 Thank you all for being here, we appreciate that. We do have votes coming as early as 30 minutes from now. So I think there are some of us here who are going to want to ask questions. We'll have one round of questions and mine will be very brief and then we'll go into a classified session and see how much we can cover before votes are actually impending and we have to leave. So we appreciate your attendance here. I have an opening statement but I'm going to submit it for the record for the sake of time and I'll now call on the ranking member to see what he would like to do. I'm going to take the wise counsel of following the chairman's leadership and also submitting my statement for the record. We'd like to expedite things so that we can get to votes and then get to the classified session. Thank you. Okay then let's go right into our distinguished witnesses. We have the Honorable John Plumb, General Anthony Cotton, Generals Stephen Whiting and General Gaygri Gilot, if I said that correctly. Gio. Gio. Okay, I was way off him. I'll get that before, okay, Gilo. Mr. Plumb, can you start, please? Yes, sir. Thank you Chairman Lamorn and thank you Ranking Member Moulton. Members of the committee, thanks for inviting me to testify here. I'll keep my remarks short in the interest of moving to questions. But just very briefly, we're in a very highly dynamic and challenging security environment. We have competitors who are modernizing and diversifying and expanding their nuclear arsenals. They are also rapidly fielding space and counter space capabilities and developing and fielding advanced missiles in greater numbers and greater diversity. The President's budget request for fiscal year 25 makes critical investments in the Department of Strategic Forces posture, $49 billion for our nuclear enterprise, $33.7 billion for our space capabilities and over $28 billion for missile defeat and defense and across each of these portfolios we're investing not only in capabilities but in our network of allies and partners, both of whom provide advantages that our adversaries or potential adversaries like Russia and China can never hope to match. All of these capabilities, nuclear space and missile defense, remain central to our ability to deter and also central to our ability to prevail in conflict if deterrence fails. The Department is committed to making the critical investments necessary to strengthen our strategic forces posture thanks to this committee for its tireless dedication to the Department, to our men and women in uniform and I look forward to answering your questions. General Cotton. Good afternoon Chairman Lamorn, Ranking Member Moulton and distinguished members of this committee. It is an honor to be here today with my command senior listed leader, Sergeant Major Kramer and our privilege to represent the service members and civilians of the United States Strategic Command. I have submitted my posh statement for the record. As a global war fighting command, STRATCOM sets conditions across the globe as the ultimate guarantor of the national and allied security. Excuse me. We do this in the face of challenges unlike anything America has encountered. We are confronting not one but two nuclear peers, the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. This reality compounded by missile developments in North Korea, Iran's nuclear ambitions and the growing relationships between these nations adds new layers of complexity to our strategic calculus. While our legacy systems continue to hold potential adversaries at risk, it is absolutely critical we continue at speed with modernization of our nuclear triad. This includes the land based ICBMs, the B-21, the B-52J, the Columbia class submarine, the nuclear sea launched cruise missile, the long range standoff weapon and numerous related systems, while also focusing on NC3 enterprise upgrades and cybersecurity. The most important message I want to deliver is this, while modernization will continue to be the priority, US STRATCOM and its component forces are ready to deter our adversaries and respond decisively should deterrence fail. Thank you and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, General Whiting. John Landboard and Reiki Member Moulton, members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to testify. I'm pleased to be here beside Dr. Plum, General Cotton and General Guillault and I will also abbreviate my opening statement. Our strategic competitors now hold at risk US and allied space capabilities. The People's Republic of China and Russia's actions have transformed space into a contested warfighting domain. US Space Command's moral responsibility to the Joint Force, the nation and our allies is to provide space capabilities through all levels of competition and conflict. The US military services are sized with the assumption of always having access to space. And this is why US Space Command must protect and defend our critical space systems to ensure they are available in the face of the growing threats now arrayed against us. Inherent in this responsibility is our ability to protect the Joint Force from space-enabled attack. The command seeks to expand our competitive advantage by leveraging every available asset of the interagency, Joint Force, our allies, partners and industry. Yet it is vital the command is delivered improved capability and capacity by 2027 to attain an enduring advantage over any determined adversary. I am grateful for Congress's commitment to advance America's leadership in space. With your continued backing, US Space Command will ensure space remains sustainable, safe, stable and secure for all. