 Let's see. Ladies and gentlemen, I know it's traditional to begin every Middle East meeting at least 15 to 20 minutes late in Washington. I hope you will excuse me if we begin almost on time. In all seriousness, though, it's a great pleasure to introduce Abdullah Tukhan. He and I have worked and known each other for really, since 1982. I was only six when I met him. But Abdullah has a background in physics, a doctor from MIT. He's worked as science advisor to King Hussein. He's been deeply involved in the arms control process and peace negotiations in the Middle East. Done a lot of work in the analysis of the military balance, strategic issues, and today, missile defense. But I would like to make just a few introductory remarks. One of them is that this is one, if I may have the first slide, of a whole range of challenges. I want to be careful about the word threat because I think we sometimes demonize Iran. But these are realities. And important as the nuclear issue is, there are other parts of this problem. And they obviously interact with the threat from non-state actors and all of the other tensions in the region. And they highlight the importance of something which is becoming a very serious strategic partnership. And one where we often forget as Americans that, well, we do play an important role in the region. We also have partners that can play an important role as well. If I may have the next slide. It really, in some ways, isn't just a matter of forces. It's a matter of resources. That orange line is the level of Gulf Cooperation Council military spending. The blue line, which gives an optimistic estimate for Iran, is Iran's defense spending. You occasionally hear about Iran as the superpower of the Gulf. And if having Vietnam war vintage military equipment is a sign of being a superpower, then Iran is. But there are reasons why, and Abdullah will touch on them. It is seeking not only nuclear weapons, but missiles. It simply isn't able to compete. And if you look at the next slide, it's even more clear in some ways what the advantages to us are. Iran is at the far minimum. If you look at your chart, it's on the far left. That is a level of military technology and arms imports that it's had according to a declassified US estimate between 2004 and 2011. That tall bar is the size of the orders from the Gulf Cooperation Council for New Weapons and Technology. More than 80% of those come from the United States and are interoperable with US forces. Something that is not an inconsiderable issue, because we have five naval task forces with various functions in the Gulf and three airwings. We have elements of the 82nd Airborne and Special Forces dealing with the training of units inside Iraq and Syria. We had elements, as I think most of you are aware, in Yemen. So this partnership is one which has broad value, deals with a very broad range of threats of which Iran is one and non-state actors are another. And I think that is an essential preference to what Abdullah will now cover, which is one of the most serious threats and one that will remain almost regardless of what happens in reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran. Abdullah? Thank you. Thank you, Tony, very much for the nice and kind introduction. Yes, we go back 30 years, so. And I see some old colleagues of mine like Dr. Bob Einhorn, who we worked hard in the Middle East peace process, and especially in the arms control process. So we've had many years together in this field. And last but not least, really, CSIS for inviting me over and spending these couple of weeks with my old colleagues, and certainly a lot to learn and certainly to see this very dynamic atmosphere they have here. My analysis is really what would like to take you just through a couple of issues here in the Middle East that shows you where the proliferation risks, especially in the missile area, are growing and what would be the factors behind it. We just don't want to talk about only the technical aspects, but there is also the political motivation, which is based on threat perception security concerns, then the technical capability or capabilities of that particular country in terms of ballistic missiles design, development, and deployment. As Dr. Kozman was talking about, Iran's threat perception security concerns, it sees itself as a dominant gulf power. It's aimed to keep the waters free for many foreign military presence and to prevent outside countries from shaping the political and security future of the gulf. Sees itself as a regional power in the Middle East, therefore has a say in the internal affairs of regional countries and in the Middle East peace process. The presence of the US Fifth Fleet in the waters of the gulf is a direct threat to its national security and sees the US building base in the gulf as launching pads for a strike against it. Israel also views Iran and that Israel views Iran as an existential threat, and Iran must be dealt through a military strike within the immediate future. The US, Israel, and the Arab states are working to destabilize Iran politically and economically and to deny it, it's a nuclear energy program. And the countries in the region and adjacent are politically unstable with internal violence. This has shown recently very, very transparent to us in its involvement within the neighboring Arab countries. Now, in the technical aspect, there are three ways in which conventional weapons can be delivered over a considerable distance. One is aircraft, and the Iranians have the MiG-29, Sukhoi-24s, F-14, all the American airplanes, and the F-40 Phantom, who are now literally have been put in the junkyards by most of the air forces of the world. Cruise missiles, they're interested. They do some cruise missile work. They have the technical capability. Some are still in development, and some, no, are operating. And last but not least, ballistic missiles which do cover that range, and they have the capability and the power to carry conventional and unconventional weapons. So let's go through one of them all at a time. I should go back there, sorry. Iran force level, first of all, Iran has about 187 of the aircraft. And as I just mentioned, the old, let's say old vintage of the Sukhoi-14 and F-40. They're operational readiness state. In other words, the amount of maintenance they can do, spare parts that they could buy in the black market just to keep these airplanes going, especially the western ones, gives them an operational capability of something about 60% maximum. So from that force, what force is available is about 106. And if they carry two sorties a day per aircraft, if they're lucky to do that, they'll have something like 212 sorties. If you take the GCC all together now, with their more advanced aircraft like the F-16s, Mirage 2000s, you've got the 15s, S, all total in numbers, something around 475 aircraft for all the GCC states. And if you take a sustained sortie level of three sorties