i will stop at that point. ted, would you pick it up from there? >> okay. where do i begin? >> ted, i'm more concerned about where you'll end. we are running -- >> well, i haven't been doing any of the talking so far. let me start out by telling you about a way to protect you. i'm going to put airport security in place to protect you from terrorist attacks on the airplane. however, i'm not going to let anybody x-ray your luggage or anyone else's luggage. i'm not going to let anybody look into the luggage. i'm not going to let dogs sniff the luggage.

i'm simply going to let people look at your luggage and decide based on whatever they think matters like color, shape, whatever, whether or not it's got a bomb in it. or a gun in it or whatever. this is basically the level of discrimination capability that these missile defenses have today. in fact, you don't even have to have a suitcase because a suitcase would actually weigh something, but since you would put a decoy in a near vacuum of space and inflate it, and there was no air drag, this thing could tumble along into a distant radar operating at thousands of kilometers range or to an infrared sensor operating at hundreds of kilometers of

range. it does or does not carry a nuclear weapon, period. so when i start talking about countermeasures later on keep in mind that hitting the target is not the easy task. i mean, it's not the hard task. the hard task is finding the object that's being thrown at you. if you think decoys are difficult to build, let me give you a general analogy and before i go into some facts that is worth contemplating. imagine you have an adversary that has the technical capability to build a long range ballistic missile or an icbm. they have the ability to build a nuclear weapon and a re-entry vehicle with a fuse that would properly detonate the nuclear weapon, but they can't figure

out how to inflate a balloon and deploy it along with it. now, if you believe there is such an adversary as that in the world, i've got some bridges to sell you along with a missile defense. now i was a little surprised that mike had worked on the ballistic defense review, because this is something near and dear to my heart. i do not see any evidence that the ballistic missile defense review had any technical input of any kind. i think the document is amazing for the statements it makes. let me -- i actually wrote a rather elaborate article on it at some point. i can't remember anything normally. but this one i happen to remember. here's an assertion for you from the ballistic missile defense review. the u.s. is currently defended

by the ground based missile defense that's deployed in alaska and van den berg air force base and it will be defended for the foreseeable future, although we should do work to make sure it stays that way. this is clearly an unambiguously stated in the ballistic defense review. the last test failure in the missile defense program was an experiment sometimes called the ftg 06 followed by a hereplicatn of that experiment. those two experiments were set up so as to make it easier to intercept the war head. i invite people to ask me questions. i want to give you a little bit of an overview here. in fact, in the process of trying to make the war head

easier to hit, they inadvertently spewed out material that caused the x band radar to fail, because it acted like what is known as radar chaff which we know defeats this system. there is no argue about it in the technically sound community. i want to be clear on this. chaff defeats this system. the ballistic missile defense also says that the new break throughs in missile defense technology that allow for the missile defense is particularly the paa to have chance of working. in fact, the president said that in his speech announcing it on september 17, 2009. let me be clear. there are no new technologies in the paa. none. there are no propulsion

technologies. there are no sensor technologies. there are no material ballistic missile defense technologies that give this system greater capability. i'll have something more to say about that shortly. the paa is a proven and effective missile defense. the president said that in september 17, 2009. yet, fb the paa -- if the paa has never been tested against a tumbling target, now that means something because in the gulf war of 1991, where incidentally the patriot was originally represented as 96% successful and our mit group showed it was almost 0% successful, so we went pk equal to one to pk equal to

zero, which should tell you something about this community and the ability to tell the truth. there were tumbling targets at high altitude for reasons i can explain again in the question and answer period. the missile had design features, not flaws. i say features that caused it to tumble at high altitude and behave very irregularly on re-entry and thereby completely defeated the patriot. it would defeat the patriot pac 3 as well. we have actually studied it. if a target is cut into piece i missile. and instead of cutting the missile, you know, like -- if you have a two-stage missile, you cut the first stage away from the second stage, you can just as well cut a single stage

