Defense and Security Monitor
Since returning to the White House, the Trump administration has voiced its desire for an Iron Dome for America that would, in essence, reprise for the U.S. what the Israeli Iron Dome air defense system has done for the Middle East nation.
While the Iron Dome system – developed by Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems with U.S. support – has indeed proved quite effective against missiles and rockets launched by terrorist groups along Israel’s borders, it is designed as a short-range interceptor shield and forms just one layer of the country’s larger air-defense network.
What the Trump administration is asking for, in essence, is a replication of Israel’s air-defense network but at a scale more than 400 times larger. That requirement – issued by executive order on January 27, 2025 – calls for deployment and maintenance of a next-generation missile defense shield that will deter any attack on U.S. soil from a host of threats, including ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missile, and other next-generation aerial attacks such as one-way attack munitions and China’s in-development fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS).