per day, you get something like 1,059 sorties that the GCC countries can produce per day, versus a 200 odd of Iran. So if you really look at it this way, you say, okay, what is my force available? The combat aircraft, 475 for the Gulf States, 187 for Iran. The aircraft force ratio, in other words, the combat airplanes available is 2.5 to one of the GCC versus Iran. Once you take into consideration the sortie rate of those combat aircraft, in other words, the combat presence of the air forces, you find a force ratio of five to one. In other words, five to one for the benefit of the GCC countries. And on top of all of this also, one has to go through the aircraft performance, range, survivability, number type of weapons carry, and the accuracy. And by all means, everybody knows this, I mean, F-16s, F-15s are at the top of the line at the moment, other aircraft are coming in like the J735s and so forth. But what is operational and available, these are the top of the line aircraft. And they are present over there in the GCC countries. But however, when you look at them as being delivery systems, the airplanes, they're slow, one, they're slow, and they can be detected by air defense systems. Well, the aging Iranian air forces, as I said, will be no match against the US and even GCC forces. Iran, Iranian air force does not have the capability to reach major cities and high-value targets of 1,000 kilometers carrying one or two 1,000 kilogram bombs when flying at the flight profile of a low, low, low. When you go up to low, high, low, and you come to these profiles, you don't spend much fuel, therefore your distances are higher. But you will be very vulnerable to air defense systems and detection at an early stage so the mission won't be successful. What they usually like to do is do a low, low, low entry and exit, but then the distance gets short. So when you look at it, anyone reasonable would decide that that is not a good way to really deliver these large payloads on a long distance, on a far distance. So just to show you graphically what this means. If you take this of the high, low, low, high, which is the one on the left here, the F4E, if it takes up from Bushir, is something like 400 nautical miles its distance or combat radius. The Sukhoi 25 is about 600 nautical miles. If they go into the low, low, low to avoid radar detection and survive in a dense air defense system, their ranges go down to 300 and 450 nautical miles. Below that 1,000 kilometer range they need to cover most of the cities in the Middle East or high value targets. Whereas on the other hand, if you take the US and the Mirage 2000, you will find that the F16 itself has something like 700 nautical miles in the high, low, low, high mission profile. The F16 has 790 and the Mirage 2620. And then the low, low, low, and they have a lot of survivability equipment. They have good radar detection. The Mirage 2000 will make 435 nautical miles, F16, 510 and Tornado 550 nautical miles. So you find that many of the targets even within Iran itself will be open to attack and can be reached by the GCC Air Forces. Whereas the other way around, it's not the case. In terms of cruise missiles now, cruise missiles, you have quite a few possible Iranian cruise missiles here. I'm saying possible because really the data and the exact knowledge of precisely what they have and what stage of development they have reached at is not quite sure. We're not quite sure of that. But you have something like the KH-55. It's a nuclear and a conventional air-launched cruise missile. It's not operation in Iran, but maybe used as an engineering test bit. It is there, apparently. It's available. You've got the others like the SSN-22 again. It could be used for engineering test bits. But the ones we sure know that they are there are the C-801, C-802s below and the SSC-3s and the silkworms. But then if you look at their speeds, their speeds are about 0.85 Mach number, which is something like 240 meters per second, quite slow, the ranges are short and they're mostly are anti-ship and let's say ship to shore, that sort of ranges that they are fired with but not on the long distance. And anyway, even if they try to do it in a shorter distance, it's quite, their speeds are slow. So if you come to that and you compare them, they're compared in that sense. You have, if you have a typical range for a target of 320 kilometers, for an aircraft is about 22 minutes, for a cruise missile, 11 minutes, for a ballistic missile, four minutes. So obviously what you do, you go for a very short period of time, to get to target, speed, and obviously will penetrate air defenses, conventional air defenses, very quickly ballistic missiles. They won't have any problem in that. Now, the ballistic missiles in Iran, just having a look at them and they are what they call Shahab-1, Shahab-2, Shahab-3, Shahab-4. Shahab-1 and two are the basic scud bees and seas, the old scud bees and seas. They are on service. They can, the maximum weight that they can carry is something up to between here 750 to 1300 kilograms, but I've taken the average of 1000 kilograms in this calculation to see whether, if a hypothetical, if we look at it as a, can it really carry a small nuclear device, which is of low tech and can eventually weigh 1000 kilograms? Well, the Shahab-1 and 2, which are the scud bees and seas which have a range of 285 kilometers and 370 kilometers, no, they don't. Whereas the Shahab-3 and Shahab-3M that are up to the 910 and 1000 kilometer range and above, yes, they could. That's not saying that they have them because we're very quite uncertain yet about any of the missiles carrying any nuclear devices. You have the Safir and the Sejil that are on the development and their ranges are supposed to be from 2000 to 2000 something kilometers. They will cover the whole mid-disease range very easily. If you'll recall that you remember the nuclear cable missile is defined by the missile technology regime as one with a payload capability in excess of 500 kilograms, combined with the range in excess of 300 kilograms. This definition is based on an assumption that an emerging nuclear state will be unable to build nuclear warheads weighing less than 500 kilograms. Because trying to build nuclear warheads weighing less than 500 kilograms, you really need a very high technology procedure that only United States, maybe Russia has and one or two other superpowers do have to really miniaturize nuclear warheads to give you enormous big yield. The others in a low-tech area. We should, I should show you this now. This is the Iran ballistic missile ranges. Of all the Shahab 1, Shahab 2, 3s, 4s and 3ms. As you can see, they cover the whole Middle East area. Shahab 3 and 3M do cover quite a bit a lot. Now the incoming new ones will be covering way beyond that. Sorry, missile ranges. Now, one other thing too is let us go to the tactical missile threat, the conventional now, just the conventional part at the