Previous post
Once upon a time, back in the 80’s (or as my high school freshman likes to say, “in the late 1900’s”), President Reagan put forward the idea of the Strategic Defense Initiative.
It was a missile defense system that would be designed to intercept ballistic and nuclear missiles before they could hit the United States. While the idea got mocked and labeled as “Star Wars,” the Soviets were sufficiently freaked out enough that President Reagan was able to use the proposed program as negotiation leverage during the Cold War.
Fast-forward forty years. Israel has not only given proof of concept to a missile defense system, but has used it repeatedly with amazing effect to protect their homeland, especially during the initial attacks on October 7, 2023.
In fact, both Hamas and Iran have attempted to overwhelm Iron Dome with sheer numbers since October 7th. The defense system has performed magnificently and saved countless lives on the ground. So, why doesn’t the United States have an Iron Dome of its own?
President Trump wants to change that, starting immediately.
President Donald Trump said that the construction of an Iron Dome-like shield for the U.S. is a top priority for him on Monday, calling for “immediate” work to be done on the project before signing an executive order.
Trump made the remarks at a Republican dinner in Florida on Monday, while commending his recently-confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. After landing at Joint Base Andrews that night, he confirmed that he signed an executive order regarding the Iron Dome on the plane.
“Pete Hegseth, who’s going to be great, by the way… I think he’s going to be fantastic,” Trump said at the event. “I know him very well. I think he’s going to be fantastic.”
“He’s what we need, to immediately begin the construction of a state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defense shield, which will be able to protect Americans.”
The president added that Americans “protect other countries, but we don’t protect ourselves.” Trump also referenced that President Ronald Reagan was interested in the system during the Cold War, but Americans “didn’t have the technology.”
“And now we have phenomenal technology. You see that with Israel,” Trump continued. “So I think the United States is entitled to that. And everything will be made right here in the USA 100%.”
“We’re going next to ensure that we have the most lethal fighting force in the world.”
On Monday, the State Department said that a future Iron Dome is one of Hegseth’s many priorities.
The executive order, entitled “The Iron Dome for America,” lays out a little of the history of missile defense proposals, while directing Secretary Hegseth to start working on plans to implement the technology to defend American soil. The order states that within 60 days, President Trump wants a report from Hegseth on what is needed.
Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Defense shall:
(a) Submit to the President a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield. The architecture shall include, at a minimum, plans for:
(i) Defense of the United States against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries;
(ii) Acceleration of the deployment of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor layer;
(iii) Development and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors capable of boost-phase intercept;
(iv) Deployment of underlayer and terminal-phase intercept capabilities postured to defeat a countervalue attack;
(v) Development and deployment of a custody layer of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture;
(vi) Development and deployment of capabilities to defeat missile attacks prior to launch and in the boost phase;
(vii) Development and deployment of a secure supply chain for all components with next-generation security and resilience features; and
(viii) Development and deployment of non-kinetic capabilities to augment the kinetic defeat of ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks;
(b) Review relevant authorities and organization of the Department of Defense to develop and deploy capabilities at the necessary speed to implement this directive;
(c) Jointly with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, submit to the President a plan to fund this directive, allowing sufficient time for consideration by the President before finalization of the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget; and
(d) In cooperation with United States Strategic Command and United States Northern Command, submit to the President:
(i) An updated assessment of the strategic missile threat to the Homeland; and
(ii) A prioritized set of locations to progressively defend against a countervalue attack by nuclear adversaries.
In other words, Hegseth has some homework to do, and he has two months to get it done.
This is enormously important—we finally might be getting serious about countering the most foreseeable existential threat to our society https://t.co/hNjkivj8yH
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) January 28, 2025
The real question regarding Iron Dome is, why don’t we have it already? Yes, the United States mainland is protected by oceans, but we have two states – Alaska and Hawaii – that are a whole lot closer and more exposed to bad actors who like playing with missiles.
But set aside a rogue state like North Korea for a second. What would happen if, say, a Mexican drug cartel got its hands on some rocket launchers similar to what Hamas or Hezbollah has used against Israel, and started lobbing rockets into Texas, or California, or Arizona, or New Mexico? Don’t think they wouldn’t try it. They are already furious that Trump is thwarting their business, and have reportedly decided to just start shooting at American law enforcement, damn the consequences.
BREAKING: Per multiple law enforcement sources, within the last hour, Border Patrol agents near Fronton, TX were fired upon from MX by suspected cartel gunmen as a group of illegal aliens were being brought across the river. I’m told BP returned fire, nobody hit on either side,…
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 27, 2025
While Mexico needs to get their border under control, or they won’t like what happens next, never doubt for an instant that if the bad guys could use a rocket launcher, they would. Why are we not prepared for that kind of attack? The new press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, just gave an update on the New Jersey drone sightings (remember those?), stating that those operating the drones had been cleared to do so by the FAA, but once the sightings became news, critical mass happened.
“After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons,” Leavitt said. “Many of these drones were also hobbyists, recreational, and private individuals that enjoy flying drones.”
“In time, it got worse due to curiosity. This was not the enemy,” she concluded.
But what if it had been an enemy action? What if we get another Chinese spy balloon sending data back to China? As Donald Trump said during the campaign, we need this. We should be prepared for this.
President Trump obviously sees an Iron Dome system as an essential part of fulfilling his promise of securing America’s borders. And he’s completely right.
Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click
Que says: Sounds impressive, but what is Trump doing about cybersecurity? Keeping TikTok around and kicking the can down the road on that?
Is he working on hardening our grid? What about AI and DeepSeek?
https://helenraleigh.substack.com/p/deepseek-is-a-wakeup-call-that-the
GWB says: The problem with TikTok isn’t technical, unfortunately. You have to convince people why TikTok (and similar) are so bad for them. And they don’t seem to want to listen (look at how much they love Siri and Alexa wire-tapping them) to warnings about keeping your life private. Exhibitionist narcissists are hard to stop.
AI is the same thing. AI isn’t I. There we need to convince folks that putting everything (like electrical grid control systems) on the internet is a very bad idea. (Also, their own house control systems. And don’t get me started on wi-fi.)
But, yes, there are lots of things that need hardening. And our biggest problem is all the people who say “Yeah, but it’s so important I be able to login to every website with the same password and to unlock my house from 50 miles away.” So we code away at convenience without giving a thought to security, until after someone has stolen all our stuff. The tools are there and work. But you have to actually use them. (And hold accountable the people who build in/use lazy stuff like back doors and shared accounts.)
BlackwingOne says: “…BP returned fire, nobody hit on either side.”
Sounds like once they’ve gotten rid of the purple-haired obese monsters that they need to do more than just a little bit of firearms training, including target selection and long-range shooting.
Then if someone could only convince firearms-ignorant Trump that we need to switch back to 7.62x51mm from the poodle-shooting varmint 5.56mm round…
GWB says: but we don’t protect ourselves
This isn’t entirely true. We have multiple systems that we use to protect sites. And they work pretty well.
The problem for us is that we don’t have something that can protect the entire country – and there’s reasons for that.
Remember that Israel is about the same size as New Jersey. And they don’t entirely protect all of that (they don’t necessarily shoot down things impacting in the desert, for example). A few Patriot batteries could protect New Jersey. So, just multiply that by 50. Plus a bunch more, since NJ is a moderately small state. You can see how this quickly becomes a problem. And it will be for any system, not just plussing up the Patriot system to do it.
If you’re just talking ICBMs, then “Star Wars” is useful, as it is designed to take out sub-orbital route missiles as they go up into space and turn over to begin their downward trajectory. Mainly because there are only so many routes from where Soviet Russian silos are to where American targets are. It’s the same reason there was not a DEW line down Mexico way. Also note that Reagan’s program was not aimed at SLBMs – Sea-Launched nukes from subs. It could still target them if they reached space, but they don’t have to. And they can be launched from anywhere in the ocean – even the Gulf of America.
And, we don’t build a defense network over America against regional missiles, as they would have to be launched from Mexico or Canada for the CONUS. We do have the capability to protect some portion of Alaska – but it’s going to be point defense, like the Patriots. And Hawaii is protected by our Navy, via fleet-borne systems (the missiles and some radars of which are essentially Patriots). (Also, most of what can reach Hawaii is ICBMs, not regional missiles.)
Then there’s all the other sorts of weapons he mentions. Hyper-velocity missiles are probably the only one that are really a threat, though they aren’t all they’re advertised to be. But those would mostly need to be carried within a certain range before being used. (It’s why ours were at one point being designed to be essentially air-launched cruise missiles.) There ARE hyper-velocity missiles that are designed around being launched as an ICBM. But those have the vulnerabilities of … ICBMs.
As to why it wasn’t done before, there were treaty considerations along with the technical difficulties. And political ones – when you can’t cover an entire country (and I don’t think we can), then everyone starts demanding to know why they aren’t getting protected. Mostly people were ok with only protecting our actual nuclear retaliation forces, since it served as a deterrent. But if you can cover LA but not Kansas City, then people start to get… angry.
I am all for shifting focus a bit in our defense funding and research and procurement efforts. Don’t get your hopes up too high, though. And watch out for the snake oil salesmen. And the DOOM-mongers who will tell you our nation is massively vulnerable to hyper-velocity missiles and such. Not nearly so much as they would like to sell you.
the most foreseeable existential threat to our society
Like this sort of thing. Progressives are a much more existential threat, and are already within range.
some rocket launchers similar to what Hamas or Hezbollah has used against Israel, and started lobbing rockets into Texas, or California, or Arizona, or New Mexico?
The most capable missile in Hezbollah’s arsenal is the Fateh-110, I think. It has a range of up to almost 200 miles and carries a 1,000lb bomb as its payload.
While this is very problematic, being able to hit Phoenix, Tuscon, LA, and San Antonio, a missile would drop a building or two. Yes, that’s nothing to sneeze at. And a bunch of them could do serious damage to a city. But the launchers aren’t exactly something you can buy off a used car lot, and are kinda obvious driving around. And it also is a minuscule harm to the country overall (compared to the Soviets or China nuking us, for example), and would be a declaration of open warfare – one that maybe even Congress couldn’t ignore. Anyone remember the Pershing Expedition? But this time with satellite surveillance, B-52s, and Army Rangers. The only real threat to the nation would be if the wrong people are in charge and they spend their time toobining and crying to mommy about how we can’t invade Mexico because diplomacy or something.
Yes, a threat, but not nearly as big a one to us as to Israel or Europe. (Of course, one of Reagan’s bits that freaked the Soviets out was him hmmm-ing and haw-ing about extending Star Wars protection to Europe once it became do-able. Kinda Trump-like, no?)
4 Comments