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. In General Guillaume. Chairman Lamborn, Ranking Member Molten and distinguished members of the subcommittee, it's a profound honor to command and represent the women and men of North American Aerospace Defense Command and United States Northern Command. I'm also pleased to appear alongside General Cotton, General Whiting and Dr. Plum. Far out in Northcom depend on robust, space-based capabilities to execute each of our critical missions and the strategic deterrent remains the foundation of our homeland defense. The strong partnerships I enjoy with my fellow witnesses are crucial. The United States and Canada face an extraordinarily complex strategic environment. Our competitors have fielded advanced kinetic systems designed to strike civilian and military infrastructure in North America both above and below the nuclear threshold. As stated in the National Defense Strategy, the People's Republic of China remains our pacing challenge as the People's Liberation Army modernizes and grows at a rapid pace. The PRC is expanding nuclear capability and capacity along with its development of modern submarines, missiles, hypersonic weapons all present significant challenges for homeland defense. While the PRC's capabilities are growing quickly, Russia is a threat to the homeland today and is an immediate concern. Russia retains the world's largest stockpile of strategic and non-strategic nuclear weapons and has the capacity to strike inside North America with air and sea-launched precision conventional weapons. Despite heavy losses to its ground forces in Ukraine, Russia has invested heavily in systems that can threaten the United States, such as advanced guided-missile submarines, hypersonic glide vehicles, and ICBMs. Russia also maintains significant cyber and undersea capabilities and developmental systems such as a nuclear torpedo and a nuclear-powered cruise missile. Meanwhile, North Korea continues its rhetoric while test launching increasingly advanced long-range missiles and expanding its ties with Russia and China. While Iran currently lacks the capability to strike North America with long-range missiles, it is investing in that capability. Iran also supports violent militant groups in the Middle East and maintains a worldwide network of operational surrogates. With those risks firmly in mind, NORAD and NORTHCOM strive to begin homeland defense well beyond North America. To do so, both commands are working with the services and Congress to improve domain awareness in order to detect, track, and defeat threats ranging from long-range ballistic missiles to small UASs. Finally, upon taking command, I began a 90-day assessment to inform the Department, the Joint Force, and Congress on NORAD and NORTHCOM's ability to execute a assigned task and make recommendations on where the command can and should do more. Once complete, I will share my findings and updated vision for how NORAD and NORTHCOM will best execute the noble mission of homeland defense. The challenges facing our nation are real, but there should be no doubt about NORAD and NORTHCOM's resolve to deter aggression and, if necessary, defeat threats to our nations and our citizens. Again, thank you for the opportunity to appear this afternoon, and I am happy to take your questions. Thank you, all of you, for your opening statements. I'll reiterate what I said earlier. There will be votes called as early as four o'clock. I have some questions I will submit for the record. I'm going to ask one very brief question of Dr. Plum, and then turn it over to my ranking member, and then everyone has a chance to ask questions, and then if we have time, we'll go into a classified session upstairs. But in no event will we come back and have any continuation of this hearing after votes are called. It'll be fairly lengthy vote series, and I don't want to keep everybody, and so we will adjourn whenever votes are called with about a 10-minute gap grace period for us to finish, wrap up what we're doing, and get over for the votes. Dr. Plum, very quickly, in his 2022 Nuclear Poster Review, the administration affirmed the continued need for the triad. Has there been any changes in the administration's policy in this regard? No, there has not. Thank you, ranking member Moulton. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I'll also just ask one question. I'm going to direct it to Dr. Plum and General Cotton, if either of you have comments on this. What thinking has the Department done or been doing on what strategic deterrence looks like with two nuclear peers? What does that world mean for our nuclear posture, our strategy, and our strategy of deterrence? If it's all right, sir, I'll start, and then I'll hand it to General Cotton. So, taking it very seriously, I know you and I have talked about this, the Strategic Posture Commission, hopefully a bipartisan report that's come out really looking at this specific problem, and the Department is using that as a reference guide to help us examine how to go forward. The fundamental issue here, as you've pointed out, is China's growth in their nuclear arsenal, and it's a continental level nuclear arsenal, changes the calculus. We don't want to be in a situation where we have to have as many nuclear weapons as Russia, plus as many as China, plus one more, but we do have to be able to deter both. And so we are looking at that. Roughly, we think we continue to be sufficient now. The program of record is okay now, but in the future, we're going to have to make adjustments because of this growth of China. And so we're looking at what things