Patterico's Pontifications

1/28/2025

Trump’s “Great Iron Dome” Plan for the U.S.

Filed under: General — Dana @ 11:25 am



[guest post by Dana]

President Trump wants an “Iron Dome” over the U.S.:

A new executive order from President Donald Trump calls for greater investments for a multilayered homeland air defense system, including a requirement for the development of space-based interceptors.

On the campaign trail in June, then-candidate Trump stated his desire to “build a great Iron Dome over our country, a dome like has never seen before, a state-of-the-art missile defense shield that will be entirely built in America.”

“We’re going to build the greatest dome of them all,” he said at the time.

On Monday night, Trump signed an executive order to that effect titled “The Iron Dome for America”.

Details:

. . .Trump signed an executive order to that effect titled “The Iron Dome for America”. The order gives Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth 60 days to develop a plan to defend the homeland against “ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.”

Read the whole thing.

—Dana

32 Responses to “Trump’s “Great Iron Dome” Plan for the U.S.”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (011784)

  2. Lloyd Austin’s DOD in October 2022:

    2022 NDS FACT SHEET
    2022 MISSILE DEFENSE REVIEW (MDR)

    OVERVIEW
    ► The 2022 MDR is nested within the 2022 National Defense Strategy to provide direction to U.S. missile defense strategy, policy, and capabilities.
    ► Emerging ballistic, cruise, hypersonic, and lower-tier threats such as uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) pose an expanding and accelerating risk to the U.S. homeland, U.S. forces abroad, and our allies and partners.
    ► Adversaries are developing, fielding, and integrating more advanced air and missile capabilities into their strategies in order to favorably shape the course of a potential crisis or conflict.
    ► Some of these capabilities include new long-range space and missile systems capable of crossing regions, increasingly blurring the lines between regional and homeland defense and challenging existing integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) architectures.
    CONTRIBUTING TO INTEGRATED DETERRENCE
    ► Adversaries increasingly seek to use missiles and UAS to project conventional and nuclear military power, making IAMD an essential “deterrence-by-denial” component within the broader integrated deterrence framework that weaves together all instruments of national power across warfighting domains, geographic theaters, the spectrum of conflict, and our global network of alliances and partnerships.
    ► Specifically, missile defenses: add resilience to our overall defense strategy; complicate adversary plans and induce doubt about the success of offensive missile use; raise the threshold for conflict by reducing incentives to conduct small-scale, coercive attacks; reassure allies and partners that the United States will not be deterred from fulfilling its global security commitments; and, in crisis or conflict, offer military options that may be less escalatory than employing offensive systems.
    ADDRESSING NORTH KOREAN MISSILE THREATS TO THE HOMELAND
    ► As the scale and complexity of North Korea’s missile capabilities increase, the United States will continue to stay ahead of North Korean missile threats to the homeland through a comprehensive missile defeat approach, complemented by the credible threat of direct cost imposition through nuclear and non-nuclear means.
    ► Missile defeat includes whole-of-government activities to counter the development, acquisition, proliferation, potential, and actual use of adversary offensive missiles of any type, and to limit damage from such use.
    ► Within this framework, the United States is committed to improving the reliability of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system, and augmenting this active missile defense capability through the development and production of 20 Next Generation Interceptors as well as expansion of space and ground-based sensors.
    ADDRESSING NEAR-PEER NUCLEAR MISSILE THREATS TO THE HOMELAND
    ► The United States will continue to rely on strategic deterrence- underwritten by a safe, secure, and effective nuclear arsenal- to address and deter large intercontinental-range, nuclear-capable missile threats to the homeland from the People’s Republic of China and Russia.

    ENHANCING OUR PACIFIC POSTURE – MISSILE DEFENSE OF GUAM
    ► Guam is both an unequivocal part of the United States as well as a key power projection hub in the Indo- Pacific region.
    ► Any attack on Guam will be considered a direct attack on the United States and be met with an appropriate response.
    ► Guam’s defenses will include a variety of capabilities commensurate with its vital status, including active missile defense, that contribute to the overall integrity of integrated deterrence and U.S. operational strategy in the Indo-Pacific region.
    REGIONAL INTEGRATED AIR AND MISSILE DEFENSE
    ► The United States will continue to pursue defenses for U.S. forces, and our allies and partners against all regional missile threats from any source.
    ► The United States will continue to develop active and passive defenses against regional hypersonic missile threats and pursue a persistent and resilient sensor network to characterize and track all hypersonic threats, improve attribution, and enable engagement.
    ► The United States will continue to seek and field technical counter-UAS solutions to address growing regional threats.
    STRENGTHENING INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION WITH ALLIES AND PARTNERS
    ► The United States’ alliances and partnerships are among our greatest assets, and we will continue to work closely with select countries in North America, the Indo-Pacific region, Europe, and the Middle East to enhance our collective IAMD efforts in order to strengthen our common protection.
    CRUISE MISSILE DEFENSE – HOMELAND
    ► As Russia has demonstrated through its indiscriminate use of thousands of cruise missile attacks in Ukraine, developing missile defenses against cruise missiles is increasingly vital.
    ► To deter attempts by adversaries to stay under the nuclear threshold and achieve strategic results with conventional capabilities, the United States will examine active and passive measures to decrease the risk of adversary cruise missile strikes against critical assets in the homeland.

