The Missile Defense Agency is already searching for cutting-edge missile defense technologies after President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for an “Iron Dome for America.”
Trump has also tasked military leaders with conceiving new ways to stop incoming threats earlier than ever before, including before they launch.
Both nations have made advances in offensive strategic weapons technology in recent years, and the U.S. military has struggled to keep pace.
While Trump’s order calls for several new missile defense capabilities, a major focus is on evaluating what systems already exist and whether they’re deployed in the right manner to protect the United States and forward-deployed U.S. troops and allies.
Daniel Flesch, a senior policy analyst for the Allison Center for National Security at the Heritage Foundation, described Trump’s order as a holistic approach that expands on capabilities the U.S. military already has.
“Where are the gaps, and where do we need to develop or invest?” Flesch told The Epoch Times.
The launch trajectory of a strategic weapon such as a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile is generally divided into three phases.
The “boost phase” is the initial stage as a weapon burns its propellant at launch. After a ballistic missile expends most of its propellant in the liftoff, it begins its main course of flight toward its target, known as the “midcourse.”
Finally, after reaching the apex of its trajectory, a ballistic missile will fall toward its target in what’s known as the “terminal phase” of its trajectory.
The U.S. Navy currently has both land- and ship-based variants of the SM-3 missile that can intercept enemy ballistic missiles in space, at the height of their midcourse flight. The U.S. Army also has ground-based interceptors for midcourse interceptions.
For ballistic missile interceptions in the terminal phase of flight, the Navy has the ship-based SM-6 missile, while the Army has the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system and newer variants of the Patriot air-defense missile system.
The midcourse presents the largest window for an intercept but requires sophisticated interceptors capable of reaching ballistic missiles at high altitudes, including in space.
Terminal phase interceptors don’t have to reach as high as midcourse interceptors, but it’s a narrow and high-stakes window to stop a ballistic missile before it reaches its final target.
The boost phase presents an attractive opportunity to stop a missile threat because the missile is less capable of evading interceptors or deploying decoys, but detecting a launch in this early stage is difficult, as is having an effective system in position to stop it.
Along with new and improved sensors for tracking the trajectory of weapons throughout their flight, Trump’s order envisions a network of space-based interceptors that could stop threats in their boost phase.
Weapons researchers have long considered high-powered lasers as one option for boost phase interceptions.
The United States and Israel have both seen advancements with lasers for intercepting drones and missiles, but more improvements may be needed to effectively counter sophisticated ballistic missiles.
A ‘Star Wars’ Sequel
Trump’s Iron Dome for America takes direct inspiration from the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a missile defense program President Ronald Reagan put in motion in 1983.“President Ronald Reagan endeavored to build an effective defense against nuclear attacks, and while this program resulted in many technological advances, it was canceled before its goal could be realized,” Trump’s order reads.
SDI indeed looked to develop space-based and non-kinetic interception capabilities that many critics dismissed as figments of science fiction. The initiative was referred to, often derisively, as Reagan’s “Star Wars” program.
Gomez assessed that Trump’s order may bring about some renewed research on space-based interceptor technology but expressed doubts that such systems will be ready in the next five years.
However, he did note that private enterprises such as Space X have demonstrated the ability to put expansive networks of satellites in orbit.
“Historically, part of the problem with them is that the tech was really hard to make work, and the cost to launch things was high,” Gomez told The Epoch Times.
“Now launch costs are coming down with companies like Space X.”
Space X is operated by Elon Musk, who has been a close ally to Trump in recent months.
Flesch likewise categorized the space-based interception capabilities as a more futuristic piece of Trump’s order, while acknowledging that advancements by private enterprises have lowered space launch costs in recent years.
Gomez and Flesch also noted challenges surrounding the efficacy of non-kinetic interceptor systems, such as lasers. Atmospheric conditions such as water vapor would make laser interceptor systems less effective over longer ranges.
An aircraft could bring a high-powered laser into effective range to intercept a missile threat as it launches, but Flesch noted that fairly large aircraft are needed to support a laser powerful enough to damage a ballistic missile, and those aircraft would have to fly in regular shifts to be in position for such a purpose.
In his March 23, 1983, speech announcing SDI, Reagan acknowledged that the technology he envisioned could take years, if not decades to mature.
Breaking MAD
As the Soviet Union joined the United States as a nuclear-armed power and ushered in the Cold War era, nuclear deterrence theory quickly centered on a concept known as mutual assured destruction (MAD).In essence, the MAD theory meant that the thing that kept the Soviets from launching a nuclear attack on the United States was the knowledge that Washington would match the attack blow for blow, taking the Soviets down with them.
If the United States can develop the means to effectively and consistently intercept the majority of enemy nuclear attacks, it can move away from a deterrence model based on mutual vulnerability.
Even before Reagan’s SDI, the United States had looked for ways around the MAD predicament.
The first U.S. anti-ballistic missile, the Nike Zeus, saw development through the late 1950s and early 1960s and entailed using a low-yield nuclear weapon to provide enough blast radius to destroy an incoming enemy ballistic missile.
Missile defense systems may insulate one nation against the consequences of a mutual exchange of nuclear strikes with an adversary, but developing these defenses could fuel distrust with nuclear-armed competitors such as Russia and China.
“If the U.S. has a missile defense system that is a lot better than the Soviet one, then we could conceivably launch a first strike on the Soviet Union and be in a better position to negate the retaliation,” Gomez said.
In 1972, the United States and the Soviet Union entered into the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, wherein both sides agreed to limit the number of systems they would employ to counter a nuclear attack from the other.
Gomez said the ABM Treaty was meant to put the United States and the Soviet Union on equal footing in their defensive capabilities to reduce the pressure on either side to produce greater offensive capabilities.
The ABM Treaty was one product of the 1969 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, which also included an interim agreement capping either side’s offensive nuclear arsenals.
President George W. Bush ordered the unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in December 2001, saying the agreement hindered the U.S. government’s ability to develop defenses against attacks from terrorists and rogue states.
Gomez said the erosion of past arms control treaties has already inspired competitors to develop new nuclear offensive capabilities, and he warned that Trump’s new push for expanded defensive capabilities could fuel further distrust.
He noted that Russia has recently developed and demonstrated new offensive capabilities, including nuclear-tipped torpedoes.
Art of the Deal
Trump’s effort to revamp the U.S. missile defenses could dovetail with plans to reach new arms control agreements with both Russia and China.He raised this very prospect as he delivered a virtual address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 23.
“We want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think that’s very possible. And I can tell you that President Putin wanted to do it. He and I wanted to do it. We had a good conversation with China,” Trump said via video link.
“They would have been involved, and that would have been an unbelievable thing for the planet.”
Reagan declined requests from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to discontinue his SDI missile defense program but offered to share technology from the program with the Soviets as a trust-building measure on the path to denuclearization.
Full denuclearization never prevailed, but Reagan and Gorbachev did agree to the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, wherein the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to do away with ground-based missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (about 310 and 3,420 miles).
“If that’s the goal of the administration, to have an arms reduction treaty or discussion, then this can certainly aid in that,” Flesch said of Trump’s missile defense order.
Gomez also considered the possibility that Trump’s missile defense executive order could facilitate further arms control talks but expressed doubts that there’s enough trust to make a deal encompassing the United States, Russia, and China.
He said China would likely wish to stockpile more nuclear warheads, to achieve relative parity with Russia and the United States, before it will join a framework for mutual nuclear arms reduction.
“I’m generally pessimistic on the prospects,” Gomez said.
