common ground space enterprise architecture are things that one could imagine taking advantage of and leveraging forward into future systems. So, I think there’s a lot there for us to harvest moving forward.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Yeah, sounds great.

Robert Lightfoot:

I think now that you’ve done good, Steve, and broken the chain of just answering the question, we’ll jump in and make this a dialogue. I also think one of the things we’re going to have to do is, we have traditionally bought kit in kind of stovepipes. And I think to get after the threat we’re talking about, the multiple threats we’re talking about, we’re going to find that we have kit that was purchased for or acquired for a different reason that might have applications across these different things than what it was originally meant for. And we all work on systems that do that. The goal for protecting the homeland is going to be how do we stitch those together, maybe in a different way, and that’s where the C2 is going to become super important. Not necessarily C2 of the individual systems, but the integrated C2 across. Because I think we will find — I know we will find certain kit today that maybe had this use, but can be used over here and it’s already up there. And so that’s going to be important for speed, too, is leveraging what we already have in place.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Absolutely. Situational awareness, then followed by C2.

Dr. Robert Fleming:

Yeah, and if I could add to that. So, I mean, it’s been an evolving architecture. So, if you look at the systems that have been in place that have defended the nation to this point, a lot of the strategic missile warning capabilities that have been the unblinking eye, that have really been designed for those original threats where we needed to understand, you know, has there been a rogue nation ICBM launch that is ultimately going to require a decision by the president as to whether there’s a response or not. And so what’s happened over the last decade in particular has been there’s been an evolution of the architecture from I’ll say largely a HEO and GEO-based architecture to now integrating other orbits at different altitudes for different reasons. And there’s good physics reasons for all of these elements. And you’ve seen the Missile Defense Agency, you’ve seen the Space Development Agency, and all of our companies have provided solutions, whether it’s HPTSS, like myself and Ed, tracking layers of which multiple companies here are participating. All of these integrate together and there’s work to be done because there’s objective architectures and then there’s the reality of we’re just now getting into T1 launches for SDA, and then there’s going to be T2 and T3 is going through the solicitation process. And all of this needs to then get integrated to these great points so that we understand what the total picture is, what the C2 is, who’s going to make the decisions, and there are lots of agencies with lots of handoff points that need to be resolved. So there’s a lot of work ahead for the whole industry.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

I think you’re right. So let’s go with another example of some concrete stuff here and talk about space-based interceptors. So they may sound a little more like science fiction than reality, but they’re actually being explored as a way to engage threats earlier in their flight trajectory. So let’s start with Rob. Can you help our audience understand where you guys stand, maybe the industry at large, on space-based interceptors and then when such technologies might even become operational?

Dr. Robert Fleming:

I thought if I put my mic down that Robert would answer the question for me, but he didn’t get the cue. Yeah, so I know everybody wants to know what our solution, whether it’s me or one of my friends here, what is our space-based interceptor answer and what is it used for? Clearly in a nice open forum we’re not going to get into those conversations. It’s an important part of the future architecture, and I think most importantly to the earlier points about, from a sensing point of view there are multiple layers. From an interceptor point of view there are multiple layers. And so it’s really a large system engineering architecture problem, and it’s heavily driven by economics. So early days before my time, brilliant eyes, brilliant pebbles, some of the early work done on this topic set, you fast forward decades, we now have different technology, multiple companies, propulsion, low-cost buses, much more advanced sensors, system engineering tools that enable us to make trades a lot faster than we used to. So we have many more tools in our tool belts to figure out where we want to solve a space-based interceptor problem, but we need to work through all of that architecture to figure out the trade space between altitude, between effect at what price point, et cetera. So there’s a lot of work to be done. There’s money involved to get that figured out. I would say that as a nation we know how to solve the problem. We just need to navigate through some really important decisions.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Okay, that’s great.

