DEJA VU; REAGAN'S 'STAR WARS' REDUX
Dmitry Antonov
Fri, January 31, 2025
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia on Friday condemned an executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump to build a new missile defence shield, accusing the United States of trying to upset the global nuclear balance and pave the wave for military confrontation in space.
Trump on Monday signed an order that "mandated a process to develop an ‘American Iron Dome,’" a next-generation U.S. missile defence shield against ballistic, hypersonic, cruise missile and other forms of aerial attack.
The White House said the intention was to modernise an outdated system and address a "catastrophic threat" that had become more complex as U.S. adversaries developed new delivery systems.
But Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the plan was aimed at undermining the ability of both Russia and China to exercise nuclear deterrence.
In the sharpest Russian criticism so far of a policy announced by Trump's new administration, she said that the planned U.S. move would hinder the prospects for talks on nuclear arms control - something that both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have said they favour.
"It (the plan) directly envisages a significant strengthening of the American nuclear arsenal and means for conducting combat operations in space, including the development and deployment of space-based interception systems," Zakharova told reporters at a news briefing in Moscow.
"We consider this as another confirmation of the U.S. focus on turning space into an arena of armed confrontation... and the deployment of weapons there.
"The indicated U.S. approaches will not contribute to reducing tensions or improving the situation in the strategic sphere, including creating a basis for a fruitful dialogue on strategic offensive arms," she said.
The White House's Iron Dome statement did not refer to strengthening the U.S. nuclear arsenal, but said:
"The Iron Dome will further the goals of peace through strength. By empowering the United States with a second-strike capability, the Iron Dome will deter adversaries from attacks on the homeland."
Trump and Putin have both said they would like to meet face-to-face to discuss a range of issues, including the Ukraine war, but Moscow says it has yet to receive any signals from the U.S. on when and where such an encounter could take place.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov, writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
Russia slams Donald Trump's 'Iron Dome' missile defence shield in nuclear weapons space war row
Nicholas Cecil
Fri, January 31, 202
Russia slammed Donald Trump’s plan for an ‘Iron Dome’ missile defence shield in a nuclear weapons space war row.
Moscow said the move was designed to weaken Russian and Chinese nuclear deterrence.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also stressed that Russia saw the “Iron Dome” plan as confirmation of a US intention to turn space into a theatre of military confrontation.
Trump signed an order on Monday for the implementation of a next-generation US missile defence shield against ballistic, hypersonic, cruise missile and other forms of aerial attack.
The plan is believed to be modelled on the defensive dome used by Israel, which successfully defeated an attack by Iran last year.
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In the executive order, Trump stressed: “The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”
Vladimir Putin, who is yet to hold talks with Trump, has signalled that he is ready to discuss nuclear arms controls.
The Russian president has made nuclear threats over the Ukraine war as the West has increasingly ratcheted up support for Kyiv.
After ballistic missiles supplied by the US and Britain were fired by Ukraine at targets inside Russia, Putin hit back attacking the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a “new conventional intermediate range” missile codenamed Oreshnik.
The missile flew for 15 minutes and reached a maximum speed of beyond Mach 11, said spy chiefs in Kyiv.
Mach 11 is eleven times the speed of sound.
The West is building up its military forces in the face of the growing threat from Putin’s Russia, and the expansionist foreign policy of China’s Xi Jinping.
Earlier this week, two Russian nuclear deterrent bomber planes flew over the Sea of Japan.
The Ukraine war has seen the rapid development of drone warfare, and also Russia increasingly resorting to “grey zone” acts of aggression.
They include damaging critical underwater cables in the Baltic Sea, according to the West.
Britain has warned that Russian “shadow fleet” ships that seek to do the same in British waters face being raided by Royal Marine commandos.
Defence Secretary John Healey told earlier this month how he ordered a Royal Navy submarine to surface close to a suspected Russian spy ship, the Yantar, which was loitering over undersea infrastructure in British waters.
Trump is also piling pressure on Nato allies in Europe to boost defence spending so they take on greater responsibility for protecting the Continent, rather than relying so heavily on American might.
Sir Keir Starmer’s has pledged to increase UK defence spending to 2.5 per cent but has not yet set a date by when this will be achieved.
Ukraine’s military said on Friday its drones hit a major oil refinery in Russia’s Volgograd region, causing explosions and a fire, in the latest of a series of attacks on fuel and power plants.
Russian troops took control of the village of Novovasylivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the Defence Ministry in Moscow said.
Opinion - A US Iron Dome won’t work and will weaken nuclear deterrence
Benjamin D. Giltner, opinion contributor
Fri, January 31, 2025 at 8:30 AM MST·4 min read
54
A top priority of U.S. defense officials is to protect Americans from nuclear attacks. In an attempt to accomplish this goal, President Trump issued an executive order calling for the creation of an “Iron Dome for America,” a reference to Israel’s much-vaunted missile defense system.
Secretary of Defense Hegseth hinted his desire to begin plans for this missile defense system. Some members of Congress, such as Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) are also on board with this plan.
