here to discuss is probably the best person around in the world a former pentagon official michael maloof michael thank you so much for being with us let's time travel you were at the department of defense then when i was out talking about nuclear arms awareness week and things and it was a sort of an unnerving time but take our viewers who don't recall back to what was going on and then which were the companies that were involved in this strategic defense initiative at the time well it was at the beginning of the end of the soviet union and it and reagan and gorbachev are meeting at reykjavik and the proposal was made to that if there wasn't. some kind of a peace settlement of some kind that reagan was prepared to launch the strategic defense initiative the whole concept was i mean he had the idea before hand he saw he was he was briefed a long time back that missiles were coming in they could track the missiles but there was no way to stop them so this strategic defense initiative idea became part and parcel of his of his new package for incoming missiles to set up an anti missile defense syste

michael maloof michael thank you so much for being with us let's time travel you were at the department of defense then when i was out talking about nuclear arms awareness week and things and it was a sort of an unnerving time but take our viewers who don't recall back to what was going on and then which were the companies that were involved in this strategic defense initiative at the time well it was at the beginning of the end of the soviet union and it and reagan and gorbachev are meeting at reykjavik and the proposal was made to that if there wasn't. some kind of a peace settlement of some kind that reagan was prepared to launch this strategic defense initiative the whole concept was he had the idea before hand he saw he was he was briefed a long time back that missiles were coming in they could track the missiles but there was no way to stop them so this strategic defense initiative idea became part and parcel of his of his new package for incoming missiles to set up an anti missile defense system as a consequence. that was offered as as a. partly partially a bluff if you will to cause the the economically ducange soviet union to have to put in more resources which we knew they could not afford and that that's when gorbachev decided to do what he ultimately did and he could've competed you know and but s. the concept of s.d.i. continued under reagan especially and it got modified over time and it was really a robust concept to have lasers shooting things out of the sky from from outer space but the technologies had not yet been developed they needed to be developed and that would have been part and parcel of the research and development costs that would have gone into and we had the companies to do that are some many of our companies our major defense companies today were involved like lockheed like martin marietta united technologies are not exact knowledge east. these these are the major major firms that have been and continue to be engaged in this now as part of the missile defense agency today that's what it's called now that i remember in the day it was the s.d.i. oh this day it was it was about then it became the ballistic missile defense agency office and then clinton changed that to missile defense agency and that still exists today now that's what is being used to develop anti missile systems that's but it's a much more conventional approach of developing technologies that can go faster than the incoming as opposed to having something lingering in outer space with the original concept brilliant pebbles was to have a series of drones spaced drones that could point lasers at missiles that were flying into. base that could not things out of the first thought was i get sure that the timeline right the first thing was it wasn't just the bluff was it i remember that it was you know both the soviet union and the u.s. had all these missiles and it was thought that you know if one shot that had a first strike that the other would shoot and that their essentially be a policy they called mad mutually assured destruction and that was the unnerving part i talked about in the opening yes so then they came up with s.d.i. and this is going to save us will be able to shoot down the missiles if they come over but then the brilliant pebbles idea that you just had who is was that and that was as you say so that wasn't a missile shooting down a missile that was satellites that would shoot down missiles so things that were already up in space race that w. do you think. that was regina in originated with reagan then and then in then it was george h.w. bush but he's the one who began to scale it back because the system realistically we don't really need that and and the technologies are way out there yet we can't really do it yet although there is a modifications that that that that's when the decision ultimately was made then to do something that came that was more from land based rather than lingering in space and as though these were super expensive technology to develop and in developed it well and your but your contention is that that mr gorbachev saw the enormous capital that would have been needed to compete with the u.s. at that time and that essentially ended up shutting down the cold war to a large extent so let's fast forward michael to today and we see the north koreans were all about talking about what their weapons kasab capabilities are and president putin in his state of the nation address actually showed a video a sort of a striking video and said it could not be evaded that that that the. could be evaded the missile could be evaded so. where are we today how much money is the soviet union the us spending on these things and are is the same sort of cast of characters with regard to defense contractors who are trying to pile on and make a buck out of these things and response to your last part yes defense contractors see the new golden age again because basically the policy has been changed now to back more to more strategic systems and we're seen as a reason as a in response to the north korean threat more development of missiles that can shoot down. the incoming missiles if if if we have that technology but it's it's what the it's like a bullet trying to hit a bullet in space however we do not have the tech