can we credibly do to help ensure that deterrence will continue to hold through the 2030s, both through our transition and in the face of China's growing threat. General Cotton. Thank you. General Cotton, I'd like to add that we've been looking from strategic command ever since I took command last 15 months ago. And what we're looking at is the strategic piece that is linked to the NPR because the NPR allows us to look at posture and sizing. So we immediately looked at that. But as I mentioned to you in the office call, I think it's really about strategy as well. So we have actually commissioned a study within STRATCOM with another group of bipartisan representation to really look at it from a strategic level when you have two near peers in which you have to fight. And how do you hold them at risk in order to do that? And as well as you know, the triad itself, all legs of it from delivery systems to the weapons themselves are all being modernized. So just as important is what does that transition from legacy system look like to modernize systems moving forward? And we have a study that's well underway to make sure that we don't create any gaps in that transition moving forward. Well, I think that's very encouraging because the world has certainly changed. Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Representative Wilson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank each of you for being here today and your service on behalf of the people of the United States. General Cotton and your testimony, you state that the critical need to modernize our stockpile infrastructure and a robust science and technology base for our strategic deterrence force. I'm grateful to represent the Savannah River site where they are working around the clock to bring plutonium production facility into operation as soon as possible. They are also working to replace a 1950s era's building at the Savannah River Tritium Enterprise as the only member of Congress who's ever worked at Savannah River site. I know personally of how dedicated the personnel are for the people of America. With this, we're delaying the modernization, put our security at risk, and we are really grateful that plutonium pit production, which is so crucial, is actually a two-site solution with Los Alamos and Savannah River. So what is the status of maintaining our capabilities? Representative, thank you so much. I've had the opportunity of actually visiting the Savannah River twice in my recent job and in my former job. You're absolutely right, the men and women that are there are incredible Americans and dedicated patriots. To your point, I think when we think about the products and components that are going to be required from NNSA, I want to keep the throttle pressed and ensuring that we get pit productions in the numbers we want. I also think that we also need to pay attention to the other rare earth materials that are warranted and needed, not only tritium, but also lithium and other components that might be something that can hold them back, if you will, as far as NNSA and their production. And then finally, I think industrial base and making sure that the brick and mortar, as you know, the things that are actually being produced and built there, the facility itself, across the enterprise for NNSA to ensure that they can accomplish all of that to get the buildings built in order to get the production done. In general, thank you so much, General. Always welcome back to Savannah River site at any time. And please let me know when you're there, because I'd like to be with you. Thank you for your service. And Secretary Plum, you stated in your testimony that Iran continues to expand their nuclear activities. Additionally, you also state that at this time, quote, we believe Iran is not currently pursuing nuclear weapons. Secretary Plum, I just, that's amazing to me because the regime in Tehran is pursuing an effort of increasing their stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The regime in Tehran is continuing to develop ICBMs, which can only be used with the intent of striking the United States. And they make it clear as they chant death to Israel, death to America. And so it's just really appalling to me that we're in a war we didn't choose, and that is a war with dictators with rule of gun invading democracies with rule of law. And we know that it began February 22, 2022 with war criminal Putin invading Ukraine. And then October 7th, the puppet Hamas of Iran invaded Israel with mass murder. The dots are so easy to connect between the axes of evil. And Iran is, we know, providing drones and missiles to Putin to murder Ukrainians and return their collaboration. I just can't imagine it would not include nuclear and missile development. A nuclear bomb would destabilize the Middle East with a vaporization of Israel as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and our Persian Gulf allies are threatened. How close is the regime in Tehran to a nuclear weapon? Thank you, sir. I don't have a specific time frame for your exact question, but I'll just say my testimony is based on intelligence. My testimony is based on intelligence assessment, which is you can enrich uranium without pursuing a nuclear weapon. Obviously, you need enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon, so I take your point. As far as how close it is, I don't, perhaps, General Cotton has a kind of an intel-informed assessment. I don't have it on my head. My time is up, but hey, we're dealing with Iran. They have enough energy capability, oil and gas. They don't need to have enriched uranium. They need for them to have enriched uranium, and that's to develop a nuclear weapon to attack the United States. I yield back. Representative Carbohal is next on the list. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We all know space is essential to our everyday lives, and I don't think most people understand this. Not only is space critical to our national security programs, but we rely on space to check our weather, our phones to use a credit card, and now in some cases for internet connection, just to name a few. These capabilities are primarily because of our nation's robust commercial space industry. General Whiting, can you speak to the partnership between Space Command and commercial space companies? How do commercial space companies help you fulfill your mission? Congressman, thank you for the question. I think one of our nation's principal advantages is our commercial space industry. It is moving at incredible speed with innovation, and it is outpacing commercial industry from the rest of the world. And so today we partner with those companies in a number of ways. One way is through information sharing, a cell called the Commercial Integration Cell at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, and then we also leverage services provided by commercial companies. And so we're always looking at how we can better both share information and leverage the capabilities that commercial brings us because we believe that makes us more effective. Thank you for those watching. Vandenberg is in my district. General Whiting, what do you think the biggest challenge is in space domain, and how can Congress help you overcome this challenge? Thank you, Congressman. Our biggest challenge today is the speed at which the People's Republic of China continues to develop its space capabilities. And in particular, they are developing a number of counter-space weapons systems to hold at risk our space systems. They're also using space to enable their terrestrial forces, their army, their navy, their air force marines to make them more lethal, more precise, and more far ranging. So I would ask the Congress's support to continue to invest, particularly in the United States Space Force, but also in the other services that provide us capability at U.S. Space Command, because they have to now take our joint constellations and make them more resilient. They have to develop systems that we can protect and defend those constellations. We need capabilities to protect the joint force from the space-enabling capabilities of others. And then we need a testing and training environment that allows us to know with confidence that our space systems will work the way we need them to. And that's a lot of new work. And we need to make sure that we're able to do that. Thank you. And the Space Force's ability to move quickly has been impressive. Dr. Plum, can you elaborate on why a mission like Victus Knox is important, and why do you think we've seen success when moving quickly when it comes to space, whether it's it be technically responsive space or space development agency proliferation satellite architecture? Thank you, Congressman, for the questions here. On Victus Knox, which is a tactically responsive launch, I'm a big fan of this concept of being able to launch quickly, in particular in the way it was done there, which is in response to a simulated threat. So I think the idea of what you use tactically responsive launch for, the original thought was maybe used for reconstitution, which may have a play here, but I really do think the idea of there's something new we want to go look at, how fast can we stack a rocket, get a payload to go inspect a thing, or is a really interesting question, and I think the service has really knocked it out of the park on that particular mission. Your second question was about moving faster, I think, in space development agency, and as General Whiting just said, you know, partnering with commercial space, which is currently an economic engine for the United States, which we should all be proud of. One of the things that business communities do is actually innovate at speed so they can close their business case, and we're trying to figure out how to harness that, and I think what Derek Turnier is doing at SDA is really impressive, which is trying to get the government to move faster and trying to build on best of current available and do replenishment with increasing technological upgrade as we go. It's a really impressive thing he's doing, and I think we need to continue to encourage it, and as I've said in this committee before, that also means we need congressional help to make sure that if something fails, or not every single satellite works, that we don't have time for that effort. That's actually built into the way we want to design going forward. Thank you. I won't have time for your response, but I want to put this question in the record. Responsible behavior in space is critical to the productive use of this domain now and for future generations. Dr. Plummer, how does the department encourage responsible behavior or detour dangerous behavior in this domain? You don't have to answer it. I'm out of time. Mr. Chair, I yield back. Just send me the answer. Thank you so much, Chairman. General Guillaume, as ballistic missile threats from North Korea and Iran continue to advance, do you believe that it would be strategically worthwhile to construct a third homeland missile defense site at the DODN Congress's chosen East Coast location at Fort Drum, New York? Congresswoman, I'm aware that there was a recent assessment that said that such a site was not an operational necessity. However, as