A missile defense system to protect America from nuclear weapons sounds like a good idea. It is not. A U.S. Iron Dome would be a waste of taxpayer money and would bring the world closer to nuclear Armageddon.
If anyone should take anything away from this piece, it is that missile defenses against nuclear weapons increase the chances of them being used. This seems counterintuitive. But U.S. senior officials and policymakers must understand how the other side would perceive such a move.
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If the U.S. creates a missile defense system capable of shooting down incoming nuclear missiles, the Russians and Chinese would be compelled to make more nuclear weapons to counter this missile defense. Not only that, but the Russians and Chinese would see this missile defense as a possible way for the United States to launch nuclear weapons first without fear of retaliation.
The ability to retaliate makes deterrence work. Without it, a security crisis is likely to emerge.
The U.S. faced a crisis like this in 1983, when NATO forces launched war exercises. The Soviet Union came close to launching nuclear weapons out of fear that these exercises were actually a NATO attack against the Warsaw Pact. The Reagan administration’s missile defense plans earlier that year laid the groundwork for a nuclear crisis with the Soviets. It’s doubtful that anyone wants to experience a nuclear crisis in today’s fraught world.
There are also reasons to doubt that an Iron Dome for America would even work. Defense contractors and government officials say that missile defenses have a good interception rate, although they fail to publish these numbers to the public. Thankfully, organizations like the Arms Control Association and recent conflicts offer insight into the success rates of missile defenses.
The most recent test of America’s current missile defense system, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense — had “12 successful intercepts in 21 tests.” Between the end of 2008 and 2013, no GMD intercept tests succeeded. That’s not a great look for missile defense advocates.
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To complicate missile defenses further, both China and Russia attach multiple warheads to their missiles. Having anywhere from three to 16 nuclear warheads raining down from a single missile makes intercepting all of them impossible.
Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger was right when he said, “There is no realistic hope that we shall ever again be able to protect American cities. There is no leak-proof defense. Any defense is going to suffer some erosion at best.”
Current missile defenses foreshadow how costly a U.S. Iron Dome would be.
Take the Houthi attacks on American ships in the Red Sea. One missile interceptor aboard a U.S. ship costs around $2 million while a single Houthi drone amounted to around $2,000. This case shows that missiles have an economic advantage over missile defenses.
Over the past few decades, the U.S. has spent $400 billion of taxpayer money on missile defense programs. And as noted earlier, these missile defenses aren’t very successful at destroying incoming missiles. Creating an Iron Dome for America would cost around $2.5 trillion of American taxpayer money.
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Moreover, missile defenses against nuclear weapons are like a snake eating its tail. If the United States builds an Iron Dome, Russia and China will increase their nuclear weapon stockpiles and capabilities, forcing the United States to increase its missile interceptors, then leading Russia and China to increase their nuclear weapon stockpiles and capabilities, and on and on it goes.
This was why the Nixon administration agreed to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972. Unlike 1972, America has two nuclear peers, making this tit-for-tat problem more profound than during the Cold War. If the Trump administration wants to cut U.S. government spending, it should avoid creating this missile defense system.
The world is closer to catastrophe than it ever has been. Creating an Iron Dome for America would not just be a poor decision — it would be a monumental failure in defense policy.
President Trump should reconsider this missile defense proposal. The fate of human civilization rests upon this decision.
Benjamin D. Giltner is a Washington D.C.-based defense and foreign policy analyst.
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Trump wants an ‘Iron Dome’ over the US. But even a mini version in the Pacific is taking a while
Analysis by Brad Lendon, CNN
Fri, January 31, 2025 at 6:35 PM MST·7 min read
59
President Donald Trump has called for an expansive, next-generation missile defense shield for the mainland United States, something modeled on Israel’s formidable defenses, typified by its signature Iron Dome system.
A defensive dome for the US – a country hundreds of times the size of Israel – would require massive scale, as well as space-based interceptors, and almost certainly be decades away.
Yet on the piece of US soil perhaps most vulnerable to missile attacks – the Pacific island of Guam – work is well underway on the kind of multi-layered missile defense that could point the way.
However, experts say even that faces steep challenges.
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“There are no fast or panacea solutions, and we are making the decisions late in the game even though visionary military and political leaders saw this coming in the 1990s,” said Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.
Guam’s early success
The US territory of Guam, a 210-square-mile island in the Pacific Ocean, is home to just under 175,000 people. It also hosts Andersen Air Force Base – a key deployment base for US Air Force bombers such as the B-1 and B-52 and sometimes the stealthy B-2 – and is homeport to US nuclear attack submarines that could be vital in any defense of Taiwan.
The island is less than 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) from China (PRC) and 2,100 miles from North Korea. Mockups of it have shown up in China’s military propaganda videos, and North Korea has made threats against it.
But the US military has not stood still, advancing its ability to defend against regional threats.
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Just last December, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) conducted the first successful intercept of a ballistic missile target from the island using the Aegis Guam System, which fired a land-based interceptor of the type that US Navy ships have used to destroy ballistic missile targets in testing.
