In at time of Great Power Competition with the historic precedent of the first meeting of President Biden and President Putin, we took the opportunity to discuss Missile Defense. We held our 30th Congressional Roundtable, “Missile Defense in Great Power Competition” in Alexandria, Virginia.  

“Today’s discussion is going to be a great one, because we’re not going to focus on our normal missile defense threats that missile defense has been built to defeat; the North Korea threat, the Iran threat, and the Hamas rocket threat. We now want to engage in a conversation and a discussion on the near peer, the Russia/China threat, and how missile defense is vital to that strategy, vital to the deterrence of both of those great powers and an ability to compete. And we’re seeing weapon systems like the hypersonic glide that’s coming out of those two countries that threaten U.S. national security, that threaten our European allies, that threaten our Asian allies and how we play into that. And we’ve got three great speakers here today. Obviously, we’ve got the best in the world today on Aegis Missile Defense.” 

“He’s a program executive, Rear. Adm. Tom Druggan, and he’s going to help you with understanding the development, the architecture, where we’re going to go with his ability to fulfill the war fighters requirements around the world. A difficult position to be in, but one that’s vitally important. We also have retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who comes to us in a couple of ways. He was the former policy director for John McCain on the Hill. So he’s got that whole understanding, and he was the head of operations for the Pacific. So he’s going to come with a good perspective where he thinks we’re challenged in the Indo-Pacific arena and how we can best apply missile defense in there. And obviously the big question is the Guam position, which is strategically right in that role to be able to set that pace and deter and defend some of our power projection spots there.And then when we go to the opposite side of the world to our East Coast. We’ve got a very great guest, highly, highly valued and esteemed, and that’s former Admiral Jamie Foggo, who was the commander of Naval forces for Europe and Africa” -Riki Ellison, June 16, 2021, Alexandria, VA.

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Click here to read the full transcript.