From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Watchdog Report: Ballistic Missile Defense in Europe Audio interview by GAO staff with John Pendleton, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management Related GAO Work: GAO-11-220: Ballistic Missile Defense: DOD Needs to Address Planning and Implementation Challenges for Europe Released on: January 26, 2011 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the Government Accountability Office. It's January 26, 2011. In September 2009, President Obama announced a new approach for ballistic missile defense in Europe. The European Phased Adaptive Approach, or EPAA, is intended to defend against changing threats and incorporate evolving technologies. A group led by John Pendleton, a director in GAO's Defense Capabilities and Management team, recently reviewed the Defense Department's implementation of this new approach. GAO's Jeremy Cluchey sat down with John to learn more. [Jeremy Cluchey:] How does the U.S. government’s European Phased Adaptive Approach to ballistic missile defense differ from the previous approach? [John Pendleton:] Well, in late 2009 the President revised our approach to focus in Europe on near-term threats and deemed the new approach the Phased Adaptive Approach because it comes in phases; it's adaptive to changes in our own abilities and technology, as well as the threat; and an approach meaning that it's not a program so much with specifics about individual elements as it is a broad approach to how do you evolve again as the threat and our abilities change. This differed because previously the plan in Europe to counter a threat originating in the Middle East was to build a fixed radar site in the Czech Republic and then have ground-based interceptors that would knock a threat missile out in mid-flight and put those ground-based interceptors in Poland. That was abandoned in favor of this approach, which focuses more on threats that currently exist—threats in the region that could threaten U.S. forces or our allies in Europe. [Jeremy Cluchey:] Estimating the lifecycle cost of this approach must present some challenges. How has DOD gone about addressing them? [John Pendleton:] When we talked to them about that, their approach is to estimate the cost of the individual parts of the system. While we understand their need to manage the program that way, it creates some problems because it's difficult to see what the overall approach is going to cost and when. The Missile Defense Agency, which are creating these technologies, hand them off to other elements within the military—the military services actually operate them—so they need to have a sense of how much money they need to set aside and, more importantly, ask the Congress for. And Congress needs to know what to expect next year and the year after. [Jeremy Cluchey:] Your report identifies issues as well with DOD's guidance on EPAA end states. Can you talk a little bit more about what this means? [John Pendleton:] End states is a term of art often used by the Department of Defense. For the European Phased Adaptive Approach, this is focused on what's gonna happen and when, and it really comes down to those folks that will be operating the systems needing to understand what the plan is. What we heard, because we went around and talked and got information from folks all around the world, is we need information about how the system will perform under more operationally realistic conditions. But also, as a system, there's a risk when you develop individual parts but you haven't interconnected them yet. And you get a fair amount of synergy when you connect a radar over here with a radar on a ship with something that will shoot a missile over here. You expand the area that can be covered and you create a much wider net. The combatant commands that would have to ultimately employ these, as well as the services that might be involved in operating them, need better information about how this system will perform as a system under operationally realistic conditions. [Jeremy Cluchey:] What is GAO recommending be done to address the concerns discussed here and raised in the report? [John Pendleton:] Well we're recommending that DOD address some of the management challenges that we've talked about here, the guidance for what's gonna happen and when, the lifecycle cost estimates, a schedule that provides specifics about when they anticipate fielding things, and then the operational performance metrics that would allow the department to measure how these systems would perform under more realistic conditions. [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO's Web site at gao.gov and be sure to tune in to the next edition of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional watchdog, the Government Accountability Office.