an operational commander that watches very closely the advances that our adversaries are making, primarily Iran and even more so North Korea, I think that it's important for me as the commander to have continually assessed the threat and see if there are any changes in the threat environment that would necessitate additional capabilities to affect the homeland. And so I would, sorry. General, in my office, when you were kind enough to visit, you said it would be strategically worthwhile and you supported the construction. I understand the assessment process, but as you and I spoke in my office, you said this would be strategically worthwhile, particularly as we're considering threats not just of today, but of the future as well. Yes, Congressman, if the assessment came back that those threats, I thought it would be worthwhile to build that site, a site. What would an operational requirement for a third homeland missile defense site look like? Congressman, that would depend on the threat, but I think dispersal away from the sites that we have now so we don't have all of our proverbial eggs in one basket would be very important. And the other would be to make sure that it is located somewhere in the continental United States where it would have the kinematic responsiveness to intercept threats that are coming from a different avenue. And Fort Drum meets those requirements. That's the DOD's position, that's Congress's position, that Fort Drum is in fact the location of a potential East Coast missile defense site. You are aware of that. I am aware of that, yes, ma'am. And it meets those requirements. Well, it does. I think I'm answering a different question. With future capabilities that we may have, I think we would have to assess that. But based on the previous, yes, I know that Fort Drum was the primary location. Great. And you understand if and when Congress establishes a requirement for a third homeland missile defense site on the East Coast. You understand that it's the DOD's responsibility to execute that requirement. I would be the strongest advocate to execute that requirement if the threat required it. Yes, ma'am. And then shifting gears here, upstate New York, in addition to being home to Fort Drum and my district, we also are home to another key Arctic unit, the New York Air National Guard 109th Airlift Wing. And the 109th Airlift Wing operates the LC-130H's or known as the Ski Birds. These planes, as you know, are the only platform in the world that can provide critical logistical support in and around the Arctic. Yet they are at the very end of their operational capability. Do you believe that the LC-130s have enabled the U.S. to maintain a strategic presence and lead in the Arctic? Congresswoman, yes. Without a doubt. In fact, just this past week, they were in our AOR up at Arctic Edge and Ice Camp operation performing that unique capability. We believe and this is a bipartisan issue for members of the New York delegation. I just authored a letter with my colleague, Paul Tonko, so bipartisan support about the urgent need for their capitalization. So I would refer you to that. We'll make sure your office has a copy of that, but that's very important to maintain our leadership strategically in the Arctic region. Yield back. Thank you, Representative Norcross. Thank you, Chairman. General Cotton, we recently heard that the Sentinel program or heard it triggered the Nunn-McCurdy Act indicating their work with serious concerns of cost overrun. And getting less into the actual dollars and cents and time delay, we're about to approve, hopefully approve a budget and some money that's going to go in to fund the Department of Defense and we are facing increasing pressures to fund all our programs. We have had the three legs and we have had incredibly important. If the Sentinel program continues and in the projections where it is going, it could come to the point that it almost becomes unaffordable in the way that it's laid out. At what point do we look at that program and say, do we go back to the drawing board not so much to recapitalize our existing band threes but the requirements? Look at a different way of that third leg of the triad. Can you comment on that? Representative Norcross, thanks for the question. We have. So, in regards to three administrations doing an assessment in regards of do we keep a triad or do we go to something different? All said, we must maintain a triad. And I'm not suggesting that, but within one of the legs, do we look at it differently, not just replicate and update with the existing ones, but look at a different configuration? Well, I'll know about a different configuration and I guess I don't know what you mean about a different configuration. Probably not a good idea in an open session, but the idea of just modernizing what we have but I can't answer from this perspective of congressmen as far as the requirements that we lay and that's my responsibility as STRATCOM and then the provider of that capability has come back to say that we can only meet that requirement at a certain amount of time in which that needs to then be replaced by a more modernized system. So, if that answers your question and that's when I think we still must maintain an ICBM leg of some reference that probably looks a little different than a Minuteman 3. So, the cost factor, there's no price that we can put on it. We'll pay whatever it takes to get it in. Well, I would hope that the Air Force and everyone will be able to take a look at that and be able to come to some conclusion on how you can make that, but the requirement for the land-based ICBM has not changed