The US missile shield: Is Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ dream coming true?

Among the blizzard of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump in the days after his inauguration is one that would complete a project initiated more than 40 years ago under President Ronald Reagan: a missile defense system with space-based components that would provide broad-area protection from the United States’ most powerful foreign adversaries.

Reagan called it the “Strategic Defense Initiative,” more colloquially known by a skeptical press and public as “Star Wars;” Trump is calling his version the “Iron Dome for America,” in reference to Israel’s powerful air defense system, built with several billions’ worth of investment from the United States.

“You know, we protect other countries, but we don’t technically protect ourselves,” Trump said in January as he announced the plan. “When Ronald Reagan wanted to do it many years ago … we didn’t have the technology. … And now we have phenomenal technology … so I think the United States is entitled to that.”

On January 27, the same day Trump’s executive order was issued, in a briefing with reporters, newly installed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth underlined the project as a priority. Breaking Defense reported that the Pentagon has already outlined a two-phase process to meet the president’s 60-day deadline for a comprehensive plan to build the shield, with the U.S. Space Force, the Defense Department and the Missile Defense Agency all involved.

One piece of planning that has not been made public is how the White House plans to cover the cost of such an initiative. Israel’s Iron Dome, which has proven sensationally effective against missiles from Iran and Hezbollah over the last year of war, involves 10 batteries each capable of intercepting incoming missiles within a radius of about 60 miles – for a country roughly the size of New Jersey (with major population centers concentrated in a much smaller area), the solution is appropriately sized.

Last year, defense analyst and plan skeptic, Joe Cirincione estimated for Defense One that the U.S. would need some 24,700 Iron Dome batteries – at a staggering total cost of $2.5 trillion – to get the same kind of protection. However, the system still wouldn’t be able to defeat the powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that represent the greatest threat to the U.S., he added. 

This amount represents about 7% of the current national debt – and while some estimates have put the cost lower, it’s unclear how the project will align with the aims of an administration whose Department of Government Efficiency is emptying out federal agencies and conducting mass firings of government workers in order to bring spending down.

Related: Mako: Arming the F-35 with hypersonic missiles

But in a February briefing, Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a DC-based think-tank, said the plan has its merits.

In light of missile attacks on Israel and Russian assaults on Ukraine, as well as the United States’ own 2018 National Defense Strategy, Karako said, big movements on the nation’s missile defense strategy were overdue.

“I think [this plan] deserves the high-level attention, and I suspect large budgetary reorientation, and also the policy changes” to refocus priorities on the nation’s most formidable adversaries, Russia and China, he said. 

Karako added that the plan appropriately involves space as a key element of national missile defense.

“The implications of space as a warfighting domain are just beginning to sink in, and when they sink in, the salience of space fires is going to bring with it a lot of other capabilities, of which space-based interceptors, I suspect, will be a small subset,” he said.

In that sense, the “Iron Dome” moniker may muddy the issue – even for Israel’s missile defense, the Iron Dome batteries are just one layer in a system that also includes ground-based interceptors known as David’s Sling, Arrow-2, and Arrow-3.

The new executive order calls for accelerated deployment of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor layer, a network of missile and threat-tracking satellites that began as an MDA program in 2018 and has already involved the launch of six satellites as of February 2024. A sensor satellite that can tell the difference between incoming missiles has been planned for launch by 2029, and may be among the capabilities getting fast-tracked under the new plan. 

Notably, all these existing initiatives focus on detecting and identifying threats from space, rather than intercepting them. The executive order is clear in calling for more, including “development and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors capable of boost-phase intercept,” and “development and deployment of capabilities to defeat missile attacks prior to launch and in the boost phase.”

Unclear is how long any of these systems would take to develop and launch, and what they would cost – or how many the U.S. would need to ensure the kind of comprehensive missile defense the White House appears to be asking for. It’s important, though, to acknowledge that America isn’t alone in its warfighting designs on space; China’s aggressive efforts to launch hundreds of warfighting satellites have set observers on edge and prompted concerns that the U.S. is already falling behind.

What is clear now is that, regardless of technology challenges and cost, the agencies involved are now under the gun to move fast. MDA has already announced a dedicated February 18 industry day for the Iron Dome for America initiative, with responses to a request for information due by February 28 from interested contractors and manufacturers. And top defense industry players are already making announcements about technology that might further the project.

General Atomics has disclosed development of a ground-based “super wide area” sensor that is “ready to go today.” And leaders with U.S. Northern Command are already calling for a wider array of sensors to meet the missile shield scheme’s requirements.

Karako said he expected to see a lot of attention paid to solid rocket motors to power interceptors, and to Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile seekers, a Boeing-made capability used against tactical and ballistic missiles and hostile aircraft that could fit the glide-phase interceptor mission.

“I also think we’re probably going to need other hypersonic missile killers, probably, in the interim as well,” he said. “So I would look for that.”

With just days to submit ideas, Karako said, the process will favor concepts already well in development.

“The tempo is, really figure out what you’ve got right now on the shelf,” he said. “This is not a time to do a lot of research; it’s taking the ideas that you have lying around and pushing them forward.”

Feature Image: The Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) of the Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D) and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) completed a successful flight test campaign with the Arrow-3 Interceptor missile. Flight Test Arrow-01 demonstrated the Israeli Arrow Weapon System’s ability to conduct a high altitude hit-to-kill engagement. Interceptor tests were conducted that successfully destroyed target missiles. These test were conducted at Pacific Spaceport Complex-Alaska (PSCA) in Kodiak, Alaska. (Missile Defense Agency)

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