here to discuss it probably the best person around in the world a former pentagon official michael maloof michael thank you so much for being with us let's time travel you were at the department of defense then when i was out talking about nuclear arms awareness week and things and it was a sort of an unnerving time but take our viewers who don't recall back to what was going on and then which were the companies that were involved in this strategic defense initiative at the time well it was at the beginning of the end of the soviet union and it and reagan and gorbachev are meeting at reykjavik and the proposal was made to that if there wasn't. some kind of a peace settlement of some kind that reagan was prepared to launch the strategic defense initiative the whole concept was i mean he had the idea before hand he saw he was he was briefed a long time back that missiles were coming in they could track the missiles but there was no way to stop them so this strategic defense initiative idea became part and parcel of his of his new package for incoming missiles to set up an anti missile defense syste

michael maloof for the answers michael thank you for being here where does the billions and billions and trillions as was spoken about in the past where's the money go it's going to be going to some of the largest defense contractors we have and part of it and i think it's all linked in with the need to create more jobs and these industries such as raytheon boeing and we can go through a whole little hit me with a us ones where when you talk about defense contractors so you've talked about raytheon and what i've heard all in there is lockheed martin boeing even be a east systems raytheon general dynamics northrup grumman they are making our new super mom or us. and and on and on it's three is another one that they are they are all over this town for the for the for the people who don't know if you go really within ten minutes of here just across the river into arlington virginia is bowing and they are walking distance and not a theoretical walking distance they are walking distance to the pentagon and if you go right down three ninety five maybe two miles from here there is the lockheed martin building and they are maybe not walking distance because there's an expressway but they are within a mile of a u.s. capitol so the defense industrial complex is looms large in this town and given what we've seen in this increasingly complex world you don't see these budgets going down any time soon. they were down for a time i think they're going to be going back up and i have a suspicion that that's why the secretary of defense maddest decided and trump decided that in order to create more jobs for example we just did that hundred billion dollar deal with the saudis that's for aircraft that's for arms and i mean it's going to not only for our own defense purposes but that money is going to be coming in from outside sources in order to help fund all of these and then export everything and it's going to be monumental and you got to keep in mind these companies as you point out are every every where they've got even the services that once their pet rock projects are up on the capitol hill they are a lobby and believe it or not they're pushing their their agendas their programs in addition to the companies themselves it's going to be it's going to be even more robust now that. madis has and trump have increased the defense budget and and you've got to tie that into also with the call by trump now to to improve upon nuclear weapons to improve to have a more strategic approach and that's what the big companies do they do more of the strategic weapons systems and that's what they're going to be needing i want to let our viewers in on a little secret i'm not sure it's a dirty little secret but it's a secret about how work gets done in here and maybe you could comment upon it work gets done and. in washington is that so you have a defense contractor who may make something and i don't want to pick out an individual company or a byproduct but say that they make you know cool glasses that can see around corners or something well they'll have one part made and somebody is congressional district in another part made in maybe another state and they do that for what reason michael well every major defense contractor think strategically themselves they'll put some component of some kind that comes into for example like the air. thirty five you have to the plane that cost how much it's up it's going to be a trillion dollars by the time they get done and there have been all kinds of technological problems with it and they still haven't ironed out all the bugs it was a big donald douglas no that's lockheed martin lockheed martin ok lockheed martin the and i already said i wasn't really doing it united technologies makes their engines and so they're they'll put components companies that supply the components and every state of the of the union and order to make sure that their congressional district has something there so that when they come in for funding the pressure is on congress to allow that money to go through and so it's going to be there's going to be a rise of that we're going to see an increase of that and it could be a whole myriad of systems and these c