from my perspective. There's no question about that. So, Dr. Plumman, this is I'm going to throw it into your lane. Is it time that we look at that leg of how it is currently required and what we might do differently to bring in those cost issues? I'm not suggesting we do away with it, but do we look at it differently? So, we all have to be careful here because we're now in a non-McCurdy breach situation, sir, but my understanding is that one of the requirements for the Congress of the Secretary of the Plants purview in ANS specifically and not ours is to re-look the requirement and look at other ways that could be possible to do it as all requirement are the non-McCurdy breach through the congressional statute. All right, then let me switch things over to an easy one. Let's talk about the electromagnetic spectrum. Something easy and non-controversial. Obviously, this is rear of its ugly head quite often. We recently went through what the Department of Defense wants to keep versus what the cellular carriers would like to obtain. It's not going to get any better soon. What is your assessment not of where we just came from, but where we're going to be in five years with technology, going from what the cellular carriers might need for our private side, but what we might need as a spectrum, whether it's 3.45 gigahertz, it keeps expanding in different ways that we can get into the spectrum. Can you give us an assessment of where we are with that in five minutes or less? I actually just had the pleasure of getting down to Eglin Air Force Base and seeing some of our electronic warfare and I'll just say the value of spectrum to the war fight and the ability to operate in these bands that we have carved out of ourselves is only going to grow in importance and in particular as we focus on China as our pacing threat where they have been aware of this for a long time. We have to maintain what we have to be able to compete. EW in the Ukraine-Russia conflict is providing lessons for everyone every single day. We have to be ready for that. We have to be ready to fight our near-pure adversaries not places where we just have superiority. My apologies, I yield back. Thank you, Representative Bacon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you gentlemen for being here. It's been a treat for me to work with many of you on the Dias out here. I got to talk to John Guille about a week ago, so through some questions that you've done. So I'm going to focus a little more on the STRAC common space side. I believe it's imperative that we have 400 ICBMs. We can't extend it any longer. So it's imperative that the Air Force get this right and learn from the mistakes and get these 400 missiles installed. This committee is committed overwhelmingly to have three legs of the triad and do the modernization. The one area that we sometimes think doesn't get the attention it deserves is the nuclear command and control. And in particular, from my vantage point, the survivability part of that. So Joe Cotton, can you share with us the current status of STRACOM's NC3 modernization efforts and your roadmap? Congressman Bacon, thanks for the question. I'm actually quite proud of what the team has done in the last 15 months in regards to create a roadmap for NC3. I think when I talked to this committee last year, one of my go-dos was to ensure that we could articulate the requirements from a near-term, mid-term and long-term perspective. We were able to do that. It actually culminated with a deputy's DSD department, deputy secretary of defense meeting which turned into yet a go-do for the service components on what we need to fight tonight, what we need for the mid-term activities and modernization of NC3 and then what will it take for the out years. We're in the middle of a trade study right now to find the best fit for it to be frank, the mid-term zero to five year because we're already funded and thank you for being able to fund us for getting the near-term and fight tonight activities done. As we prosecute that roadmap, it'll be able to show us gaps and seams that could potentially be seen between zero, five and ten moving forward. So we're quite proud of the work that's being done there. Thank you. One of the survivable aspects for the NC3 is the E-6B Mercury mission where we have an airborne command post we put a flag officer on board that can take over of StratCom and the White House and the Pentagon. So as you know, the E-6B is approaching retirement and this timeline may accelerate once the Navy has confidence in its program schedule for the Takamo mission to the C-130J. So are you confident that the Air Force has a solution or a program to replace the airborne command post and looking glass missions which today fly on the E-6B? So part of that trade space study actually looks at that because that is a gap. And the requirement is that the E-6B will fly through the 2036 timeframe. So as you have mentioned the Takamo acquisition is already underway in the Department of the Navy. So as that trade space study comes to closure it will identify that gap and at that point in time we'll need to find what is going to be the replacement for the back end of that airplane as you mentioned. And it's imperative that we have this mission. It gives second launch capability for our I-6B Air Force. And so this is very important Mr. Chairman that we follow the Air Force on this because we've got to have this mission. We haven't planned for it yet and we're going to have to work this part hard. General Lighting up, when I came in the Congress I tried to put a lot of attention on the electronic magnetic spectrum operations