    BuDuh (7a5fe0)

  3. Can you authorize a major new defense procurement initiative through executive order?
    I think this is the kind of thing that Congress has to include in the budget. But that’s a constitutional law question, I don’t really think Republicans care about the constitution

    Time123 (5e7517)

  4. @Time123 The DoD has billions in discretionary fundings that POTUS can direct.

    Most of the initial investment would likely be research and testing but the Skunk-like outfits before full implementation.

    whembly (c87394)

  5. I’m certain Time has read the EO and knows exactly what is being procured, whembly. It must be massive!

    BuDuh (7a5fe0)

  6. This is a case where I would want to see the order rather than just the articles. If Trump is just asking for a plan from his subordinate and calling it an EO — that’s well within his rights and no big deal. It would need to become a proposal to Congress, get passed, etc, etc.

    I’m more concerned about the memo announcing the suspension of all grant and other payments, pending review. That would seem to be a challenge to Congresses right and responsibility to pass spending legislation and see that the law so passed is faithfully executed. (I’m also more curious about the reaction of some of our MAGA crowd to this.)

    Appalled (cfaf93)

  7. Funding it by freezing medicade payments and non profits grants?

    asset (f92915)

  8. This is a case where I would want to see the order rather than just the articles.

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/the-iron-dome-for-america/

    BuDuh (7a5fe0)

  9. I’m more concerned about the memo announcing the suspension of all grant and other payments, pending review. That would seem to be a challenge to Congresses right and responsibility to pass spending legislation and see that the law so passed is faithfully executed. (I’m also more curious about the reaction of some of our MAGA crowd to this.)

    I don’t know about the MAGA crowd, but I found this to be concerning:

    QUESTION: Why impose this pause with so little notice? Why not give organizations more time to plan for the fact that they are about to lose in some cases really crucial federal funding, at least for a period of time?

    LEAVITT: There was notice. It was the executive order that the president signed. There’s also a freeze on hiring, as you know, a regulatory freeze, and there’s also a freeze on foreign aid.

    And this is, again, incredibly important to ensure that this administration is taking into consideration how hard the American people are working, and their tax dollars actually matter to this administration. Just during this pause, DOGE and OMB have actually found that there was $37 million that was about to go out the door to the World Health Organization, which is an organization, as you all know, that President Trump with the swipe of his pen in that executive order is — no longer wants the United States to be a part of.

    So that wouldn’t be in line with the president’s agenda. DOGE and OMB also found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza. That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money.

    https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cnc/date/2025-01-28/segment/07

    BuDuh (7a5fe0)

  10. Whembly, i had a chance to read the EO. It basically tells the DOD to write a report. The technology to this exists already. It’s just a question of building/ buying enough of it, establishing bases, recruiting and training enough ppl to man it all etc. etc.

    Time123 (a43db0)

  11. Trump’s EO is no different the mission of the Missile Defense Agency, which already has a current budget of around $10B. By one estimate, MDA has received over $250B between 1985 and 2023. Trump’s EO isn’t anything new, it mostly restates the recommendations the 2019 Missile Defense Review that were set aside by the Biden Administration.

    Descriptions of the various systems, and their capabilities and deployment (if any), is available at first link. At best the success rates in testing can be described as “mediocre.”

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  12. #8

    Thanks. It looks ok to me from a President acting like a normal President standpoint.

    Appalled (3a047a)

  13. i had a chance to read the EO. It basically tells the DOD to write a report.

    Sounds ghastly! I see why you questioned the Congressional Republican’s oath-of-office.

    BuDuh (7a5fe0)

  14. RIP, I think he real world performance of the Israeli Iron Dome as well as the performance of the older patriot systems deployed to UKE show something better then Mediocre.

    Time123 (a43db0)

  15. Time
    I think the Executive can legally authorize something, but the Congress is not obligated to fund it.
    It’s a way to put the ball (and any future blame) very publicly, squarely into the court of Congress.
    The executive can, has, and will continue to mine through appropriations for poorly defined, loosely worded funding and start without Congress, but a national Iron Dome is going to take more than “loose change”

    The USA has always had the distance of the Pacific and the Atlantic to protect and warn us.

    Those days will be over soon. Hypersonic missiles, fast, long-range cruise missiles, etc.

