Leadership Insight: General Victor E. Renuart, Jr.
General Victor E. Renuart, Jr.
Commander, North
American Aerospace
Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command
PAY ATTENTION TO BOTH THREATS
We talked a little bit last night about cruise missile defense, and certainly that’s an element that we need to pay attention to as well. Those kinds of capabilities can certainly be used by an adversary in a much less symmetrical fashion to threaten our ports and our cities, and we want make sure that in our discussion of missile defense we talk about short-range cruise missile type threats as well as long range intercontinental threats. We should see each of them the same. And we should be in a position to defend ourselves should it be necessary against any one of these threats. Adversaries are developing more complex, more and more complex delivery systems. They’re developing countermeasures, and in fact our last test was designed to approximate some of those conditions. We need to be sure that we understand that the proliferation may be of threat systems around the world.
EUROPEAN SYSTEM
Another interesting development in missile defense has been the discussion in Europe about a European-based system. Our role as the operational commander for homeland defense is clear. We need to make sure that we support and advocate for a capability that would give us reasonable assurance that the homeland is defended. We’ve also, as a nation, made a commitment to partner with our European and NATO friends to provide some capability for Europe to be defended against a rogue threat such as Iran. Obviously, that’s generated a lot of discussion with our Russian friends. And this next year or so will be a very interesting set of developments as we see—as we’ve already seen—the Russian leadership begin to posture with the new administration with respect to basing the interceptors in Poland, and positioning Russian short-range missiles in their western boundary, and how that political dynamic occurs will be a very interesting set of political discussions for the new administration but also will have a strategic impact on how we shape and size our defense capabilities for the homeland. We partnered with MDA and a number of others on some studies to look at alternatives if the discussions in Europe don’t continue. And certainly we are partnering with MDA in terms of different kinds of missiles—three-stage, two-stage. What are the advantages of each to ensure that we have a credible and capable ability … to defend the United States?
INCORPORATING OPERATIONAL USERS’ NEEDS IN TEST PROCESS
Let me try to characterize for you a couple of elements of our relationship with the test process. First, we’re a consumer. We don’t necessarily have the need to define what kind of sensors alert us to a threat. I just need to know that there’s a threat. We don’t necessarily have to determine whether a two-stage or a threestage or multiple kill vehicles or any of those characteristics are the most important. And thus, we ought to put all of our money against them. I do have to be able to say in good conscience to my leadership that if it gets shot at us, it doesn’t matter what kind of capability it has, we have an ability to defend against it. And so we drive a requirements process into the system from the operational perspective. We do need to ensure that we have the appropriate number of ground control units. We do need to ensure that we have the appropriate number of bullets in the gun, if you will. Missiles in the silo that we can use to intercept. We do need to ensure that there is an operationally sound shock doctrine that will allow us to prioritize how many targets, who do they threaten, what’s the first priority, how many missiles do we launch against that and those kinds of elements. So, we’re working very aggressively with our friends in U.S. Strategic Command and those in MDA to ensure that as we move down this test process, we do it in a way that is more operationally focused. ♦