Robert Lightfoot:

I also think the other enabler here is launch. We have better access to launch than we’ve ever had. You go back to the ’80s, I mean we used to call them Christmas tree satellites. You got one flight a year, you put everything you could on that satellite, right, and it got expensive and tried to solve everybody’s answer. Now we have the ability to refresh. We can put things up, we can refresh them quickly because the launch industry has come along as well to help the situation. And I think to Rob’s point and to my other point is I think we have kit out there that we can piece together to get after the SBI for Missile Defense Challenge. It’s just a matter of how we’re going to — how can we put those together? And I think part of this is going to be multiple options. Give the warfighters multiple options, right? And if we can pull that off and do it in a cost-effective way, you’re not relying on just one bullet, right? You got more options.

Dr. Robert Fleming:

And you know the threat is not just the threat in the brilliant eyes, brilliant pebbles days, right? As Ed was talking about, maneuverable, hypersonic, different orbits. So the architecture trade space is larger than it used to be, right? Again, we know how to get after it. Importantly, there is, again, to Steve’s earlier points around the C2, the fire control, weapon target pairing, latencies that are involved, all the work that needs to be done, I would say that the defense industrial base is up to the task.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Oh, I love that. Well, Steve, let’s talk about data. Continental defense will generate enormous amounts of information, and turning that into actionable insight will be a major challenge. So where do technologies like AI and ML come into the picture, and where must humans stay in the loop?

Steve Arnette:

It’s a great question, and of course, as has already been mentioned here several times, I mean, we’re upstream of specific solutions or even architectures, but I think there are, for the group today, maybe just a couple, three ideas that I hear people in the community talking about. And I think the first, if you think about an integrated continental defense system, and it seems as though we’ll need to have some kind of, at the top level, I’ll call it, a ground and software layer that is able to fuse data and create an integrated picture of situational awareness, but at the same time be able to hand off battle management to different regions, which is something very different than we’ve known in the past. And I think the second idea that seems to, people are actively debating and thinking about is this idea of distributed command. If we think about the future and a potential raid scenario, if you will, no single node is going to be able to manage that fight. And so thinking about building in the resiliency and kind of the distributed command nature of future solutions, I think is even self-evident in some of the panel colleagues’ remarks as well. I think that’s absolutely going to come into play. The ability to shift control seamlessly and then allow more compute and processing closer to the threat. And I think the last part, an idea that is certainly getting a lot of attention, this idea of how do humans fit into the chain, and humans do remain central. I think that that will certainly always be the case, and it seems that if we think about artificial intelligence automation, there’s to be able to leverage that capability to be able to, I’ll say, triage and prioritize. But at the same time, and you can envision maybe giving the individual commander, you know, quickly the situational picture or even to have, you know, optionality or recommendations, but humans are commanders to retain the judgment and authority to be able to approve or adjust or accept, but to be able to more quickly give them that picture and give them the optionality. So I think those ideas really come into play with data.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Okay. Super. Yeah, definitely it has to be dealt with. So now we’re going to ask a couple of questions and ask each panelist to give their thoughts on some holistic ideas here. In the event of an attack on CONUS, Continental Defense will need to defeat multiple incoming threats, not just one at a time. And we’ve talked about it. These could include ballistic and cruise missiles, hypersonic maneuvering vehicles, and even space-based weapons. So how do we build that overall system capable of handing that kind of threat volume? And, Robert, let’s start with you.

Robert Lightfoot:

Look at me. You know, I think the key is going to be defining the resiliency that we want. And resiliency can come in a bunch of different ways. You can talk to people about–I’ll use space as an example. You can talk about making the spacecraft resilient, the single spacecraft resilient against all threat, or you can talk about the architecture of that spacecraft as part of being resilient. And I think oftentimes we talk about the technical resiliency of the systems that we’re talking about putting in place. I think part of the resiliency we’re going to have is the industrial base of this nation, where we will have multiple options and multiple providers to do different parts of this mission. And, you know, I think when you think about–if you think about this–again, I was at NASA for a while, so I always go back to the Apollo days. This is like an Apollo moment. And back then, you know, the government said, “You’re doing this, you’re doing this, you’re doing this, and you’re doing this.” And that’s what we’re going to have to do first to get speed, and then second, to hold each other accountable as an industrial base to meet the need that the nation has. So that to me is the resiliency, is that you depend on the whole of this nation, not just Lockheed, Northrop, L3, Momentum, anybody else you want to pick. It’s all of us coming together to get after this threat and help the warfighter get to the point that they can do this. One of the things that I’ll pile on with Steve, part of this resiliency is, if you go back in time, we got, what, maybe gigabytes or even kilobytes from space. Now we’re getting flops. And we have got to give the, that’s a human factors problem. Doesn’t mean you take the human out of the loop, but you have got to help the human not get overwhelmed by what’s coming in. And that’s part of the resiliency as well. Give people digestible, decision support data, or COAs, whatever you want to do. So I think, to me, resiliency has to be defined at the system level, not at the individual piece, because the individual, if I make each piece resilient, it’s going to be way too expensive. We’re never going to get there. But if we think about the checks and balances or the who’s going to catch if we mess up here, to me it’s all about defining that resiliency the right way.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Nice. Rob, any thoughts from a Northrop perspective?

