Iron Dome over the United States

President Donald Trump makes good on one of the promises he made during his campaign. Trump signed an executive order calling for the establishment of an “iron dome” over the United States. Trump listed his justifications for this executive order, including the growing threats involving new technologies and novel missile strategies. Trump also addressed Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which was intended to do the same thing, but was discontinued.

From the White House:

Section 1. Purpose. The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.

President 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.

Over 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.

Additional Reading:

Trump, D. (2025, January 27). The iron dome for America. White House. Link.

Category: Donald Trump, Pentagon