Trump Signs Executive Order Initiating The Construction Of America’s ‘Iron Dome’

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday evening initiating the construction of a missile defense system for the U.S. akin to Israel’s “Iron Dome.”

Trump noted that former President Ronald Reagan was the first to try to build a comprehensive missile defense shield for the U.S., but the project was canceled before its completion.

“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,” Trump said.

The president added that the “most catastrophic” military risks to the U.S. included attacks from ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks.

The order states that the U.S. will “provide for the common defense of its citizens and the Nation by deploying and maintaining a next-generation missile defense shield” and that within the next 60 days, the Department of Defense will submit a plan for implementing the system to the president.

The plan “at a minimum” must include plans for:

• Defense of the United States against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.
• Acceleration of the deployment of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor layer.
• Development and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors capable of boost-phase intercept.
• Deployment of underlayer and terminal-phase intercept capabilities postured to defeat a countervalue attack.
• Development and deployment of a custody layer of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
• Development and deployment of capabilities to defeat missile attacks prior to launch and in the boost phase.
• Development and deployment of a secure supply chain for all components with next-generation security and resilience features.
• Development and deployment of non-kinetic capabilities to augment the kinetic defeat of ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks.

The order places a premium on moving quickly so that it can be implemented into the U.S. budget.

It also calls for increasing “bilateral and multilateral cooperation on missile defense technology development, capabilities, and operations” and improving “theater missile defenses of forward-deployed United States troops and allied territories, troops, and populations.”