moment. Because accuracy comes into play when one looks at the conventional part. There are calculations obviously done of how much you need of a kilogram of explosives to destroy something. Let's say a parked aircraft, you need something like 25 meters if the explosion takes place about 25 meters away, that will damage the aircraft. But then you ask yourself what is the accuracy of the missile? As far as we know, the accuracy of the missiles or the Iranian missiles over these range of 1,000 kilometers, something like 500 meters. With a 500 meter accuracy range, or CEP as they call it, you would require about 400 missiles to hit those aircraft or come close to those aircraft because of the accuracy level. I mean, they'll be scattered on a, imagine a circle of about radius 500 meters and then you have a little target right in the middle. So try to get all your missiles or a couple of missiles in there. So this relationship between the lethal damage done by a nuclear warhead or a conventional warhead versus the accuracy of the missile comes into play for deciding whether one sometimes wants to go nuclear or not. Here for example, it's a little example here is that you will have the CEP. If you have a radius 25 meters of an aircraft and your accuracy is 50 meters, you need to have about eight aircraft with the red down there. If you introduce a present accuracy of the Iranian missiles, you will need something like 692 aircraft. Missiles over there to attack that, to get to destroy that particular target. Obviously, if you go down now one and you go into a target and you say your accuracy is even smaller than the lethal area, then obviously you need maybe one or two missiles maximum and you can destroy the target. So accuracy plays a large role. Does Iran have the accuracy in those missiles? No. Is Iran claims it does? Maybe. It talks about having a satellite capability, GPS, and they could really bring it down into a, you know, a barn in an open field. But that is very, very, I'm very skeptical about this. I mean, we don't see it really happening. They don't have those, that capability of having a very high degree of accuracy in their missiles. So what is the answer to this? If you have, let's look at missile accuracy. If the missile accuracy is small, CEP is large, therefore the number of missiles needed to damage and destroy a target will be large. You need more missiles to damage a target. Now number of targets that can be attacked will be reduced. So you have a reduction in targets, more missiles to destroy those small targets. But if the accuracy is high, you need fewer missiles to destroy a target, and more targets are then attacked because you can allocate more missiles per target. So ballistic missiles can be used with a success rate sometimes against soft targets, sure. In open areas and cities to inflict maximum human casualties and create terror. In a sense, what is considered as a major component in asymmetric warfare in the form of high civilian casualties. So if you're looking at that, and in terms of an asymmetrical warfare, you won't be worrying much about your accuracy of your missiles. But if you do, and you think it's that, is your main fighting force and your main, let's say attack force, then you have to be very careful and really work on the accuracies required. Sometimes one looks as a nuclear weapon to compensate for that. I don't need to have my accuracy level at 25 meters. If I take an old 20 kilo ton like the Hiroshima, the lethality is about 440 meters. In other words, anything in the radius of this little red dot here, 440 meters, I can destroy. So sometimes the logic will tell you, why should I invest so much into my conventional arms? Whereas I can go and produce one 20 kilo ton low tech nuclear weapon or nuclear device that will give that I can destroy anything at 440 meters. And I don't have to worry all about this accuracy business of 25 meters or 20 meters and how many missiles do I need to blow up. Therefore, this could be a solution in that sense. Again, these kind of missiles and these warheads are kind of relative in both ends because as you can tell, if we go up to the 500 kilo ton weapons systems there, you will have a, I put it up for you here just to show you, imagine, look at the difference. You'll have over one kilometer radius where 50% of people there will just be completely wiped out. Now, one thing you ask yourself in the technical area, do I have the infrastructure, the human resources, the institutes, education, places where I can do design, development, production? Yes. Through the National Nuclear Threat Initiative work, they've listed maybe something like 22 missile sites where this takes place. Plus six main bases where they can be launched from. So imagine the amount of human resources that they have in Iran. It's not that they have one or two or they don't have anybody in there importing their missiles. They have enough missile institutes or sites or engineering sites that they can really develop and further increase and further on the ranges on the type of warheads that they can use and all kinds of things of that name even on types of the fuel required. Now, given the fact that it looks like it, that here we're hearing that really the missiles are their only good striking force that they have and the concentration is on that area as we see and we hear every day. Well, we also ourselves therefore, if I want to build a ballistic missile defense system, what am I looking at? One of the things of the theater ballistic missile system, defense system United States has, it tells you that here are the components of the system. You want to do a defense segment, you want to do mid-course intercept, terminal intercept and the radars and everything that follows that comes with it. Well, what we did is we sort of put together a little timeline to show that if these missiles are launched, let's say from Iran, and you can see it's, that's on the right hand side below on the bottom part, the two ways. One, you could have a preemptive strike before that. In other words, know there's something coming up and just send your aircraft in and start wiping out the ballistic missile sites because you don't want those missiles to take off. They have a large number of them and they can be, they can be taken, they can take off and deployed quite quickly actually. So you have in the Iranian, over the Iranian territory, you have the, you have the boost phase and slowly comes in the interface between the Gulf waters and the territory and the Iranian territory. Here you'll have something like the Aegis, United States Navy ships out there that have these mid-course terminal guidance, radars and have the mid-course terminal missiles, they call them SM-3 to intercept and wipe out any missiles coming in over the Gulf waters. You have the mid-course segment, again that's completely over the Arabian Gulf waters then. Again, these are the systems that will work most of