Can the Iron Dome truly be built over America by Donald Trump?
At the 2016 Republican Party convention, Donald Trump made a pledge to “repair our military and build an Iron Dome missile defense system to ensure that no enemy can strike our homeland.” There’s an Iron Dome in Israel. He mentioned that they have a missile defense system. “Why should we not have this while other nations do?”
To begin with, developing a system that can defend the US from ballistic missile attacks is theoretically impossible.
I didn’t give it my all. Since President Ronald Reagan unveiled his far-reaching Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983, the nation has hired the brightest scientists and military contractors, paying them over $415 billion, and provided employment for tens of thousands of people. Nothing has been successful.
The result of our efforts is a simple system consisting of forty-four ground-based interceptors stationed in Alaska and California. They have only been able to hit a target 50% of the time in optimal test settings. While a new interceptor is being designed, the program is virtually put on pause.
Trump might be suggesting that we can just install an American-made Iron Dome in Israel. It’s a pretty good system; why not just create an American version?
For Iron Dome is not meant to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles, but rather short-range rockets. A region around 150 square miles can be protected by each Iron Dome system. To protect the 3.7 million square miles of the continental United States, we would require the deployment of more than 24,700 Iron Dome batteries. If batteries were valued at $100 million each, it would be about $2,470,000,000,000.
Still, if the system could actually defend the nation, it might be worth $2.5 trillion. However, it is unable to. The purpose of Iron Dome is to stop comparatively archaic rockets and mortars that reach less than 44 kilometers. That’s acceptable if your goal is to protect San Diego from rockets fired from Tijuana, which is around 35 miles distant. However, the system was unable to defend Mar-a-Lago from missiles launched from the Bahamas, which is approximately 80 miles away.
After decades of work, we finally have systems that can consistently stop short- and medium-range missiles that can travel hundreds or even thousands of miles. These missiles target massive, hot, and generally sluggish targets. They are unable to use any form of decoy against the interceptors because they move primarily via the atmosphere.
It has proven impossible to intercept long-range missiles with reliability; these missiles go thousands of miles and are fast, small, and cold as they move through space; this is especially true if the enemy uses countermeasures like decoys, chaff, and jammers. The warhead is so small and moving at such a high speed (about 4 miles per second) that it is impossible for the interceptors to see it, even after it enters the atmosphere and eliminates the space-deployed ruses.
Ronald Reagan used laser weapons in space to try and resolve this conflict. Theoretically, this could counteract the inherent advantage that the attack has. It was a dream. The nation’s preeminent physics body, the American Physical Society, declared in 1987 that it would take decades to even establish whether such technologies were even possible.
This resulted in the program switching back to kinetic-kill weaponry from “Star Wars” laser weapons. Following years of ill-fated “Brilliant Pebbles” plans to store thousands of interceptor rockets in enormous “garages” in space, the program was compelled to return to ground-based systems, despite their very limitations.
Has technology advanced? According to Trump, yes. “Many years ago, Ronald Reagan desired this, but at that time, we lacked the necessary technology. He remarked at the conference, “Remember, they called it starship, spaceship, anything to mock him.” But the technology we have now is amazing. And why don’t we have this while other nations do? Absolutely not! We’re going to erect an Iron Dome over our nation and make sure that nothing can hurt our people.
Although scientists have made progress toward developing short-range directed energy weapons, they are still far from achieving the kinds of power, beam control, and accuracy tracking needed for space weapons. The significant financial, upkeep, and operational challenges associated with launching dozens or hundreds of weapons into orbit have also not been surmounted by engineers. In response to Trump’s 2019 Missile Defense Review, Adam Smith, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, expressed caution.
Trump is so committed to this vision that he has made it the only defense plank in the new Republican Party platform, aside from “strengthen our military,” despite the fact that science and technology work against him. The formal GOP agenda is 20 points long. Eighth on the list is: “ALL MADE IN AMERICA: PREVENT WORLD WAR THREE, RESTORE PEACE IN EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST, AND BUILD A GREAT IRON DOME MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD OVER OUR WHOLE COUNTRY.
In a similar vein, Project 2025 demands that missile defense be given “top priority.” It says that we should “abandon the existing policy of not defending the homeland against Russian and Chinese ballistic missiles,” treating the issue as though it were just a matter of political will. “Invest in future advanced missile defense technologies like directed energy or space-based missile defense that could defend against more numerous missile threats” is a reference to the “Star Wars” original intent.
It was just total rubbish. Despite spending billions on the plan, a Republican-led White House and Congress were unable to achieve any success. Thirty years later, Donald Trump is still trying to peddle snake oil by using the same crew and pulling the same fast one. Though it makes sense strategically and rhetorically (Gingrich did win the House), it has no scientific basis at all.
Hopefully, the people of America have learned from the mistakes of the past.
