President Trump has ordered the development of a next-generation missile defense system he likened to Israel’s Iron Dome in an executive order he signed on Monday that described ballistic missiles and other advanced aerial weapons as “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”
But experts immediately raised questions about whether an Iron Dome-style system was feasible for the United States, which is more than 400 times the size of Israel.
The order, titled “Iron Dome for America,” gives the Pentagon 60 days to submit details for the plan, which includes accelerating development of U.S. hypersonic missiles and “space-based interceptors.”
Mr. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the new system would be a significant expansion of the United States’ air defense capabilities. The order aims to build on efforts by the United States over decades and presents Mr. Trump’s plan as an attempt to finalize a vision of Ronald Reagan. As president in the 1980s, Reagan spent billions to build a defense against potential nuclear attack — a system, known as “Star Wars,” that ultimately failed.
Proponents of such a system for the United States point to recent events, including Russia’s use of hypersonic missiles in Ukraine and missile barrages on Israel last year from Iran and the allied Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Israel’s Iron Dome anti-projectile system, made by an Israeli company called Rafael, helped intercept many of the launches.
But shielding the United States from such attacks presents technical challenges that far exceed those faced by Israel, experts said. Missile defense is most effective as a shield for a smaller country, they said, and the cost of developing one for the United States could be prohibitive.
Building a missile defense system for the United States that would protect against all threats could “bankrupt the nation,” according to Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a research organization in London.
But he said that Mr. Trump’s executive order was “vague” and left open the possibility that the administration could either go full tilt at developing a system or, alternatively, adopt a more incremental approach by increasing funding for existing programs. “You could interpret it both ways,” he said.
The executive order did not specify which countries might be considered a threat for potential missile attacks, but experts say they include Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. And such attacks could be launched from submarines, whose mobility add further complications to any missile defense system.
“Israel’s missile defense challenge is a lot easier than one in the United States,” said Marion Messmer, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, a research institute in London. “The geography is much smaller and the angles and directions and the types of missiles are more limited.”
The idea of developing U.S. defense capabilities enjoys some support in Washington, and Mr. Trump vowed during his first term as president to reinvent the country’s missile defense capabilities. Robert Soofer, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy, argued in a paper published this month by the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research group, that the current “approach to homeland missile defense will no longer suffice for U.S. national security goals.”
Mr. Soofer cited the expansion of North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal, and said that the United States must also simultaneously deter Russia and China, nuclear-armed powers that have both declared an intention to expand their missile defense capabilities.
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