Pete Hegseth, President Donald Trump’s pick for US Defense Secretary, breathed life into an ambitious plan to deploy “the Iron Dome for America” on his first day in the job.
The new head of the armed forces mentioned the missile defence shield policy in passing, and without any details, listing his agenda for the military upon entering the Pentagon, the headquarters of the US Department of Defense (DoD), on 27 January 2025.
“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, the Iron Dome for America.”
What is Iron Dome?
Iron Dome is a mobile, multi-mission air defence system developed by Rafael, an Israeli state-owned defence company. Although, the US was a partner in the system’s development, and continues to develop the short-range interceptor with Israel today.
The all-weather system protects the population and critical assets, most famously in Israel at a national level alongside David’s Sling as well as Arrow-2 and 3 systems.
With a range between 4 and 70 kilometres (2.4 and 43 miles), Iron Dome is said to have more than a 90% interception rate of various threats from rockets, artillery, mortar, uncrewed air vehicles, air-breathing threats, and dense salvos.
Building a “missile defence shield”
It should be understood that the policy was only mentioned in passing. At the time, no further details were given regarding what this network of air defence systems might look like when applied to protect the United States.
Nevertheless, in his opening remarks at the Pentagon, Hegseth assured that “this is happening quickly.”
Traces of this policy, however, stretch back to the Republican Party 2024 manifesto, which included, among other things, “building an Iron Dome missile defense shield.”
This will prove to be a complicated task when we consider the fact that Israel, home of the Iron Dome, is only slightly larger than the state of New Jersey.
It would be more difficult to protect the US landmass, and that is without Alaska and Hawaii – which are, together, larger than the contiguous US – as well as its dependencies (Pacific Islands, Puerto Rico, etc.) which alone make up 17,000 square miles.
Although unable to determine specific details regarding the overall cost, the number of systems, and the timeline for the shield’s deployment, a DoD spokesperson told Army Technology:
“The department received the executive order late last night [28 January] and will immediately begin reviewing its requirements and working across the DoD to develop a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield for the Secretary of Defense as outlined in the order.”
These three solutions will be put forward to the President within 60 days of the executive order. In particular, the order stipulates that this next-generation missile defence shield will counter ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks.
Jointly with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Defense Secretary will also submit to the President a plan to fund this directive, allowing sufficient time for consideration by the President before finalisation of the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget.
Global missile defence procurement increases
According to GlobalData intelligence, the ‘Global Missiles & Missile Defense Systems Market’ (2024) is anticipated to register a compound annual growth rate of 5.3%, growing from $45.5bn in 2024 to $76bn by 2034.
The market is expected to be dominated by the Platform-based Missile Defence System segment, which accounts for 33.8% of the market, followed by the Anti-Air Missiles with 26.4% share.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine over the last three years, Europe has responded with procuring air and missile defence systems. France has acquired SAMP/T NG systems; Netherlands, the Patriot; while the UK lately called back one of its six Sky Sabre systems from Poland, which was deployed there since April 2022.
A new versatile system known as Gravehawk has also been developed from a British design, and jointly financed with Denmark, for use in Ukraine.
Moreover, European nations have also begun efforts to integrate their air defence networks at the continental level with the European Sky Shield Initiative. Even neutral countries such as Austria and Switzerland have joined the effort.
This will, of course, bode well for the US which now seeks to implement a similar concept on such a wide scale.
Is Iron Dome the best air defence choice for the US?
The main threat to the US would be, and has already proven to be, adversarial Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR).
Two years ago, the People’s Republic of China deployed an ISR payload onto what seemed to be a spy balloon. The aerial vehicle travelled over sensitive American sites, including Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, where the US stores some of its nuclear assets. An F-22 Raptor “safely shot down” the craft over South Carolina waters.
This kind of threat is more passive than the offensive strikes Russia wages against Ukraine, or the tit-for-tat salvos launched in the Middle East. A fighter jet response was more appropriate to such a high-altitude threat as opposed to an air defence system such as Iron Dome.
Due to the vast US landmass, longer-range systems such as the American-made Patriot missile defence system may be more appropriate to intercept adversarial missile strikes. It is not known whether the government’s call for a ‘missile defence shield’ is only inspired by Israel’s use of Iron Dome, or whether that is the system the DoD are looking to procure.
The very short-range of the Israeli system would make it more suited to protect strategic assets and fixed-military sites. And there is certainly a requirement for this kind of protection.
In late November 2024, the UK seemed unable to protect key military sites of critical national infrastructure as well as US airbases in the country from drone incursions. At the time, a senior UK Ministry of Defence official lamented that the government was “doing its best” to counter the drone swarms.
This article has been updated to reflect comments from the US Department of Defense since the time of publishing.