the US Aegis system. The US Aegis system has visited and has gone there, goes there once in a while to the Arabian Gulf waters. It does visit there once in a while and goes there. So you can tell United States has not left the waters or left the area completely abandoned on the contrary. It is now also going there, in addition to any of the systems they are introducing like the Patriot advanced capability, other air defense systems they're slowly installing and introducing in the Gulf states. So the US Navy is there with the Aegis system. Those fads and Patriot advanced capability are mostly what we say in the terminal phase and that is where now it is over Gulf territory, Gulf land. And here you will have mostly like early warning radars, you will have the launchers available and this is where really it's a very critical, it's a very short period of time, you're talking really in the seconds, you're talking about missiles coming in about three kilometers per second. So imagine that window of opportunity to detect, assess, engage and destroy all of those factors taking place. So the rules of engagement have to be worked out and decided beforehand, which means an immense amount of coordination, simulation, training between the Gulf states to use these particular systems. So it's not easy, it's not one of those plug and play issues. It really is a lot of hard work to get this done and it will be done, it can be done, that's not, and that's exactly what this partnership is working towards. The preemptive strike as I was talking about, that is also a quite of a feat that could take place because you'll have to have aircraft hitting on the nuclear areas, the missile areas, you have air defense systems that they'll have to take off along the way as they go in. So you would have to have a quite a coordinated air to ground also campaign over a few days to let's say diminish or reduce the number of missiles operationally available to be launched at the GCC countries. This is a terminal phase that I just said now is where you've got the THAAD and the PAC-3. Most of the Gulf states have the PAC-3 one, which is here, which is the shorter, which is on the 30 kilometer altitude and a shorter range. And then you have the THAAD, Theater High Altitude Air Defense System, which really covers the first tier of missiles in the terminal phase. When, if they do launch them out, as this little picture shows you in a volley approach, not one by one, but volley approach, and let's say you'll have five missiles coming in at the same time. A little calculation will show you that you'll basically need two missiles for every one Iranian missile coming into intercepted. But if you have a volley of about maybe 10 Iranian missiles, you'll have to start having three missiles to intercept one missile so as you can reduce the number coming in as well. And it's quite a difficult, well, this is difficult, but technologically speaking, I think the THAAD and the PAC and the advanced features can sort of withstand that, but you'll have to have more of an overlay or overlapping systems along the Gulf Coast. It's not just one country. And that is why Qatar is interested now, Saudi Arabia is interested. GCC is the only country that has a battery of two of that's theater high altitude air defense system, and it also has the PAC-3, the Patriot anti-aircraft or advanced capability missile. As I said, again, it has a range of 40 kilometers of PAC-3, high altitude of 30 kilometers, and it can engage targets coming in about three kilometers per second, which are the Iranian missiles of the Shabs. One thing is very important in this, and in all of this, actually, sorry, just to do this, is we have a command and control, I'd go back, command and control and manage battlement and communications. That is a very, very important feature about the whole thing. That makes sure that when you assign targets to your for your aircraft or missile batteries, it's a one-to-one ratio. It's not a, let's say a random assignment. Sometimes when you have a random assignment, and that happens a lot with the Soviet systems that we've seen that don't function well in the Middle East, you find that maybe two aircraft or three aircraft jump on one aircraft, they start fighting that, they never get anywhere. Whereas on an assigned uniform targets with a good command and control, you'll have a one-to-one approach. So therefore, no ammunition is wasted, every aircraft up there goes up there, or a defense has a role to play and has a target to acquire and destroy. So that is the difference. You have a very effective, efficient, advanced technology system, like the FAT and the PAC-3, versus many quite a few Soviet systems that just don't take you anywhere. And that again, that's why a little picture like this always reminds us that when, if any conflict takes place, everything will go haywire over there. Missiles, aircraft, AWACS, air defense, cruise missile, launch, air launch missiles, everything. And that is where importance of a command and control, battle management and communications. That's why you'll have some of these large radar, ground radars in Qatar and communicating with the UAE and there's that interface between them at a very high speed and very high speed and disseminate all the information disseminated to all the centers which are involved in any combat. So putting it all together, what do we come up with? We ask ourselves, well, here you go, the Arab Gulf and the US Strategic Partnership in Ballistic Missile Defense. See, what I try to show you is how and why such a system, the concept of this system, how it comes into mind to design it, how effective it will be and where it can be deployed. It's not just against aircraft, it's basically against missiles and those would be, the missiles will be the first striking force capability of Iran in any situation that goes, takes place over there for any war breaks out. Obviously the other form is asymmetric warfare and Dr. Cosman always reminds people, talks about this, that there is another area that most of GCC countries don't have that basic, let's say, hardware and training in that field. So again, the UAE is the first country to buy the terminal high altitude air defense system. Kuwait is interested, but it has a PAC-3. Saudi Arabia, as I understand from the last IDEX meeting in Abu Dhabi a couple of months ago or exhibition that took place, Saudi Arabia and Qatar both expressed interest in the theater high altitude air defense systems in addition to their patriot capabilities. Oman, well Oman has a PAC-3 patriot advanced capability system. So slowly, as you can see, that they're all expressing interest. They're looking into the systems, looking at the design and how it can work with the United States of America. United States has and always has extended, has an extended deterrence policy with the Gulf State, has always been there to protect and help joint, let's say, bilateral agreements with them. A lot of Central Command is situated in Qatar. