Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Monday that a priority for the new Trump administration is to acquire an “Iron Dome for America.”
[Note: Iron Dome is the air defense system in Israel that intercepts and destroys short-range rockets and artillery shells fired from anywhere from 2 to 43 miles away. Since 2011, the U.S. government has contributed more than $2 billion to the Israeli Iron Dome defense system.]
Marking his first day at the helm of the U.S. Department of Defense, Hegseth said: “Today, there are more executive orders coming that we fully support, on removing DEI inside the Pentagon, reinstating troops who were pushed out because of COVID mandates, Iron Dome for America.” He added, “This is happening quickly.”
Following on Hegseth’s promise, Trump issued an executive order authorizing the American Iron Dome, citing a global threat that “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.”
The Trump order requires that the U.S. Secretary of Defense, within 60 days, “submit to the President a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield” designed for teh “defense of the United States against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks.”
Political journalist Paul McLeary, who covers the Pentagon and National Security for Politico and has embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, responded to Hegseth on X: “assuming this is a catchall for air and missile defense, since the Iron Dome is for short-range missiles so not clear what it would do.”
Given the short range capabilities of Israel’s Iron Dome defense, many are responding with jokes, including, “Do we expect Mexico or Canada to attack us?”
[NOTE: Iron Dome maker Rafael says the Iron Dome “system determines whether or not an interception is required, and if so, detonates the target in the air with a 90% success rate.” Rafael claims that “in the future, parts of IRON DOME could be incorporated into the U.S. Army’s Indirect Fires Protection Capability, which will counter cruise missiles, drones, rockets, artillery, and mortars.”]
Notably, the executive order acknowledges the massive cost of such an initiative and tasks Hegseth to work “jointly with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, submit to the President a plan to fund this directive, allowing sufficient time for consideration by the President before finalization of the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget.”
Conservative anti-Trump political pundit Tom Nichols, a retired professor at the U.S. Naval War College, replied to Hegseth with one word: “Welp.”
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 27, 2025
The executive order appeared to confirm McLeary’s assumption that Hegseth’s Iron Dome phrasing is a catchall for a broader missile defense strategy, while at the same time calling for a homeland aerial defense system with similarities to the current Iron Dome capabilities.
Note: Rafael — which works with Raytheon on the project — told The New York Post that its system could be adapted to protect America (Israel is the size of New Jersey). And Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Israel, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, also told The Post in November that he believed an Iron Dome adapted for America could similarly protect the US from foreign attacks. He warned that “Iran’s ambitions do not stop at Israel, but extend to taking down the United States.”
The executive order also mentions U.S. “allies and partners” with whom it is advised to “increase bilateral and multilateral cooperation on missile defense technology development, capabilities, and operations.”
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