Email from November 24th, 2025 Click here to view the Alert on the MDAA website Follow and Support MDAA   MDAA Alert: Deterrence at the Edge: Innovation and Acquisition on the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line (Highlights and Transcript) MDAA's 88th Virtual Congressional Roundtable, Deterrence at the Edge: Innovation and Acquisition on the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line, November 24th, 2025. Dear Members and Friends, “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, from a wet, cold Eugene, Oregon, at the University of Oregon, of all places, this morning on our 88th virtual that we're bringing to you. Had a wonderful week last week. I was in both Poland and Germany at the ranges, being out front at the tactical edge with this. I'm Riki Ellison, I'm the founder and chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. We've been doing advocacy for missile defense since 1980, a long time, and we have been very, very active over the last couple of years with our sole mission and belief in having, developing, deploying missile defenses in making our world and our nation a safer place. That's our mission, that's what we're doing. We've had the opportunity to be, in the last two weeks, two to three weeks, we've been in Guam, we've been in Tokyo, we've been in Huntsville, Alabama, we've been in Europe, right at the forefront of the fight. I think we step back, I just want to step back for the European position and look at what's happened. And I think there are two major things that have happened. The first is our ability as a NATO alliance to deter Russia. And that deterrence in today's world is to be able to defeat mass of their drones and mass of cheap weapons that are coming and being displayed in Ukraine. The Russian average example of firing 800, 900 Shaheds and ballistic missiles combo every night in Ukraine, that's the only place in the world that can defend against that, that learned how to do that. We haven't done that yet. We haven't got a deployed system out today anywhere in Europe to be able to defend that kind of mass. And it's from our General, from the LANDEURO, General CD Donahue, who absolutely believes that you have to defend mass first on your maneuvering forces to be able to enable overwhelming violence on the backside. And that is the deterrent. So that is a big movement on why we're doing what we're doing across the nine nations on the Eastern flank to create a mass capability and innovation to do it cheaply underneath the cost of what is costing Russia to do. I think the second thing that's happened is the deliberate, you can say deliberate, I'm going to say deliberate Russian drone incursion on Poland a month or two ago and on Romania. And both these nations not having the ability to shoot those down with a cheap weapon. Certainly they shot a couple down with a very expensive weapon. But those two things have forced a movement in our country and in NATO. And I want to give a lot of credit to Tom Goffus, who's here tonight with us, on his vision, on when he first got here two or three years ago, on creating an IAMD capability, true IAMD capability in Europe. We were together, Mark was with us too, I believe. We were together in London in conferences. We were together in May this year in Poland. Putting forward the concept of Eastern Flank Deterrence Line. That was put in forward. It has gained momentum. It was announced again at the LANDEURO Conference. It's tracking and we're seeing the very first elements of it today or last week. Last week in two different training areas that I was able to go. Chris was with me on both those training areas. One in Nowa Deba, I'll get that wrong, in Poland and the other one in Putlos in the Baltic Sea in Germany. Both of them are putting together an actual layered portion of the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line with sensor capability and with shooter capability that has depth. And we're starting with that aspect of it. I think it’s really interesting from my perspective was taking a look at the MEROPS system in Poland last week, last Tuesday, which is a Surveyor drone. It's drone on drone. And it's a drone that's probably costs 5K to 8K. So that was demonstrated. Using our RPS—you'll clean me up, Chris—42 sensors that are on our stout striker, taking them off the striker and putting them down and putting the surveyor and launching it off a Ford pickup truck, it's badass, and shooting it up. And it's been able to get close enough for proximity explosive to be able to take out drones on the cheap. So if you're looking at an $80,000, which these Shaheds are, 80 grand, you're able now for the first time to be able to put a cheap effector in the game. And those effectors that we're talking about are not just a test site thing. They have been loaned by us to Poland and to Romania. So they now have cheap land-based counter-UAS to defeat the Russian drones, as we saw that flew over two months ago. So there is capability there now, finally for that. But this has been a great movement on speed to be able to do that aspect of it. So that has got to be scaled up, right? That's got to be scaled up. And that's one of many others that are going to be coming in to be able to do it. But then on Thursday, I got a chance to get in there before the Friday DV day over in Putlos, where they brought in, I guess they had over 270 applicants for prize cash to be able to do counter-UAS. And they brought innovation right to the front and they down selected to 12. And then they awarded 5 to do that. But that movement there was putting those capabilities of forcing venture capital, forcing business to get that out in front of that and being able to display that and then being able to put that back in to a shared data—which is going to happen—a data plane. I think Tom, you're aware of this. Instead of using Galata, we're using global open architecture transformation. And I think that is being built now to be able to bring everybody in the game here on top of that. It is vitally important that our NATO partners contribute. They are, this is their place to being part of this innovation at the tactical front end of it. So there is some greatness happening here. We're started, we've got roots in the ground. We're moving forward.” –Mr. Riki Ellison, MDAA Founder and Chairman Speakers: COL Christopher Hill Army PEO, Missiles and Space; Director, Global Tactical Edge Acquisitions Directorate; Project Manager, Integrated Fires Mission Command Tom Goffus NATO Assistant Secretary General for Operations RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery Former Deputy Director for Plans, Policy, and Strategy, U.S. European Command Riki Ellison MDAA Founder and Chairman Click here to view transcript Click here to view recording Winners Associate with Winners to Win! Fight on! Riki Ellison Chairman and Founder Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance   Click Here to Join MDAA _____________________________________________________________________ MDAA is a non-profit, non-partisan tax-exempt 501(c) (4) organization. Our mission is to make the world safer by advocating for the development and deployment of missile defense systems to defend the United States and its allies against missile threats. 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