missile into many pieces. they're totally incapable of telling which piece is which and which is a war head or not. so basically, the countermeasure problems that both the ground based missile defense and the phase adaptive approach face are the same. the technology -- they're different. one has got smaller interceptors. up with has bigger interceptors. but they're both basically useless if they face very simple countermeasures of the kind i have already described. now, let me tell you -- now, this is of course something that i have been talking about for really more than a decade. although there's new stuff on the paa has been over the past couple of years. the department of defense published a report and in fact the report was asked for by ash

carter when he was assistant secretary. now he's deputy secretary. and so ash carter asked for this report. and let many tell you what i think happened. i'm going to be very cynical here. so don't be too shocked. i think the defense science board inadvertently hired some contractors to do the study who actually did a study because the people who signed these documents when you get into the pentagon you know that the people who sign these documents have nothing to do with what the study is. they were so careless -- i say careless because i'm ascribing a motive of concealing information from you, the american people. they were so careless that when the unclassified version of this document was put out, they inadvertently spilled the beans. so let me tell you that this document that the deputy -- current deputy secretary of

defense asked for and is out in the open. send me an e-mail, i will send you the letters that the colleague and i wrote to the national security adviser just a month ago. we haven't received a reply to it. but there's going to be a newspaper article on it. the defense science board report stated the following. none of the radars in the phased adaptive approach, none of them, are up to the job of supporting the system's workability. none of them. they're too short range. i will show you a chart if necessary that will show you that the radar cross-section of a rather large and rather typical cone shaped war head is at least ten times smaller than what dean showed was the case. at least at x band. at l band it is a tenth of a

square meter. if that radar cross-section is even smaller that means it's not only determined by the power of the radar, but the antenna size. the radar cross-section of the object, the radar reflectability of the object is what determines the range of the radar. if the object is very small radar cross section and you can typically expect an unsophisticated war head to be a hundredth of a square meter, then they have shorter range than what people are claiming. and i would like to point out that it's not hard to make the radar cross-section thousands of square meters at x band. this is one of the grave problems that x band radars have. you can easily make a war head stealthy. now, this department of defense

report again the department of defense report that the deputy secretary asked for also made an amazing statement. it said something i have been saying for ten years. what i have been saying for ten years if you have the suitcases out there and you're just inspecting them with your eyes, you can't tell whether or not that's a bomb in them by just inspecting them with your eyes. you have to sniff them. open up the suitcase and look around. then you might fail, but certainly you're not able to identify which suitcase has a bomb by simply looking at it. this is not a very profound statement to say, but a lot of technical detail behind this very simple statement which is correct completely in terms of the analogy i'm giving you. the defense science board report actually says that the department of defense has not

demonstrated the ability to tell war heads from decoys. this is the report that's -- unclassified report that deputy secretary of defense carter had asked for a couple of years ago. it also says that a capability that the missile defense agency has been talking about for a long time called shoot look shoot has not been demonstrated. i have an object i want to destroy it. if i don't have time to shoot it at -- and see if i destroyed it and then shoot again, i typically would shoot two interceptors simultaneously. well, if i have this problem it greatly increases the number of interceptors i need at the expense of my defense. so what has happened, there's a

lot of talk about shoot look shoot. you need to get enough what's called battle space. you need to be able to reach out early enough that you can shoot a second interceptor. you have time to shoot a second interceptor if the first fails. but this report states and i'm sure it's correct that the shoot look shoot is not possible because the department of defense has not demonstrated that if they hit a target they could -- they will know that they destroyed the war head or be able to tell the war head from other debris that's created if and when they hit a target. as they say, you have lots of pieces of debris. if you can't tell that a piece of rocket motor that broke apart in the intercept attempt or something else that is just traveling along with the war head is a war head or a piece of debris, you can't execute shoot look shoot. this report says that quite clearly and it makes the

important factual statement unless they're lying to the deputy secretary of defense, that the department of defense has not demonstrated this capability. now what this report also does is it releases some interesting intelligence. the intelligence shows that adversaries are already testing missiles that release objects that could be decoys within tens of seconds of powered flight. now, of course if you can build a rocket and deploy a war head, you should be able to deploy a balloon. this should be no surprise unless you want to buy that bridge for me. so this is what we're currently facing. now, let me make a general policy statement. i shudder to do so. here's the argument in the