Dr. Robert Fleming:

Yeah, so a couple of thoughts. I think it’s important to look at the time horizons in which we want to solve certain problems. If there’s a 27, 28 timeframe problem, if there’s a 20, 30, or 20, 35. Because depending on what specific timeline you’re interested in, it sort of predisposes you to certain outcomes. So if it’s a 20, 28 problem, and we’re asking for money from Congress now, right, how long is it going to take before you get companies on contract to start building capability, right? And therefore, you’re not going to be able to have a five-year development program to develop a new capability. So therefore, a 20, 28 timeframe closes the door on a bunch of capabilities. They might be valid for 20, 30, and 20, 35, and they may be important and necessary. So I think it’s really important to sort of look at those timelines and then say, okay, for a 20, 28 problem, we’re going to need to go and procure capabilities that we have by any number of industry providers and get moving with those. Because there’s a lead time for everything, software, hardware, you name it. And so go get the capabilities that you need, that we need, and then move out with the development programs for the second and third epics, if you want to use that term. I think in terms of defeating the whole range of threats, I think there’s a ton of capability that much of industry has. I mean, I can speak for Northrop. We build a large number of solid rocket motors. We have a massive additional capacity that’s available for all sorts of applications. So there’s one simple example of where if the nation needs more SRMs, you can buy that from us. Each of us could give you a business development line of like, here are the things that will take orders at the back of the room. But my point being is that if we sort of peel back the onion and say, what does everybody have today because we have a 20, 28 problem, you will find that there’s a ton of capability today. Satellites, SRMs, software capabilities, you name it. Then there’s the 2030 and 2035, and those are the harder problems to solve that are going to take a little bit longer. We certainly need to be focused on those two. We have always learned this, that we’re addressing the problem of the last war. And so what we don’t want to find out is in 2028, oh, if only we’d started these other programs back in 2024 and 2025 to be ready for 2030 threat. So judicious decision making there is really important.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Steve, thoughts?

Steve Arnette:

I think in your question about threat volume, I mean, I think that is an interesting one. If you try to project forward and think about kind of all the dimensions of that and how would you combat a threat volume challenge and imagine how we would effectively counter, I think you quickly find yourself in a place where we’re having to leverage not only kinetic, non-kinetic, even electronic warfare to be able to avoid saturation and being able to have all those multiple layers available to draw upon. And just the recognition how different that is, the system that we have today, but to make sure that we have, let’s say, the depth to maintain the cost exchange trade space. So I think that’s absolutely something that comes into play in the future.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Awesome. Okay, Ed.

Ed Zoiss:

So, look, I’m not going to copy what my colleague said, but I’ll leave you with three thoughts. I think thing one would be we’re very good at making systems, industry, whatever those systems are. I think the big challenge for us as a nation is really stitching them all together, is really pulling all of these systems, whether they’re space-based, ground-based, wherever they’re at, pulling them all together to make sense out of it in order to counter threats that are coming at us real time. I think that’s the hardest problem because we’ll make a space sensing layer, we’ll provide munitions. It’s really being able to pull all those pieces together to act on the incoming threats, and I think that’s the big work that we’ve got in front of us as an organization. I think the second thing is the systems that we are providing today need to become smarter. They need to start embedding that AI/ML in the systems, even in the spacecraft. We’re looking at small language models that we can put in spacecraft to do discrimination, to provide some level of triage before the ground systems have to triage whatever the threats are. I think a great example of that is what MDA is contemplating with the discriminating space sensor, which already starts to look at what’s the difference between the actual incoming warhead, the threat, and the chaff and decoys that adversaries may apply. So we need to have smarter systems that help us in the fight. And the third thing, I think Rob touched on it a little bit, is what’s the magazine depth that we’re going to have as a nation? Because if you could imagine missile raids coming in, we’re going to need a lot of interceptors to go handle that, and we can’t, in day three or day four, have our magazines depleted. And not only do we have to have enough magazine depth for us, but of course we provide munitions to our allied partners. And so I think the whole of industry is seeing the demand signal from the department that more munitions are needed, and I think we’re all capacitizing for the demand that we see coming.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

That’s awesome.

Robert Lightfoot:

I think the other thing, as you all were talking, I’m going to be interested in you all’s perspective on this, is don’t underestimate what we’re learning in the Middle East right now. When Iran launches 200 shots at Israel, we’re real-time gaining and updating systems today. I don’t want anybody to walk away thinking the systems are not up to date. These are some pretty — we’re making them as high-tech as we can, probably not as fast as we need to, right, for the domestic threat. But I don’t know about you all, but we’re getting real-time feedback. In the past, it’s all just been tests. And so it’s not — even though we build these systems to deter, and we don’t really want to have to ever use them, when we do use them, it’s interesting to see how they’re working, what we’re learning from them, and how we can play that into the future for the homeland.

Steve Arnette:

Definitely echo that, I think, Robert. I know, credit to Space Force, I know we’ve done a lot of work taking advantage of kind of those live-fire events to collect a lot of data, as he said, and also integrate the integrated tactical warning, attack assessment. I mean, the algorithm just keeps changing based on all this data input. And we’ve, you know, at this point developed a pretty highly refined capability that will, I think, be a key, you know, building block of whatever the future of continental defense looks like.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

That’s awesome. So these four gentlemen have been answering the questions that I have been intending to ask well before I’ve had the chance to ask them. They are so good at what they do. So I’m going to throw them, we’ve got about eight minutes left, I’m going to throw them a different kind of question and hear what we can get out of them, because I think this is going to be so interesting. We’ve already talked about integration, we’ve talked about industry cooperation, which I think is fantastic. But I think what I would like to, the last thing that I would like to hear from each of you is, what is our biggest hurdle that we face right now to get started and get after this issue? Do we have policy issues? Is it a money issue? Is it a technology? Is it an integration issue? Et cetera, et cetera. I’d love it if in each of your last comments for a couple of minutes we could hear about what problems we have to solve before we can solve the problem.

Ed Zoiss:

So you’re looking at me, so I guess you want me to start.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

I am looking right at you.

Ed Zoiss:

Well, look, first of all, I hope we don’t end up in a government shutdown. I mean, you know, because thing number one is we need predictability of budgets. I think one of the biggest challenges that the department has and we have as an industry is budgets are allocated on an annual basis and continue down that path. It becomes difficult to really get the momentum and envision the scale of what we need to do as an organization, as a country. So I think, you know, number one is we need to really make sure that we’ve resourced it and allocated the budget, and that budget is really is moving forward with speed. I think that would be number one. Number two is, and I think Robert and many of my colleagues touched on it, is really what are the — let’s really define with a fine point the threats that our continental system is trying to defend against. You know, we’ve talked about these very high-tech threats that are maneuverable. We’ve also talked about little UAVs that pop out of containers. Is it everything? Is it everything in between? Or is it just the exquisite things? So that’s underway. And so as that becomes clear, I think industry will rally around, you know, both those points to deliver what we need as a nation.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

All right. Rob?