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. They are continuously over there. So it's not the fact that they will be leaving the Gulf State's North at all. I can see that the relationship will be growing quicker, larger, and there'll be more involvement and especially ballistic missile defense. Thank you. Thank you, Adelaide. Let me say that this presentation will be up on the CSIS website. So at a nominal charge of zero, we find that price to be reasonably attractive. Let me open things up for questions. Let me do know the names of a number of you, but I'm going to ask you to give your name when you ask a question. Indicate the organization you're from and please in the process remember that a question does end with a question mark and that until others have had a chance, if you could just ask one question, I'd be very grateful. And with that, let me begin to the left or my left and with the lady there, do we have a microphone? We're just going to, it's a fairly small room, but fair enough. If you don't mind waiting just a second. Thank you very much. I am Dr. Nisaba Eunice of the Project of Middle East Democracy. I wanted to ask about whether the political conditions are in place for the GCC to mount the kind of political coordination that it would need to be able to organize an effective ballistic missile defense system, particularly in light of the very public fallout between Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia last year. A little bit blunt. There has been a token effort to create an integrated air defense system. In practice, it doesn't work and there has been rhetoric because I first met with teams from the Gulf back in the early 1980s about the need for this level of integration. It is a key political problem. It isn't a new one. It requires a decision that basically effectiveness is more important than past feuds and sovereignty. But there also are some technical issues as to why missile defenses need integration considerably more than air defenses. Abdullah, that may turn that over to you. Thank you. Do you know that the policy in the GCC countries has always been to buy from a distributed system of sellers? So we have French aircraft, British aircraft, American aircraft. This goes back years ago that they don't want to fall under the mercy of just one supplier, whether he wants to give it more or not. That was a collective GCC philosophy to, yes, obviously they have, I mean, there are minor differences here and there, but regardless of that, when it really comes down to it, they all do stand up together. I mean, they had their differences, but the difference is not to the point of dropping any real threat coming to any of the GCC countries. The UAE, Saudi, and even when they saw Jordan, they all came to Jordan's aid as well. So that is not, now, that really isn't something that we, when it comes to the point of real basic crisis and our sovereignty and real big threat to us, that they really do show up and they've given, and they do pass financial aid and funding for the needed countries. Now, between each other, obviously, again, as I said, they have their, you know, misunderstandings as usual of six countries, but at the end of the day, they get it worked out. In terms of the air defense system, the air defense system, we talk about the FAD and the PAC-3 is a pure American system, luckily so far. So you don't have international other supplies coming in and then trying to dictate the timetable. So really, it is a very bilateral American GCC issue that hopefully will make it a bit easier too. I would just comment, don't focus too much on this being the GCC. NATO never completed the hawk defense belt, so in its entire existence, hawks were removed in large part, it didn't function, and NATO never completed the NADGE software for integrating its air defense ground environment. A lot of these challenges and alliances are much more difficult sometimes than they appear. Let's see, let me turn to the right, the gentleman in the front row. I'm not sure at this point, they are going to be coming to Washington to ask for new systems. The basic procedure has been that they have been asking for new systems now, as that chart indicated for a very long time. Between 2010 and 2013 Saudi Arabia alone placed over $87 billion worth of new arms orders. Each of the countries can place and does place a continuing set of orders and does so individually. So it would be very unusual for GCC ministers to make any kind of collective request. If anything, we might make a request to them to strongly consider some kind of integrated wide area missile defense like that rather than buying more packs and not having any kind of integrated system. And one reason would be the sheer cost of the interceptors because these missile interceptors that Abdullah pointed out are actually considerably more expensive than the missiles are. They have to perform a far more demanding technical task. The lady in front. Could you wait for the microphone? I'm sorry, excuse me. Thanks so much, Andrea Shalal with Reuters. I wanted to ask you to comment, just go a little further on this issue on the regional missile defense. It's been something that's been talked about in the region but my understanding is that because of these differences and because of the sort of having to cede some, in other words, any country that would be participating would then have the ability to pull the trigger. So that's turned out to be sort of a problem. I mean, how realistic do you think it is and to what extent does the situation in Yemen and the situation with ISIL change the dynamics and sort of speed along the US interest in a regional missile defense? As you point out, this has been going on since General Zinni was commander of SENTCOM. I don't think that it is pressed by Yemen or non-state actors. Yemen did have missiles, whether it could ever have fired any before the Saudi campaign or can fire them now as a matter of some question. They certainly weren't a threat. To the extent there is a threat in the region, it is Iran and that is the only threat except for the shorter range systems that have been deployed to the Hezbollah inside of Lebanon. But is this something where you can expect sudden rapid improvement? It's very hard to tell. If you are in the Gulf and you are watching what Abdullah has presented by way of a growing missile threat and you have seen the cost of what it takes to provide more than point defense, there are tremendous incentives to going to THAAD and a better integrated system. But interoperability and integration is a problem for alliances and as yet the progress in the GCC has been very limited. Abdullah, you may. Thank you. I'd like to just pick up from the formal question to answer this one. You know, they have obviously any of the GCC countries have their requirements and technical rounds when the air forces and within their