Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
The “Iron Dome for America” proposal creates an enormous chance to think differently while the United States adapts its culture and processes to the strategic landscape it faces today.
The United States is under relentless daily attack in the cyber domain and information space. At the same time, the Homeland is also threatened by multiple potential adversaries capable of using a variety of next-generation weapons systems, including both drones and ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles. Any of these threats can be launched from platforms in the air, land, and sea domains, or even sub-sea and space, and from virtually any direction. With continuous technological innovation, and now Artificial Intelligence, threats to our homeland will continue to grow at an exponential rate. Foes are already surreptitiously planting malware—modern day Trojan horses—in and around our critical infrastructure in anticipation of potential crisis or conflict.
On January 27th, 2025, the White House released a new Executive Order titled, “Iron Dome for America.” Since its release, the Order has generated much discussion and attention. Unfortunately, much of this discussion has centered on stove-piped legacy systems that were designed for yesterday’s threats. Others are suggesting an entirely space-based solution is required—a costly, lengthy, and likely inadequate remedy. Instead, it is time for a comprehensive and holistic approach to homeland defense—one that addresses the full spectrum of current and future threats.
There Are Many Ways to Defeat Threats
Rather than jumping directly to specific weapons system solutions, Washington must first define, as a matter of policy, the critical infrastructure that must be defended, and from which actors and threats. Defending the entire North American landmass from every threat is neither realistic nor affordable. Most importantly, it is not required. Politics will undoubtedly complicate the problem even further. Spending $1 billion on pork barrel projects to defend isolated non-critical infrastructure in an influential political state will be wasteful, for example—but spending the same amount to defend the Capital, or other critical infrastructure key to our nation’s survival, might be grossly insufficient.
Defense should not mean only kinetic “kill” solutions, like costly surface and air-to-air missiles. Some critical infrastructure will obviously require this type of traditional military defense. But a new approach, focused far more on deterrence by denial, must be put on the table. Simple physical hardening and dispersal of potential military targets, cyber resilience, and the use of the electro-magnetic spectrum—jamming—to deny and deceive threats, must all be urgently developed and integrated. Potentially preemptive actions, such as supply chain interdiction, will also have to be considered.
For years, our nation has fielded isolated capabilities designed to counter a specific threat in a specific domain. Adversaries have responded each time by developing capabilities designed to exploit the gaps between these systems. For example, Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGVs), which fly at extreme speeds within the atmosphere, were the Russian and Chinese solutions to the Ground Based Mid-Course (GMD) missile defense system that was designed by the Pentagon to destroy rogue nation ballistic missiles outside of the atmosphere.
Some defensive capabilities already exist, but these are generally designed for detection of a single threat. To handle emerging and current new challenges, some entirely new systems and capabilities will have to be designed and integrated that can identify and provide domain awareness for multiple threats. Those threats will then have to be instantaneously countered across multiple domains.
We Must Detect Threats, Share Data, and Define Priorities
The first necessary step will be to share and connect across the bureaucracy, and with allies and partners, all available domain awareness sensor data from space to sub-sea. Today, too much of this data is isolated due to security restrictions, precluding the compiling and distribution of critical information between government agencies, and allies and partners. Sharing and fusing data with the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and then making it available to authorized users, will have to be the essential first step. Integration will enable a better understanding of true gaps and seams in our ability to detect and track approaching threats. Gaining this picture will be essential for planning and budgeting of future capabilities. The real challenge here will be less technological and more cultural: whipsawing a stove-piped bureaucracy into sharing and integrating information. Only strong leadership can decisively resolve that bureaucratic challenge.
The backbone of the nation’s national security is the stability provided by its strategic nuclear force. The most critical mission for ensuring strategic stability is threat warning and attack assessment. This mission enables the National Command Authority to execute its continuity of government responsibility, and ensures the survival of nuclear forces, including the supporting command and control platforms that are key to strategic stability and deterrence. Today’s legacy systems, designed to provide warning of attack by Soviet-era ballistic missiles fired over the Arctic, are challenged by modern maneuvering ballistic missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles, stealthy cruise missiles, and other systems that can approach from any direction around North America. Future systems must provide 360-degree, and even global, detection of approaching threats to ensure early warning of attack.
Detection alone, however, is insufficient to deter our nation’s adversaries. The United States must also possess the ability to track and defeat approaching threats across all domains. Maintaining a continuous track of threats allows for the timely allocation and employment of the resources necessary for defense. Even small drones, like those recently seen over New Jersey and many other locations, will require an ability to track and defeat.
A one-size-fits-all solution is not the answer. Defending vulnerable critical infrastructure against the full spectrum of threats will require a range of new and existing systems, both kinetic and non-kinetic. For approaching submarines, for example, the solution may be the allocation of manned and new unmanned airborne maritime patrol aircraft, anti-submarine warfare ships, and attack submarines. For dozens of enemy cruise missiles, the counter may be the combined use of fighter aircraft, ground-based missiles, and new non-kinetic systems designed to confuse and jam guidance systems.
The placement of defensive systems must be deliberate. Strategic policy makers will have to prioritize what will be defended. Perhaps more challenging, they will also have to decide what less vulnerable infrastructure, already hardened and resilient, will have to weather an attack, allowing for scarce defensive resources to be allocated elsewhere.
Washington Must Change Its Budget and Acquisition Processes
This comprehensive kind of approach and vision is not science fiction. It is real, achievable, and affordable. Execution will require new space-based sensors for missile tracking and warning, both already underway. It will also require new terrestrial sensors to ensure 360-degree coverage for warning, defense, and greater system resilience, all doable with today’s technology.
The real challenge is culture, and the legacy acquisition and budget processes. Washington must move swiftly to make data available to share information across an enterprise of systems and users. The budget process, effective in the industrial analog age, must be adapted to reflect today’s software and data driven-environment, where innovation occurs well inside of today’s budget sausage-making process. Finally, the entire acquisition process must be transitioned, as the Ukrainians have accomplished, from serial, step by step processes, to a parallel, iterative, and collaborative approach.
In short, the “Iron Dome for America” proposal creates an enormous chance to think differently while the United States adapts its culture and processes to the strategic landscape it faces today. The Pentagon cannot afford to simply buy more of yesterday. Instead, it must dynamically adapt for tomorrow.