as an old guy called just E-W. But we felt like we had a lot of work to do there. And I know StratCom has picked up the leadership on it but I know you were telling me how important E-W is to the space mission. So could you talk a little bit about your role in the E-W realm? Thank you for the question Congressman. So our satellites on orbit, the only way they can get their information down to planet Earth is through the E-W spectrum. So it's absolutely vital to all that we do and we appreciate the leadership role that the Congress has taken and now by US StratCom having the military responsibility for that. We have stood up an EM, joint EM office inside of US Space Command that is already very busy and it's only about seven months old and making sure as we see EMI in the environment jamming in the environment, how are we assessing that, how are we operating through that and it's just foundational to all that we do Congressman. Thank you very much. I'll put a question in the record asking about the importance of the future roles for the B-52 and why it's so vital to the strategic mission but I'm out of time so I'll put it in for the record. Thank you. Thank you Representative Garamendi. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Plum, you spoke in response to Mr. Norcross about the non-McCurdy requirement. You went through it very quickly. There are five specific elements of the law that must be answered. Are you and the Air Force prepared to answer all five fully, completely and honestly? Congressman so just to be clear I don't have any non-McCurdy statutory authority myself that is an A&S thing but yes of course the department will be answering them fully and honestly and correctly. John McCotten, same question. The answer is yes. Very good. I think that takes care of it. Well I expect that and we would expect nothing less here. If we were to define strategy in the military terms we would probably say it's aligning unlimited aspirations with limited amount of money. Unless somebody has found some way to continue to increase by perhaps 10% or 15% a year the Department of Defense budget strategy means making choices by the military as well as by us. John McCotten you spoke earlier about the need for the ICBM for the ICBM you said it's required can you tell me in specificity what can not be done by the other two legs of the triad that only the ICBM can do? Congressman Garamendi I can. The ICBM provides a responsive the ICBM provides a responsiveness to the president of the United States that no other two legs can provide. Really? That is correct. The bomber force and the submarine force is not responsive? They are responsive but not as responsive and quickly can it provide a response as quick as the ICBM if it was warranted by the president if I was to present options. What would create a response? Well I would rather not talk in open. There is a warning coming from Mr. General Whitting that they are incoming missiles. What is the response? It would be obviously up to the president of the United States on does he want to How many minutes does he have to respond? I will not say that here in open hearing. In the public domain it is 15 minutes you don't need to respond but I don't know anybody is going to be disagreeing with that. Is that the definition of responsive? 15 minutes to make a decision about the launch of those weapons. Now let's assume they were launched. Would it make any difference if it was 15 minutes or 30, 40 minutes at a submarine? Well you are making the assumption that the difference between the other two legs is yet another 15 or 20 minutes and I can get in more detail if we were in a closed environment to tell you what that difference would really be. So they are less responsive? Survivable leg is a sea leg flexible leg is the air leg responsive leg is the ICBM. In other words immediate launch or lose it. It's the user to lose it isn't it? It's not the effect of the launch. The launch would be the same if it were launched from a submarine or from an airplane. That's not quite correct Congressman because I can hold different elements at risk with the different legs of the triad. We should go into that in detail. What is your need for programs that are not in your current budget? Is it about $1.3 billion? Congressman I just have signed our unfunded priority list and that total is about $1.2 billion. Could you use any part of the $6 billion that is currently authorized for the continued progress of the Sentinel even though it is now non-McCurdyed? Would you like about maybe a fifth of that? About $6 billion we are going to spend on the Sentinel this year. Congressman I don't identify the sources of the funds just I know what my requirements are to fulfill our mission. My point here is to my colleagues we do identify the source and we do have the responsibility of aligning strategy with limited money. Thank you. I yield back. Okay that concludes the questioning portion of our hearing today. Let me just add a slight clarification from the perspective you threw out a number a minute ago Representative Garmendi there are different numbers that are floating around out there and I don't think it would be wise for any of us to confirm or deny any specific number because I think that's really not a topic of discussion we should be having in an open session like this which leads me to my next point we will go into recess and immediately reconvene upstairs and have perhaps a brief classified hearing because votes will be called shortly but we will have a classified hearing for those who are able to attend and thank you for your testimony today we are in recess.