experience the past year or so in their campaigns between Yemen and ISIL. So I really don't know. I mean, we don't haven't seen the package but obviously these are very detailed tactical packages that they might come up with. One thing though we know about is their interest and they declared interest about a regional GCC theater ballistic missile defense system. And on that level you see is as Dr. Cozman said, it doesn't really depend on whether Yemen or not, they're not even ISIL, is it? No, they're, yeah. And then who with one of them and then to ask who would be in charge of the trigger. In such a system it's not, you can't have one person just one country in charge. It's all collaboration between the six and threat evaluation procedure and you assess it and if you want to engage it because once one of them engages all have to engage. You just don't leave one to engage his or his own. So really it is a coordinated effort between all of them and that will be worked out with the rules of engagement and once a third really gets into a serious design phase and I think they're just thinking about that now. Oh, we're talking about a couple of years from now. You can't take years, three to four years even if I understood from this Lockheed's interview with some people in IDEX. So by the time they meet with the Missile Defense Agency, what they want, the configuration, the design and then see how they want to operationally store them and where and so this is not a thing that happens. But you could and this is very important to realize much more quickly integrate the systems that already exist like the PAC-3 and integrating the PAC-3 with the surface to air missile systems would provide a far more effective air defense system. The other thing to remember is any country can opt out of an integrated system. It's much easier to create an off switch than it is to create the equivalent of a non switch. The problem has been, again, I think the first time I saw a team of young officers from the Gulf States come to brief me on what they thought they needed was 1982 and they made a very good technical case for integrated air defense back then. The problem is not technical expertise, it's not it takes that long to string optical fibers and create the basic software. The problem in the GCC is at the top. It is not in the military, the middle or the bottom. Hi, Tony, Francis Cook. I want to give you just a little hope. We do have the best secretary general the GCC we've had in a long time and we did do a finding last year that we can sell to the GCC as an entity as contrasted to individual countries. But referring to your slides, it looked like the AWACS would play a critical role which Saudi already has and you've mentioned several times Aegis. I agree with you on the superiority of that system. When I lived in the Gulf, I hosted a couple of Aegis ships so I know they've been out there. I just don't know what the rhythm of deployment is if you could enlighten us a little bit on that. And secondly, Saudi Arabia asked I think a year or two or they asked 10 years ago and we turned them down. They've asked again more recently to acquire Aegis themselves. Do you know if that's been approved or where that is in the process? To be honest with you, no, I really don't. Regarding to have Aegis systems themselves, I've heard things like if they could modify some of the naval ships to have something of a, let's say short, but as you know, these are all up in the sky. I think the ministry did that. Yeah, okay. But these are up, but we don't know, you know, I'm saying up the ideas of people throughout. I haven't heard it as first related from any one of them in the official line. And Aegis, to have an Aegis system in the naval, I think, well, it's lovely to have it, but as you know, it's too large and it takes a long period of time. It takes a lot of work. I think what I have seen by living there myself and talking to a lot of them, and I do have some business relations as consultancy, you know, the threat is becoming more, identification of threats, timelines, what the positions are becoming much very realistic, very practical and also no more of wasting money. There are, you know, there's got too many obligations and therefore I think that their operational requirements and their ideas are really becoming solid and quite pinpointed. The other thing I would just like to say, please just sort of give an overall again, you see, it's not only the missiles, these countries from Kuwait down to Oman are frontline states. They are 300 kilometers from the border of the enemy. So basically they have two problems. They have balance of forces and a strategic depth, which they don't have. Balance of forces, they compensate with high tech equipment, obviously. You know, 100 naval center, they try to get the advanced technology and with good command and control and they can face with strategic depth. Well, that's why they have to be on alert, nearly 24 hours there with a good command and control. So they have their cap missions, the aircraft, the strip launch intercept is ready to go at any time and they have to have multi-role aircraft because at the first stage you have a defensive and you'd like to make sure that 24 hours you turn the war into enemy territory, not over Dubai or Abu Dhabi or over Doha and you can't afford things like that. So it is a very heavy burden and to try to do something like that and to choose the right platforms that will do that for you and get you up in there and be a force multiplier effect for you. So the Aegis system will obviously complement that with the United States assistance and who better than the United States to use it because that is from your satellites to over here, to over there. It's a very big system that is really more of a worldwide. I think they are rotating and I think even if I read it, then go ahead. First, you have two ships on rotation. Basically speaking, rotation is determined by the perception of the urgency of the threat. We are not talking about a hair trigger risk. The Sea Power study issued last month indicated that we would be deploying additional ships to the region without being too specific. It was mildly ironic that it was a much higher rate of buildup of ship deployments to the Middle East than there will be as part of the rebalancing to Asia. Now, how long and how intense this will be, I don't know. But I do have to say that there are very good arguments against an Aegis approach to missile defense for the Saudi Navy. First, why on earth buy a platform on an incredibly expensive ship when you don't get anything by putting it on a ship? And it is much cheaper and in some ways more effective if it's land-based, whether it's standard or Aegis. It just makes no sense. It's sort of like buying the most expensive car in the world to suit a cassette or an eight-track tape player. The other problem, and then that may be one of the issues because for years, the United