Today, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, made the following remarks, as prepared for delivery, on the Subcommittee's hearing titled "Fiscal Year 2019 Budget Request for Missile Defense and Defeat Activities." For testimony and to watch the hearing click here.
"Welcome to our hearing on the 'Fiscal Year 2019 Budget Request for Missile Defense and Defeat Activities.'
Thank you to witnesses for being here today and for your service to the Nation. And for your time preparing for this hearing—we greatly appreciate it.
Our witnesses are:
The Honorable John Rood
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
General Lori Robinson
Commander
Northern Command
North American Aerospace Defense Command
And I would like to take a moment to especially recognize General Robinson. You have been a friend of the Committee not only as the Commander of NORTHCOM and NORAD, but across your 37 years of service to this great nation. I know I speak on behalf of this subcommittee, and the HASC as a whole, when I thank you for your dedicated and unwavering service, and we wish you the best as you retire from the Air Force.
Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves
Director
Missile Defense Agency
General, congratulations on your assignment as the Director of MDA. You are no stranger to this committee, and we look forward to our continued work together on missile defense.
Lieutenant James Dickinson
Commander
Army Space and Missile Defense Command
Army Forces Strategic Command and Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense at U.S. Strategic Command
Let me start by just highlighting some of what we've seen since our previous missile defense hearing in June of last year.
North Korea has tested a missile with ICBM-range. Iran continues to develop their own ICBMs under the guise of a space launch program. Putin boasted in his recent national speech about an "invincible" missile targeted at the United States, and China is surging ahead with their own missile programs – most notably in the hypersonic realm.
Fortunately, I think this Administration gets it. The budget amendment we received last year for an additional $4 billion for missile defense and the FY19 request, which includes about $12 billion across the board for missile defense, seem appropriate given the rising threat levels around the globe.
As is highlighted in the National Defense Strategy, 'We cannot expect success fighting tomorrow'sconflicts with yesterday's weapons or equipment. To address the scope and pace of our competitors' and adversaries' ambitions and capabilities, we must invest in modernization of key capabilities through sustained, predictable budgets.'
Now, we are still waiting on the Administration to release the Missile Defense Review, hopefully in the coming weeks.
I expect it will follow suit with where the NDS and NPR have forged a path, and continue to address what the last Administration has failed to do for the previous 8 years.
We have developed the best missile defenses in the world, but for the most part, they are technologies that were started almost 15 years ago.
The increasing threat makes it essential that we expand and enhance our missile defenses—not only with capacity, but also through leaps in technology—right now and not 5 years from now.
Increasing our GBI inventory, land-based sensors, and regional interceptor capacity is critical, but cannot come at the cost of seriously going after technologies like directed energy, space sensing, and boost phase capability.
Thank you again to our witnesses—I look forward to the discussion."
