Trump orders U.S. to develop an Iron Dome

President Donald Trump on Monday ordered the Pentagon to craft a plan for building a homeland missile defense system capable of defending against nuclear strikes. The United States needs to upgrade its missile defense systems—both domestically and internationally—to counter the growing threat of a missile attack, Trump said. The executive order’s title referenced Israel’s Iron Dome, which the country has used to defend against missile attacks from its neighbors.

Doesn’t the United States already have missile defense systems? American missile defenses so far have only focused on countering missile attacks from terrorist groups or rogue nations far weaker than the United States, the president said. But the United States needs to be able to defend itself against hypersonic missiles and other advanced, next-generation attacks from superpowers, Trump said.

So what exactly does the Department of Defense need to do? Trump gave Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth two months to create a plan for the United States to build a missile defense system to protect its domestic territory and its forces abroad. According to the president, the Pentagon’s plan must develop:

• Missile systems that can stop hypersonic, cruise, and ballistic missiles, as well as other advanced aerial attacks from any adversary—be they a superpower or a terrorist group;

• A space system for tracking hypersonic and ballistic missiles;

• Missile systems that can intercept missiles during their terminal phase—when they are at their highest speeds just before closing in on their targets;

• Capabilities to destroy foreign missiles either before or just after they are launched;

• Secure, resilient supply chains for all components needed to make the missile defenses in question;

• Methods to counter missile attacks without the use of conventional weapons—such as cyberattacks, satellite interference, and the jamming of enemy signals.

The Pentagon will also work with U.S. allies abroad to help them develop similar missile defense systems and deploy American missile defense systems elsewhere around the world.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about Pete Hegseth’s narrow confirmation margin in the U.S. Senate last week.