States has sought, as have others, including the Saudi Navy, the Saudi Navy Improvement Program. And that does not include the Aegis and it does not include submarines. It includes capabilities to deal with the asymmetric warfare ships in the Gulf. And as we have just seen, Francis, with what happened in Yemen, it would have been very nice if Saudi Arabia had invested in improving the readiness of the Red Sea fleet and not necessarily investing in the most expensive ships available. But beyond those tactful remarks, next question, please, the gentleman back there. Thank you. Carl Cook, an author of Gremlin Corporation. Very interesting presentation. Briefly, could you comment on the upcoming GCC summit and what you see of anything that will come out of the summit? I think you have a really critical need for dialogue. You have a new structure in Saudi Arabia. You've already had a lot of discussions of the issues in Yemen. You have the question of a changing situation in Syria with changes in the U.S. role, which have not, I think, been fully made public if indeed we've made the decisions. You have the problem, not simply of ISIL or ISIS, but other extremist movements. You have the question of Iraq and the situation there. All of these are very real issues. And I think that how much dialogue there's going to be, I don't know. Francis pointed out there is a new, not new, but a very good secretary general in the GCC. The Saudis and others pressed at the last meeting for integration, creating something like an integrated police force, an integrated naval headquarters as well as other steps forward. Problem is, if you have long enough memory, some of these promises have been made before in somewhat different forms. And one really hopes this time some of them actually get kept and implemented. But let me say that once again, having ministerial meetings, which issue noble declarations that are not followed up by action, is a universal cultural value, which applies as much to NATO and ASEAN as it does to the GCC. I think just a point here too, in addition, you know, there's been a lot of talk and you can read in the newspapers and the journals and the media of misunderstandings of Iran and what the framework is, who's with, who's with. I think all of these, unfortunately, is kind of written, it's the presence of the GCC countries here now to talk to the United States to be briefed, updated, what is going on in that framework, especially about Iran, a very clear cut end game approach to the problem, tells exactly what we're going to, how we're going to get there rather than all this, you know, not that what's going on, but it's a difficult problem. United States has got too many things at the same time now, you know, from as Dr. Kozma said at the beginning, the challenges that the United States is facing too in the region. And it's requirement to be there, I mean, let's be honest, I mean, nobody, nobody will take a problem seriously if the United States does not look into it. So once the United States pays attention, takes it seriously, the world takes it seriously. So the United States can take, well, it is trying in specific to all these problems that we have in the region seriously, and especially the Iranian enrichment program and the comprehensive framework. So there must be a clarification. There is a unity between the GCC and all of that. And as you can see, they're beginning to, let's say, put a role for them as a GCC, as a body, in addition to Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, are all looking at their own interests as well in it, that to see how we can collaborate or what our role could be with them as well in the security arena. I think I would add one key point. There are going to be two meetings, a GCC meeting and a GCC meeting with the United States. I think anybody who's been out there and I see some faces that get out to the Gulf reasonably often realizes there are almost two different approaches to this strategic partnership. One is that the military and the expert level where the relationships tend to be arguments over substance, to the extent there are arguments in cooperation in many areas. The other is a sort of media, and much as I hate to say it, think tank approach, which is often based on conspiracy theories. And one of the great conspiracy theories right now is that the United States is desperately seeking to become a partner of Iran at the expense of the Arab States. Well, that assumes we can't count in terms of money, weapons, military capability, oil reserves or oil production capability. And, well, occasionally I think the US government can be accused of mistakes. That much I think we are competent at. I think, frankly, some of those conspiracy theories don't live up to the ones high standard of Gulf conspiracy theories. Are there other questions? Yes, and back there, please. Hi, thank you. My name's Daniel Harris with the Asia Group. I was wondering if I might touch on this. You'd already kind of explained this in the other questions, but what are the choices facing these states in terms of ballistic missile defense acquisition? Why would Aegis be preferable over THAAD, especially given the phase adaptive approach in Europe? What about that? Why did NATO and the European partners go with Aegis over THAAD in that? And then given Qatar, like you said, the United Emirates' choice to go with THAAD, is it purely a matter of, is there already investment in an Navy, like you mentioned before, or why is that choice being made? Just a few words on that. No, all of them, their priority has been on the THAAD. First of all, an upgrade of the present air defense system, more of integration of the air defense system, more of ground-based radars, long-range radars, and over-the-horizon radars and early warning radars, and then the THAAD coming in. The Aegis is not really right on the table there to buy it. The Aegis system is, for the United States, collaboration with the United States, having the U.S. to come in with its Aegis system once in a while, and to be part of the overall system, to see if anything goes out of, completely out of control, then obviously the Aegis is nice to have the Aegis around. But Aegis is not a priority for them to replace or to be above any THAADs unpack, and the Patriot Advansky, no, no. Just the Aegis is something, when we showed it here, is that yes, they're routing the ships, they visit them, this is part of their umbrella, the nuclear umbrella, it's part of the collaboration that's going, partnership that's going on between them, that's part of the extended deterrence, it's part of a lot of bilateral agreements between the GCC countries, individually or collectively, with the United States of America. But first and foremost, all of them are talking about, as I said, upgrading back, and introducing THAAD land-based air defense systems. I think we need to be very careful here because to the extent that there's any alternative