Dr. Robert Fleming:

Yeah, what he said. You know, so right on, Ed, I agree. And we all talk a lot about, you know, how we can solve the problems as best as we can from our vantage points. Yeah, I would say, you know, predictability, stability, you know, particularly for the new entrants, right, the new players, you know, those folks don’t have maybe as much a buffer to ride through complexities and contracts being delayed and government funding and CRs and so on. So that is really important. We do collectively need to get going. If we want to solve 27 and 28 and 29 problems, if we’re going to — if there are delays for any number of reasons, right, that’s going to delay the ability of the industry to turn around and deliver capability. We can do a certain amount of leaning forward, but there’s only a certain amount of leaning forward that can be done. Absolutely. The last thing that I think is really important is national security is a team sport. And we’re all in this together, and it’s really important that we can all work together. And I’ve seen a little bit of sort of us and them, you know, new entrants, legacy. We have enough of a problem to solve as a nation that we need to lock our arms together and say, hey, let’s collectively figure it out and partner in ways that will help solve the problem versus getting in a, you know, we’re better than the other guy competition. So I would just encourage everyone listening, everyone in the room here that, you know, let’s figure out how to get to the right answers for us collectively because that’s what really matters.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

I think you’re right. Robert?

Robert Lightfoot:

Yeah, I think, first of all, that last statement is critically important. I mean, almost everything I fly has these two guys or Steve’s stuff on it. I mean, we’re already partners in so many ways, and there’s a completely false narrative out there that we’re always competing. We do compete, but we also partner a lot more than everybody talks about. To me, I think the biggest challenge we have here, I’ll probably take it up a level, is our risk tolerance. And what I mean by that is I look at risk in a couple of categories. I have two lanes of risk. One is the technical risk for building the systems that we’ve been asked to build, and then there’s an acquisition risk. And I think we’ve gotten way too focused on the acquisition risk where we will, you know, pound and ground talcum powder on a T&C and a contract over and over before we award the contract without just saying, look, we’ll take that risk. We need to get after it, right? We need to get this going. And that’s on both sides, by the way, so on industry and the government. We have got to realize that we have an acquisition process because we have a mission we need to get done. And sometimes the acquisition process is so legalistic and risk averse and, oh, my God, that company might make a little more money than we expected it to make or whatever it is, or we might say we’re going to lose money. That’s the part that worries me the most because it does take a while to get things on contract from both sides. I’m being really clear. It’s not just the government. It’s the industry as well. That’s what we’ve got to attack because we never talk about the risk when we’re doing all that in the acquisition side. We never talk about the risk that we’re not getting the mission done. It’s opportunity lost. So that’s what I think we’ve got to continue to have that dialogue is, hey, are we really arguing about the right things? Because every time we spend in that leg, it keeps us away from the mission leg.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Yeah, I think you’re right. Steve, bring us home.

Steve Arnette:

I’m going to be a little bit redundant. And I think you heard a flavor of this in all of the panel members. This recurring theme of being saddled to execute these truly high complexity, high consequence missions that are inherently multiyear with the constraint of the annual budget process and the uncertainty there is just a fundamental incompatibility. And I think if we could somehow kind of bar in from Robert, adopt this and say this is like an Apollo moment, a situation of such national security that we need to be able to break out of that mold and have multiyear visibility, that would, I think, really unlock a lot. And by the way, it’s not just about homeland protection. I think there are other missions about right now that well publicized about back to the moon and onto Mars and so many dimensions associated with who wins that race. So there are a lot of these high tech complexity, multiyear. And I think somehow we need to get at that. And the other thing, picking up on Rob’s point about the team sport, I just think to get moving and start getting after it, as you’re hearing from all the panelists, how do we in truth, not just in word, but in truth, create that joint development enterprise that has all these great companies and government working together to, from the beginning, integrate these capabilities and deploy capability quickly. I think those would be two great things for us to shoot at.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

That’s awesome. And folks, you heard it here from these amazing industry leaders. So thank you, gentlemen, for a really rich discussion. Continental defense in the 21st century is one of the most complex and consequential challenges our nation faces. And it’s clear that meeting it will demand innovation, integration, and true partnership across government and industry. Hopefully, based on what you’ve seen today, you have a positive outlook. I know I do. If you have a chance, swing by the Mitchell Institute booth to read some of our latest reports on issues of great importance to air and space power. In the meantime, please join me in giving a big thank you to our guests and have a great air and space power kind of day.