I mean, it will happen. They're not going to be happy about this, because they want to get it right. They want to be able to tell their people why this is important and why we need to thwart the use of chemical weapons.

Clearly, underfunding national defense is a mistake.

Well, let me tell you one thing we've learned. Iron Dome's Tamir interceptor cost $96,000. Our Patriot MSE missile cost $4 million.

The missile itself you believe is very sound, though.

But are you concerned about the capability gap in missile defense for Europe as a result of this?

When you're doing R&D, you want to put your forces--I mean your resources in areas where there is promise, though, don't you?

Well, given choices, and that's what you have to make in your role here, between $4 billion on better sensors versus building an East Coast ground-based missile defense, what's your choice?

We need to keep up the pressure to denuclearize.

That's almost a 40 percent increase. That's a dramatic increase for any agency.

The Israeli cooperative programs that we've been engaged in is--provides them with missile defense in their backyard.

You've got to have the power.

So it's not an abstract concept, is it?

You need to articulate it or at least demonstrate it.

I was in a field hearing at Johns Hopkins Hospital with the former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, and I asked him if we had gone from a war on drugs to a drug with drugs.

Well, you mentioned fentanyl. It was recently reported that there were three people arrested who enough fentanyl to kill everybody in Toledo.

But I do think that this is the real issue of border security, and a lot of people lose sight of this, that we are in a war with drugs.

As much as you can in this setting here, could you explain how the threat from North Korea is advancing and describe the importance, General, of improving and expanding our homeland missile defenses?

It sends a very poor signal to our allies, very poor signal to our adversaries.