Defending America from all manner of missile threats is a high priority requiring immediate action by the Defense Department.
On Monday, President Trump issued his missile defense Executive Order: “The Iron Dome for America.” President Reagan started the job in 1983. President Trump has now focused his administration on finishing it by bringing the technology and resources to bear to fulfill government’s most essential responsibility to its citizens.
In 1999, after three filibusters over two years by Senate Democrats, Senator Thad Cochran (R., Miss.) finally prevailed in passing the National Missile Defense Act to make it the policy of the United States to defend itself against ballistic missile attack. That it took so much effort to pass legislation codifying a goal that should have been self-evident remains remarkable. But nearly all Senate Democrats, most notably then-Senator Joe Biden (D., Del.), insisted that defending America from ICBMs was unnecessary and counterproductive. They maintained that the threat did not exist and that the technology could not exist, while the ABM Treaty’s mutual suicide pact represented “strategic stability” that defenses would undermine.
Flash-forward to today, and “The Iron Dome for America” is precisely the “revolution of common sense” President Trump called for in his inaugural address. A limited capability to contend with rogue threats, which used to be the focus of the missile defense debate, is no longer what we are grappling with, if it ever was. The threat has advanced from states like Iran and North Korea to include both China and Russia, countries that oppose the United States globally with an array of sophisticated missile and other capabilities and a demonstrated willingness to transfer their advanced technology to others.
But American technology has advanced, too. And we now have a president who is demonstrating the will power, the most essential ingredient, to apply that technology to an all-important national goal. President Trump’s executive order makes clear the danger of today’s threat. It spells out the integration of defenses with strategic offensive forces to achieve true strategic stability. It calls for the application of the incredible advances in American technology since 1999 — among other things, increased and miniaturized computing power, reduced launch costs, and the application of sundry other commercial advances to national security needs — to finally make it a priority to put defenses in space; that’s where they will be most capable against longer-range threats. It requires the acceleration of deployment of such critical capabilities as space-based sensors and interceptors. And certain to disappoint those who insist that President Trump sees no value in working with allies, it explicitly calls upon Defense secretary Hegseth to determine how to increase missile defense cooperation with our allies.
Above all, this executive order makes it absolutely unmistakable that defending America from all manner of missile threats is a high priority requiring immediate action by the Defense Department.
“Danger gathers upon our path. We cannot afford — we have no right — to look back. We must look forward.” So said Winston Churchill in December of 1936. The same spirit is animating President Trump’s “Iron Dome for America” executive order. It is now up to the president’s political appointees to drive this policy forward relentlessly and aggressively. Because, without question, the dangers on America’s path are gathering — and accelerating.