Earlier this week the House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Strategic Forces under the new leadership of Rep Doug Lamborn and Rep Seth Moulton in engagement and heard testimony from our military and government leaders on Missile Defense. Included are highlights of the discussion. 

“How will expanding U.S. missile defense today impact strategic stability tomorrow? We are already in an arms race. Will it make our world more safe? That is the discussion that we have too often glossed over or left for another day on this subcommittee and in Congress and it is a discussion in the debate that we must have the political and intellectual courage to resolve.” – Rep. Seth Moulton, Ranking Member of Strategic Forces Subcommittee, April 18, 2023

“I think the last several years have shown us that deterrence by nuclear weapons arsenals alone is dead. Russia has threatened both NATO allies even nuclear weapons nations with nuclear weapons attack. China is tripling its nuclear weapons and is vastly expanding its ICBM capability and of course not in response at all to any missile defense that may in fact thwart in any way their ability to hold us at risk or at target.” – Rep. Mike Turner, April 18, 2023

“Based on current trajectories in military technology and the innovation of the private sector, it is clear that the future of missile defense is increasingly becoming space-based.” – Rep. Doug Lamborn, Chairman of Strategic Forces Subcommittee, April 18, 2023 

“If we were to get into the realm of level five missile defense, deterring a near peer adversary, how many GMD interceptors would you estimate we would need if we were trying to deter or defeat an all-out Chinese or Russian nuclear attack on the United States?” – Rep. Seth Moulton, Ranking Member of Strategic Forces Subcommittee, April 18, 2023

“In any realm of warfare from lowest conventional levels to the highest nuclear levels, defense has a role. The key role of defense is you’re denying people the advantage of the attack that you would have launched in the first place and you’re assuring your ability to impose costs that would make them regret having started it in the first place. John D. Hill, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space and Missile Defense, April 18, 2023

“Our missile defense system is currently configured and our Aegis ashore that sits in Europe are publicly by policy stated as targeting North Korea and Iran. We by policy state that we are not deploying missile defense systems for the purposes of defending ourselves against the threat of Russia and China. Clearly, Russia and China are not being deterred by our nuclear weapons arsenals alone because of their continuing vast expanse and the fact that both of them are pursuing what many people called exotic weapons, which are completely new capabilities, they’re not modernization of existing capabilities. Completely new capabilities that could easily be defined as First Strike weapons. Weapons that are intended to initiate a nuclear weapons strike not to deter as our posture has been.” – Rep. Mike Turner, April 18, 2023

“We’re clearly going to have to move to a more blended architecture where we understand that if there is an attack that we have a responsibility to protect the American public because right now most Americans believe that if a nuclear weapon is headed at this very moment to Washington DC, whether it be Hypersonic or an ICBM, that we have systems in place to protect them and we do not. It is time though that we do.” – Rep. Mike Turner, April 18, 2023

Click here to view the FY24 Budget Request Hearing and all of the witnesses’ opening statements