“We’re here for our 65th round table and this is on the way forward for NATO and IAMD. We hosted a conference in London last week that was sold out on NATO IAMD, and we felt that it was important to be able to share some of those discussions and some of the thoughts that took place a week ago on where we’re going to go with NATO IAMD. Our panel discussions in London brought in the lessons learned from Ukraine in Ukraine over the past 12 months on the drone and missile defense against Russia. We also put forward a discussion on lessons learned and applications to NATO IAMD this year. Those courses of action last week were change of policy to enable a much more effective missile defense capability all the way from hypersonic, ICBM’s, cruise missiles, down to drone defense. We also move forward on regional missile defense alliances within NATO to be more aggressive in their ability to test, develop, and deploy regional missile defense capabilities. We wanted to move strong on open data sharing, being able to share data, specifically early warning and tracking data common to all the Eastern Front allies in NATO. The Ukraine test bed, taking advantage of the Ukraine test bed through the duration during this fight with Russia. Lastly space integration of space sensors into the architect on this.”
– Mr. Riki Ellison, MDAA Founder and Chairman
“I want to give NATO credit here. They do use LINK 16 pretty ubiquitously, so they do connect things, but what we’re talking about here is we’re not bringing in, in an effective air defense, ballistic missile defense way, the Aegis Ashore system in Poland and Romania. Let me just tell you, the Russians aren’t sure about that, so they sure as hell are going to strike them in strike one.
We better have those things ready to defend themselves against a strike from Russia. In doing that, I think they need to become part of the integrated air missile defense systems. Look, depending how many VLS fields you put out there, so they go Winchester, so they run it around, they’ll be able to do a lot of damage to inbound Russian attacks, especially on cruise missiles.
I would absolutely pump up, I would connect the Aegis Ashore system into the broader integrated air missile defense system of NATO against a Russian attack. That’s a policy decision. I think they can get there.
I think the Russians have demonstrated the requisite amount of thuggery and poor behavior to warrant that political decision. Then, I think, actually, the decision is how many VLS fields do I want to put out here? Because if you want to say, I want this thing to kick some butt, I would give it a lot of VLS fields, because then it can keep firing. The only thing limiting it, it’s not going to be radar limited. It’s going to be effector limited.”
– Rear Admiral (Ret) Mark Montgomery, MDAA Board of Directors Member, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies Former Director of Operations, U.S. Pacific Command
“Innovation. I’m big on this battle lab idea. I do think that we could get more on the battlefield from innovative companies, big and small, if we had a more systemic approach to, how do I get this to Ukraine? If I donate, I get data back. This is from London. I’ve said it before. I believe it. A week on the battlefield is worth a year on the test range.
You’re not simulating combat. You’re in combat, both the operators and the atmosphere. You can’t get that everywhere. It’s different in a test environment. So this is rapid evolution.”
“One of my favorite topics, defense industrial base. This is one of the top three or four priorities, and I would say I can make it three because it’s related to the other two. One is Ukraine support. Two is deterrence and defense. And three is partnerships. Those are probably as big three right now.
You can parse them and sort them different ways. You have three or four different ways. But part of deterrence and defense and Ukraine support is getting the defense industrial model right.
NATO’s got two things going on. We went, oh, hell, we underinvested in IAMD for 30 years. And so that demand signal is out there to the defense industrial base, as well as we need to get stuff to Ukraine now. And that’s the same. Either one of those would have overmatched our defense industrial base capability. And so we need to get on it.
We need to get the stick going. Here’s the sad part of this, which is what Riki was referring to, which is Russia has the size of economy of Belgium and the Netherlands put together. And yet, for the entire NATO alliance of 32 allies, half the world’s economy—so this is Belgium and the Netherlands against half the world’s economy.
And the Russians produce in three months what it takes half the world’s produce in one year. This is not a capacity issue. This is a priority issue.
So this defense production capacity problem is not going away. It will only get more acute when the fighting stops. And our need for the high-low mix will only get more important, not less important.”
– Mr. Tom Goffus, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Operations
“No greater time in the history of mankind for missile defense than this next 12 months. The momentum is here like it’s never been.
And we’ve got to move on. Policy, we’ve got to move on, all that aspect of it. And Tom, I do want to go into the heart of it, because I think that C2 issue is still a tremendous issue in NATO.”
– Mr. Riki Ellison, MDAA Founder and Chairman
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Speakers:
Mr. Tom Goffus, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Operations
Rear Admiral (Ret) Mark Montgomery, MDAA Board of Directors Member, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Former Director of Operations, U.S. Pacific Command
Mr. Riki Ellison, MDAA Founder and Chairman