ballistic missile defense review. we are going to make it so hard for these people to use ballistic missiles that we are actually going to deter them from using it. we're going to cause them to throw up their hands and give up. that could be true. you know, i'm not -- i'm not opposed to the many use of military force in all situations. i have worked in the -- with the military and i have great admiration for what they do and how they do it. some things, of course. but you can only deter an adversary if you have a credible capability to do what you claim. if you don't have a credible capability to do what you claim, you may actually encourage the adversary to go ahead and build ballistic missiles and decoys. if you want to cement relationships with our allies, i think you're going to have some

very angry allies if you claim you're defending them and they wind up with a nuclear war head shoved down their throat. because they have been told that they can deal with it. so these are some general statements that i was not intending to make when i first -- you can stop me at any point. if you think it's getting too violent. >> i wouldn't be here. >> i don't bite. i just kick. so i want to just make a few points that i had actually planned to stay and i'll try to cut them short because of -- obviously i have taken time on this other matter. how does the bush system differ from the phase adaptive approach? well, with the phase adaptive approach substitutes a very large number of smaller and slower interceptors for a very

small number of a very large number of intercepters. now, these interceptors are on mobile platforms. except of course when they're on the few sites in europe. it is not true that you need a five kilometer per second interceptor to defend the united states with this system. at least in theory. you think it will work, but i don't think it will work at all so why am i concerned about it, which is a question i want to address. you only need a four kilometer per second interceptor. and there's very little uncertainty in the public domain about the speed of this interceptor. it is 4 1/2 kilometers per second. i have talked to numerous people in the department of defense, the white house, the congress who have access. nobody has ever suggested this

interceptor is not 4 1/2 kilometers per second. let me make clear, you cannot determine whether this interceptor is 4 1/2 kilometers per second because the nature of the design is it's an inefficient rocket system. because it's designed mostly for safety because people in our navy don't like to get blown up by their own missiles if you have an accident on your ship. i generally agree with them, having worked with the navy. i think their strategy on that point is quite good. so let me ask the question. is the current bmd strategy based on sound fundamentals? i would argue no. not in terms of the logical reasoning that somebody who's trying to be a strategist would argue, because strategy ultimately has to be implemented. and if you can't implement a

strategy, if you don't have the means to implement a strategy then having a strategy that's not based on realistic means to implement it is simply crazy. especially when it's a military strategy. technically, the problems are very severe because you have no ability to tell decoys from war heads. and decoys would be extremely effective in reducing the capabilities of this system. let me take you -- give you a couple of quotes from this report that the deputy secretary asked for. this is actually out of the report. the successful operations of these defense systems -- that's my addition, is predicated on an ability to discriminate in the xo atmosphere. that means in the vacuum of space. the missile war heads from --

discriminate them from other missile complex such as rocket bodies, miscellaneous hardware and additional countermeasures. the importance of achieving reliable mid course discrimination cannot be overemphasized. that's the report's statement. then it goes on to say, the department of defense has not demonstrated this. so they have made a statement about what the system requirement is. by that i mean we sit down, we design a system we say it has to do this well to meet our objective. and we look at the technological possibilities and if we're being honest, we said well, this system cannot meet these military objectives. and we throw it out and start over and look for something else or spend our resources on a military enterprise that makes more sense if we're just talking totally military. i'm not getting into the question of whether or not the

resources should be spent on other issues. that's a big question and it deserves discussion but i won't treat it here. so why are the russians worried about phase 3 of this system? phase 3 is important. it's not phase 4 they're worried about. they're worried about phase 3. i don't think it's political myself. that's my judgment. i could be wrong though. there is certainly a high political component to this whole game that both the united states and russia is playing. so one -- you'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not realize that this is so political it's hard to believe. in fact, i think it's so political that the people in the white house don't even care whether or not this system works. they're so worried about the republicans calling them cowards that that's what's the concern. i meet with people in the white