    Would we wait and try to develop a US “Iron Dome” after a pre-emptive strike, or should we plan and act ahead?

    steveg (cdf9e5)

  16. BuDuh, my statement wasn’t about “congressional” republicans not caring about the constitution. It was that republicans Generally don’t really care about the constitution. It wasn’t based on this specifically. Just a general conclusion based on statements and actions over the last few years.

    So if I confused you with my comment.

    Time123 (a43db0)

  17. Not confused at all. I expect your single issue comments to morph into multiple issue comments as necessary.

    No surprise there.

    BuDuh (7a5fe0)

  18. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/27/white-house-pauses-federal-grants/


    The memo, which goes into effect Tuesday, states its orders should not be “construed” to affect Social Security or Medicare recipients, and also says the federal financial assistance put on hold “does not include assistance provided directly to individuals.”

    But the document says programs affected are “including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”

    Seems like a pragmatic thing to do.

    whembly (c87394)

  19. Steve, I’m not sure it’s the best use of defense resources (all things considered) but I’m not opposed to it generally. Our main deterrence is our response to such an attack. Our situation isn’t like Israel’s and our defensive needs are different.

    The first time a country attacks the US with ICBM is either the end of the US as an industrial society, or the end of the aggressor. I think that’s a big part of why we have 14 Ohio Class subs.

    Time123 (a43db0)

  20. BuDuH, I’m glad you were able to catch up.

    Time123 (a43db0)

  21. whembly (c87394) — 1/28/2025 @ 2:24 pm

    D.C. federal judge temporarily blocks Trump plan to pause federal aid spending

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  22. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/28/2025 @ 2:35 pm

    Time might say that this Judge doesn’t really care about the Constitution. But one never knows…

    BuDuh (7a5fe0)

  23. ” DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal”

    lmao

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  24. As far as the “Great Iron Dome” is concerned, it sounds like the return of Reagan’s “Star Wars”, which was a ploy to get the Soviets to bankrupt themselves, and not an actual defense system. Actually spending money on it seems foolish, but this is Trump we’re talking about.

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  25. Since the US helped fund Israel’s Iron Dome, maybe they could provide their Jewish Space Lasers at a discount.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  26. The US started a Global Protection Against Limited Strikes system in the 80’s; I belive Clinton discontinued it, Bush restarted it and Obama shelved it.

    It ought to be restarted and pursued, since its fairly obvious that having one might be a good idea, especially on the West Coast. Perhaps a better asset than a DEI bureauracy, flying non-STEM scholars to “conferences.”

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (0c349e)

  27. The US started a Global Protection Against Limited Strikes system in the 80’s; I belive Clinton discontinued it, Bush restarted it and Obama shelved it.

    It ought to be restarted and pursued……

    GPALS has essentially been replaced by the various strategic and theater systems managed by the Missile Defense Agency.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  28. GPALS ended long before the Obama Administration.

    …….(I)n light of the fall of the Soviet Union, under the directive of the George H. W. Bush administration, SDI was overhauled to address limited nuclear strikes in 1991. Bush announced a new system, the Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS).

    When President Bill Clinton entered office, he shifted focus on theatre missile defense instead of national missile defense. To reflect this, he canceled the (Brilliant Pebbles) program and changed the name of SDIO to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). He also broke up the Bush GPALS program into several Army, Navy, and Air Force programs, introducing what is now the PATRIOT Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) program, the Theatre High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, the ship-borne Aegis air defense system and Standard Missile (SM) interceptor, and the Air Force’s Airborne Laser Project.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  29. 28 Ok, but I believe the point remains: the end of GPALS meant a resulting mishmash of agencies and programs more directed to theatre area use and not defense of the US. They have more names, including the Missile Defense Agency, and larger budgets, but from what is visible, no intense program or product to defend the mainland US.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (55a6ba)

  30. Can you authorize a major new defense procurement initiative through executive order?
    I think this is the kind of thing that Congress has to include in the budget. But that’s a constitutional law question, I don’t really think Republicans care about the constitution

    Sure you can, so long as you don’t need to appropriate new money. If there is already ongoing efforts, you can aim them in a particular direction. Building the damn thing would probably need Congress to put it in the budget.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  31. I very much doubt that Trump will bring clarity to any large bureaucracy.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  32. Can you authorize a major new defense procurement initiative through executive order?
    I think this is the kind of thing that Congress has to include in the budget. But that’s a constitutional law question, I don’t really think Republicans care about the constitution

    Sure you can, so long as you don’t need to appropriate new money. If there is already ongoing efforts, you can aim them in a particular direction. Building the damn thing would probably need Congress to put it in the budget.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/29/2025 @ 6:47 pm

    FIFY

    Sure you can, so long as you don’t need to appropriate spend new money. If a program or project isn’t authorized by Congress, no money can be spent.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

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