that I can think of, it is the Russian S-400 series, which quite frankly is not an American objective for deployment into the Gulf region, nor is it clear what the S-400 specifications and performance are. Anybody can, and many people have, make performance claims. And I frankly have not seen any unclassified analysis that would tell me when it comes down to THAAD versus Aegis, what the cost options are, what the performance options are, or how it would affect an integrated system versus individual fire units. That may be something which becomes clearer in the future, but as Abdullah points out, the systems that have so far been offered in the Gulf have been THAAD, that is not necessarily a reflection on either the cost or the technology. THAAD is an inherently land-based system. The SM-3 would be a later deployment and a different set of supporting software. But that doesn't mean it isn't something that could happen in the future. I think frankly, some of you need to talk to somebody from BMDO, and I would suspect they would be too tactful to answer the question. Sorry, second row. Abdullah, thank you for your excellent presentation. This is for Tony or you, Abdullah, and it may be at the margins of your presentation. But looking at this GCC meeting at Camp David, there have been press reports about some GCC countries seeking more formal, more binding kinds of security assurances from the United States. You alluded to US security commitments to several Gulf countries. They haven't been of the NATO Article 5 kind or the kind of mutual defense arrangement with Japan or South Korea, but they're obviously seeking more. What do you think they are seeking? What kind of assurances, what kind of assurances do you think are feasible in the region? I just had the book pass, Bob. First, you know as well as I do the limits to Article 5, it effectively requires NATO members to consult. It doesn't create an automatic obligation to aid another NATO country. From a political viewpoint, I think that would never be a question. In the Gulf States, there are doubts and they are particularly clear in places like Bahrain for reasons that aren't necessarily tied to these defense issues. What we could say as a government, I frankly don't know, but I believe that there are, among most Gulf states, people who are really concerned about the US rapprochement with Iran and would like to see some kind of formal reassurance, whether that required some kind of formal statement as distinguished from a presidential commitment, I simply don't know. The timing is interesting because if we don't get an agreement with Iran, one of the questions you may see will be very different. I don't think it will necessarily be at this meeting, but the whole phrase extended deterrence may come back. And then the question is, what was it that Secretary Clinton really said and meant? How formal would that commitment to extended deterrence be? And to what extent would you be linking a deterrent into the idea of coordinated missile defense? You could make your judgments, perhaps even probably better than I, but I just don't believe that's an issue which will come up too formally at this meeting. It's just too early in the process. The other issue is going to be if that's true now, if we do get an agreement and there is a major violation, will it be raised later and under different conditions? So signing an agreement doesn't make it go away. It just potentially defers it. Well, just recently in the campaigns, recently against ISIL in Iraq and Syria and Yemen, there's that coordination now all of a sudden in real combat environment between GCC countries and the United States. It's not a simulation. It's actually a combat experience in the Yemen. Maybe it's mostly how to relay information, data points, targets, and that communication link under battlefield conditions. And in the ISIL business of how to pick out the targets and we're also GCC plus. So we've got the Jordanian Air Force as well involved. So the first time we are saying this, and I think for the first time you're saying as well as these little requirements coming in, little assurances, requirements, kind of different things that as you know, only under combat conditions or operational conditions, do they actually come in into your bilateral, let's say agreements rather than just the old agreement of negative, positive assurances and we're here to help if anybody has a nuclear bomb and we won't allow this and all that. But now it's actually coming down to the ground facts and also the experience of the operational interface, interoperability, those kind of things that are happening. I think it's a little bit more than just the fact that we're worried about Iran. You can talk to them. They tell you, we lived there for Iran for 3,000 years. We've got another 3,000 years to go forward with them. There is a way and they do rely on, I'm sure, I mean Ernie Mone is the Secretary of Energy, which obviously I know from MIT, the same department, very very capable person. We've got some extremely capable people here. So to develop a framework, to go into the particular detail, obviously it takes a bit of time but I think it can be done. And then we will see in the months ahead where this is leading us. But for me to come and say now that, or the words I hear over there in the Middle East, some people in magazines or newspapers, that kind of conspiracy theory that the United States is selling us out and that's it. Now it's energy independent selling us out. Goodbye and you're all in your own. That's nonsense. I don't think that's absolutely ever going to happen. So I don't think there will come into play in any sort of the real assurances. But I think what is going to happen now here is a little bit more tying up the more forces between the GCC, dropping the little any misunderstandings or obstacles they had along the way and try to make more formal, let's say, coordination with the United States, especially in this area. I think too that one thing we all need to remember is it is one thing to be sitting here and it is another to be in the Gulf and it isn't just Iran. It's the Al-Nusra Front, it's the Islamic State, it's Assad, it's the Houthi, it's Saleh. It's a whole host of problems. And problems that extend more broadly into the Arab world, tensions with Egypt, the question of future Libya, what's going to happen in North Africa, tensions on a sectarian level in Iraq that can spread more broadly as we've already seen between Shiite and Sunni. So I suspect that if there's anything we can be certain of, it is that our visitors from the GCC are going to be a great deal more nervous than we are. Not at the expert level, but the level of concern out there, just visiting there, is one which goes far beyond as Abdullah points out, Iran, but never forgets Iran, either. Other questions? Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. May I ask you to thank Abdullah in the usual manner?