house. i don't say who, because -- but that's where the fear is. because there are people in the white house who understand exactly the technical facts that i'm describing here. so if the system has no capability, why are the russians worried? well, let me just step back for the phase 3, why phase 3 is important. phase 3 is supposed to come somewhere between 2018 and 2020. it is scheduled for 2018, but it turns out they're so far behind in building the kill vehicle for the phase 3 that it probably would be 2020. in 2020, new s.t.a.r.t. comes to an end and the united states begins a new arms reduction negotiation with russia. the russians said we have regard

this system as threatening and we are going to withdraw from all future arms reductions with the united states after new s.t.a.r.t. ends or we might even withdraw from new s.t.a.r.t. at some point because we are so concerned about this. and i can tell you that people i'm working with and some of them are big pentagon insiders are very worried about this. and they should be. because i think the russians are very serious. all right. but why are they worried about this system? because i just told you, it's worthless. it's just your money, but, you know, after all, wall street took care of that as well and of course the people in the white house are protecting you from wall street just as they're protecting you from these foreign missiles. and incidentally that's not an accident because i used to be sick over this missile defense issue, but then i saw what we did with regard to wall street. if people can't deal with this threat to our country, how can they deal with missile defense?

if they're not concerned about this. i know about it. i spent some time learning about economics. by the way, j to make a point, i used to tell people i worked in an area that was distinguished by the intellectual poverty, but now that i know something about economics i no longer say that. why does this give you the worst of both worlds? first of all, the other guy unleashes very powerful bureaucratic forces. if i'm in china or russia or for that matter in the united states as we saw when merving occurred, when we built all the war heads that got us into so much trouble, i point at the other guy's missile defense and i say, hey, we need more missiles. and you know if you don't give me more missiles i'm going to go and find a way to make my case

to your political adversaries or to the people and point out you're not doing what you need to do to defend this country. anybody who looks at this obama administration the way it's behaved when faced with threats should have no trouble understanding that this can occur in other political environments. this is not a unique vulnerability of democratic societies. many people think that mr. putin is going to harden up even more because he wants to show his electorate in russia that he's in charge and he's going to build on fears people have. i would be glad to tell you unfounded fears but we're dealing with a social technical, political phenomenon here. it's not purely technical. it's not purely social. it's not purely political. it's very difficult for political leaders to resist these forces. and that occurs in all societies no matter what the political system is like.

so what does the adversary's leadership really think? that's a question that you're going to ask if you're the military planner on the other side. so when i see general -- i worked in the pentagon. i was a scientific adviser to the chief of naval operations so i'm highly sensitized to who says what. so when i see general james cartwright in front of the senate saying that if he -- he was actually asked by i forget the senator, but he was asked by a member of the committee if there was a crisis between the united states and north korea, what advice would he give the president of the united states about with regard to the ground

based missile defense system? and he said, oh, i would tell the president that he could have complete confidence in the system. you could see the eyebrows raise in the senate -- among the senators. now, this guy is the second most senior member of our military. i worry -- i worked on nuclear war plans. i was at the ground zero level. i mean, i had a lot of access when i was in the pentagon and i was helping to integrate trident 1 into the force. so i know what goes on in these plans and it should make your hair stand on end. what these statements of a military leader of that level does is it potentially creates the possibility of a misunderstanding by leadership. when i was in the pentagon, i

looked at the moscow abm system. a worthless system. a worthless system. i could -- i give a lecture in one of my courses. i sat and watched -- looked at that system and i said, why are they doing this? what do they believe? what might they do in a crisis or a confrontation that could inadvertently get us into a nuclear war because they believe something about this this is not true? the fact that the system doesn't have capability doesn't stop them from speculating about the potential for accidents that could lead to nuclear war. let me just end here because i can see harold is getting out the club. and i'm sure my other colleagues here will have their own clubs to use against me. thanks. >> thank you, ted. thank you very much.