“We’re not there yet. That’s been a great decade or two decades of being fat and happy. It’s time to be a lean, mean fighting machine. This is about a coalition of willing, winning.” 

“Aloha everybody. Winners associate with winners to win, and we’re at the right place at the right time for the right reasons. When you get a cauldron of people, greatness happens. 

So I first want to thank Bill, Parker, and Matt, and he said the two key things: trust and relationships. This is a team game here, this is playing for the world championship, and you have to embrace diversity, you have to embrace exotic, you have to trust and embrace different cultures to win as a team—as a global team.  

And when you get that trust, you become invincible. The opponent sees that invincibility. And we’re here in this theater, nowhere in the world more important than the biggest threat to the world order is here in this theater. It’s not in Europe, it’s here. So you’re at the front of it, and you’re going to be forced to play with each other if you don’t do it naturally at some point. 

Enough of the bilateral stuff, we have to get out of the bilateral movements to work as a true, trusting team with open architecture to share data across nations to do that.” 

Riki Ellison, December 4th, 2025, Honolulu, HI 

During the first week of December, the MDAA Team had the honor of participating in the Multilateral Integrated Air and Missile Defense Summit and Senior International Leader Event – Pacific 2025 (MISSILE-PAC 25) at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. On December 4th, Riki Ellison, Chairman and Founder of MDAA, delivered a comprehensive speech to the conference on the necessary steps the US must take to maintain its leading edge in missile defense in the Pacific by adapting inexpensive, scalable technologies in addition to a cloud-based C2 network. 

Executive Summary:  

Our MISSILE-PAC 25 speech centers on building a coalition-based, data-driven missile defense architecture to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific, arguing that trust, relationships, and diversity across nations are as decisive as technology itself. Drawing on decades of experience and current efforts like Golden Dome, the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line, Guam defense, and SHIELD/ARTEMIS, We stress shifting from exquisite, slow, platform-centric systems to cheap, scalable, and fully integrated capabilities that plug into a common C2 and cloud-based data backbone. We frame bureaucratic inertia and outdated acquisition as the real enemies to be beaten, warns that no major power is currently prepared to withstand mass drone and missile salvos, and calls for an urgent cultural shift from complacency to a “coalition of the willing” that can defeat mass and restore credible deterrence—especially against a rising China in a five-year decision window. 

Key Points:  

• Trust, relationships, and diversity are the foundation of winning.  
  • Missile defense and security are a “team sport.” 
  • Countries need to move past narrow bilateral ties and operate as a truly integrated, trusting multinational team with open architectures and shared data. 
• The Indo-Pacific is the main theater of strategic competition.  
  • We argue that the biggest threat to the world order is in this theater, not Europe. 
  • The people in the room are “at the front of it” and will be forced to work together. 
• Key historical milestones in U.S. missile defense.  
  • Post-9/11: withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, creation of MDA and NORTHCOM, cruise missile defenses around D.C., and deployment of GMD. 
  • Billions invested in GMD, the NGI follow-on, and the Guam defense architecture. 
• Current initiatives MDAA is driving.  
  • Golden Dome 
  • Next Generational interceptor system and the Guam defense initiative. 
  • The Eastern Flank Deterrence Line (EFDL) in Europe: diverse nations building an integrated missile-defense and data backbone. 
  • Scaling acoustic sensors and drone effectors in Ukraine, the Baltics, and Finland. 
• Indo-Pacific focus through SHIELD and ARTEMIS.  
  • Creation of the USC SHIELD program: an 8-month course for hand-picked leaders tackling the hardest policy and engineering problems. 
  • SHIELD has produced dozens of influential capstones, senior leaders, and a powerful network. 
  • One capstone led directly to the ARTEMIS program at the University of Hawaii, focused on multinational integration and new capabilities like sea-based acoustic sensor networks. 
• The Golden Dome initiative: data-centric deterrence.  
  • We advise on Golden Dome, a global data architecture for missile defense. 
  • The real challenge is bureaucratic “deep state” inertia and broken acquisition systems, not industry. 
  • Golden Dome centers on: 
    • A joint, scalable C2 backbone built via competitive “prize” models. 
  • Massive compute and storage in multiple clouds, eventually will be shared with allies. 
  • Space-related intercept capabilities in Boost Phase prize competitions for new interceptors. 
  • Layers from BMD to Underlayer to Cruise Missile Defense 
• Examples from Guam, Japan, and Europe showing where things are headed.  
  • Guam: composite Army/Aegis architecture for point defense. 
  • Japan: impressive underground Patriot engineering, but the need to move from exquisite systems to cheap mass capability. 
  • Europe: MEROPS $5K munitions killing $80K drones, pickup-truck and Stryker-mounted systems, and forward-edge experimentation at Putlos, Germany. 
  • The crucial element is the EFDL data backbone linking sensors into open C2. 
• Design principle: everything must plug into the new C2/data backbone.  
  • Stop building stand-alone systems and then trying to bolt them together later. 
  • New capabilities must be designed to connect into the emerging joint C2 from the start. 
• USC and UH capstones as rapid-action innovation.  
  • Capstones (like turning land-based acoustic sensors into sea-based systems for the Taiwan Strait) are moving from classroom concepts to operational development within 1–2 years. 
  • ARTEMIS is a direct outgrowth of SHIELD capstone work on multinational integration. 
• Strategic warning and call to action on China and “defeating mass.”  
  • We argues China has roughly a five-year decision window and that missile defense will heavily influence whether they choose conflict. 
  • Current forces worldwide cannot protect maneuver forces or cities from massed drone/cruise/ballistic attacks like Ukraine faces. 
  • The priority is cheap, scalable, massed defensive capability to “defeat mass” and protect maneuver forces, enabling credible offensive power and deterrence. 
• Final message: urgency, coalition, and mindset.  
  • It’s time to move from being “fat and happy” to a lean, hard-edged fighting posture. 
  • Only a coalition of the willing that embraces innovation, integration, and hard reforms will win. 
  • To build this trust with this coalition driven capability, It is important that we start with actionable goals, which means starting small in order to go big. 
  • Just because we are focusing on scalable, cheap and attritable systems that does not mean that we are forsaking existing systems and exquisite systems. It just means that they will not be the center of gravity for a tech technology strategy in the way that we bring everything to Bear. 
  • “Winners associate with winners to win” – if you’re not fully in, you’ll be left out.