“Current forces are capable of defending Guam against today’s North Korean ballistic missile threats. However, the regional threat to Guam, including those from PRC, continues to rapidly evolve,” the MDA’s director for operations, Michelle Atkinson, said in 2023.
In the December test, a US Air Force C-17 plane released a medium-range ballistic missile target off Guam’s coast. After the target was tracked by powerful radar, an interceptor was fired from a Vertical Launch System on the island, taking it out outside Earth’s atmosphere, according to releases by MDA and Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the Aegis system on Guam.
An Army Navy / Transportable Radar Surveillance and Control Series 6 (AN/TPY-6) positioned on the island of Guam was used during the December ballistic missile interception test. - US Department of Defense
It was a “a critical milestone in the defense of Guam and the region,” said US Navy Rear Adm. Greg Huffman, commander, Joint Task Force-Micronesia.
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But the intercept test went beyond the land-based Aegis system, with other military elements testing systems that would form key parts of the multi-layered concept Trump would like to see.
That’s something akin to what Israel fields, a four-tiered system often lumped under the “Iron Dome” moniker, after its best-known and lowest layer. While the Iron Dome combats incoming rockets and artillery weapons, David’s Sling protects against short- and medium-range threats, and the Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 systems stop ballistic missiles.
In a nod to a similarly layered defensive structure, US Indo-Pacific Command said it used December’s intercept to test tracking capabilities of the US Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system based on Guam.
THAAD is designed to stop incoming missiles in their terminal, or descent, phase of flight, while Aegis makes its intercept in the mid-course phase, outside Earth’s atmosphere, before the missiles dive on their target.
The US military also employs Patriot missile batteries, designed to make much lower-altitude intercepts, as the final phase of Guam’s defense. Both the THAAD and Patriot systems have been successfully used in combat.
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All three – Aegis, THAAD and Patriot – will eventually form what is called the Enhanced Integrated Air and Missile Defense System (EIAMD) on Guam, which the MDA says will provide “360-degree coverage, and layered defense against regional ballistic, maneuvering ballistic, hypersonic glide, and cruise missile threats.”
That system would also rely on input from US satellites and space-based sensors, according to the MDA, inching it closer to Trump’s missile defense vision.
Difficult challenges
But the timeline for full Guam missile defense – expected to take at least a decade to put together – is indicative of the challenges in constructing any system to fight ballistic and hypersonic glide missiles. That’s not helped by constant technological advances in missile technology, which often evolves more quickly than ways to defend against it.
And Trump’s concept of a next-generation missile defense for the continental US goes well beyond what is still years away on Guam, an island about 10 times the size of Manhattan.
In his executive order, Trump said he would “direct (the US) military to begin construction of the great Iron Dome missile defense shield, which will be made all in the USA,” as the US faces a “catastrophic threat” from ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles.
His ambitious executive order called for an acceleration in “the development and deployment of Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor Layers, proliferated space-based interceptors, a Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, capabilities to defeat salvoes prior to launch, non-kinetic missile defense capabilities, and underlayer and terminal-phase intercept capabilities.”
Trump’s order does not give any estimate of the costs of such a system, but several hundreds of billions of dollars would probably be a conservative estimate.
“The costs of reliably defending an area the size of the United States against a wide variety of threats at multiple different intercept points would be astronomical,” said Matt Korda, associate director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.
And as far as money goes, the advantage goes to the attacker.
“Offense is cheaper than defense every single time,” Korda said.
Even if US technology can develop and deploy all that Trump is asking for, impregnable missile defense could still prove impossible.
Though it is touted by many as the world’s best missile defense, attacks by Iran last year showed that the Iron Done is far from unbeatable, with projectiles fired by Tehran and Houthi rebels landing in Israel.
Iran achieved that by firing large numbers of weapons at Israel. While many of the around 180 missiles launched were intercepted, some got through. Missile defense experts have long pointed out that’s one way to beat any missile defense system.
Schuster, a former US Navy captain who worked on the Aegis missile defense system in its early days, said missile defenses can be “saturated,” pointing out that the incoming ballistic missile knows where it’s going, but the interceptors have to be directed to their target.
“You can only guide so many (interceptors) at any one time while the ballistic missile has an internal guidance system,” Schuster said.
The problem for defenders becomes more difficult once warheads with “maneuverable reentry vehicles” – which can change directions after they reenter the atmosphere and approach targets from different directions – are added. Both China and Russia have such capabilities.
“A target coming directly at you is the easiest to intercept. The greater the lateral displacement from that, the more challenging the intercept equation,” Schuster said.
Adversaries can compound that problem by firing decoy missiles, which distract from more important targets – which if they involve nuclear warheads, could do catastrophic damage.
The long road ahead
Of course, all that comes into play once a system is actually deployed.
And, according to Schuster, the biggest stumbling block for Trump’s shield plan could be a US production and procurement system that has been neglected – despite the early successes demonstrated on Guam.
“Our production rates are criminally low in my opinion,” he said. “We have been asleep at the switch … for over a decade.”
And it’s not just a manufacturing infrastructure problem, it’s also the limited knowledge and skills to produce them, Schuster said.
“We are going to have to invest in both plant, which we do well, and people, which we don’t do well.”
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