President Trump has signed an executive order for the Pentagon to move out on developing an \u201cIron Dome for America,\u201d a massive, likely multi-billion dollar project that will utilize space-based interceptors.<\/p>\n
New Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has 60 days to submit a plan for building out the \u201cnext-generation missile defense shield,\u201d with the White House expecting the project to be included in the upcoming fiscal year 2026 budget request.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States will provide for the common defense of its citizens and the nation by deploying and maintaining a next-generation missile defense shield. The United States will deter \u2014 and defend its citizens and critical infrastructure against \u2014 any foreign aerial attack on the homeland; and the United States will guarantee its secure second-strike capability,\u201d the executive order states.<\/p>\n
Within 60 days, Hegseth is tasked with delivering a \u201creference architecture\u201d for the design of the Iron Dome, a capabilities-based requirements document and an implementation plan for the project.<\/p>\n
The executive order states the \u201cIron Dome for America\u201d is intended to defend against ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missile threats and other advanced aerial attacks, which the White House said \u201cremains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past 40 years, rather than lessening, the threat from next-generation strategic weapons has become more intense and complex with the development by peer and near-peer adversaries of next-generation delivery systems and their own homeland integrated air and missile defense capabilities,\u201d the executive order states.<\/p>\n
While the project\u2019s name alludes to Israel\u2019s Iron Dome defense system, it\u2019s likely the Trump administration\u2019s project will differ greatly as the Israeli system is designed to defend against short-range rockets, artillery and drone threats while covering a much smaller area than that of the continental United States.<\/p>\n
The \u201cIron Dome for America\u201d is expected to incorporate Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) layer along with \u201cproliferated space-based interceptors capable of boost-phase intercept,\u201d \u201cunderlayer and terminal-phase intercept capabilities postured to defeat a countervalue attack\u201d and \u201ca custody layer of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the executive order is light on technology specifics, it notes the project will also utilize \u201ccapabilities to defeat missile attacks prior to launch and in the boost phase\u201d and non-kinetic capabilities.<\/p>\n
The massive project will require congressional support to advance its efforts to rapidly develop and deploy such capabilities, with House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) backing the project in a statement on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thrilled to see President Trump prioritize the modernization and expansion of U.S. missile defense,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cIn the FY \u201824 NDAA, our committee removed outdated policy limitations that prevented our missile defenses from being focused toward threats by near-peer adversaries. President Trump\u2019s order makes it clear our missile defenses will be oriented to defend against all threats from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roman Schweizer, a defense analyst with TD Cowen, wrote on Tuesday that the project is likely to have a \u201cvery positive\u201d impact for existing programs of record with firms such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, L3Harris Technologies, Boeing and others.<\/p>\n
While the executive order singles out few specific programs, such as HBTSS, Schweizer noted the \u201cIron Dome for America\u201d could incorporate efforts such as the Next-Generation Interceptor, PAC-3 MASE interceptors, AEGIS Ashore, Long-Range Discrimination Radar, Ground-Based Interceptor, THAAD, the Standard Missile family and more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see it as a massive expansion of space- and ground-based systems, to include space-based interceptors. It will be a priority and could require tens of [billions of dollars] to develop and field,\u201d Schweizer wrote.<\/p>\n
Tom Karako, director of the Center for Strategic & International Studies\u2019 Missile Defense Project, said the \u201cdevil will be in the details\u201d on how \u201cIron Dome for America\u201d is actually budgeted and planned for across the Pentagon.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026And plans are only as good as the budgets behind them. But it is certainly past time to introduce disruptive capabilities into the missile defense enterprise. There\u2019s been a lot of talk over the past decade, but significant action will be required to meaningfully adapt our policies, programs, and posture to the renewed era of strategic competition,\u201d Karako said in a statement. \u201cIt remains to be seen exactly what an \u2018Iron Dome for America\u2019 might mean. The conversation to be had now is how to translate that metaphor and these aspirations into concrete programmatic and budgetary reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along with building out the \u201cIron Dome for America\u201d the executive order also directs DoD to review the relevant authorities and organizations required to rapidly develop such a system and calls for the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Strategic Command and Northern Command to submit an updated assessment on the strategic missile threat to the homeland and to select a \u201cprioritized set of locations to progressively defend against a countervalue attack by nuclear adversaries.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House\u2019s executive order notes the project\u2019s similarities to Reagan\u2019s Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as \u201cStar Wars,\u201d which failed to achieve fielding of the space-based missile defense system.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Ronald Reagan endeavored to build an effective defense against nuclear attacks, and while this program resulted in many technological advances, it was canceled before its goal could be realized. And since the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and initiated development of limited homeland missile defense, official United States homeland missile defense policy has remained only to stay ahead of rogue-nation threats and accidental or unauthorized missile launches,\u201d the executive order states.<\/p>\n
This story was first published by Defense Daily <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Trump has signed an executive order for the Pentagon to move out on developing an \u201cIron Dome for America,\u201d a massive, likely multi-billion dollar project that will utilize space-based interceptors. New Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has 60 days to submit a plan for building out the \u201cnext-generation missile defense shield,\u201d with the White […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49775"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}