Lawmakers recently introduced legislation to fund President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for the creation of an “Iron Dome for America,” which provided new insight into how the government and military may go about upgrading the homeland’s air defense systems.
Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND), both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, introduced the Increasing Response Options and Deterrence of Missile Engagements Act last week. It would authorize slightly more than $19 billion for the creation of a new missile defense shield in fiscal 2026.
More than half of the funding, $12 billion, would specifically go to expanding the missile interceptor fields at Fort Greely in Alaska with new Next Generation Interceptors. There is $1.5 billion included for PAC-2 and PAC-3 munitions and MM-104 Patriot batteries, $1.4 billion for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, and another $1 billion to build aEGIS ashore ballistic missile defense infrastructure on both Alaska and the East Coast.
There is also $900 million for research and development of space-based missile defense and another $60 million for the development of space-based satellite sensors.
“Specifically, our legislation invests billions of dollars to develop new capabilities, like space-based sensors and new intercept technologies, significantly expand and modernize existing infrastructure, like the ground-based missile interceptor fields at Alaska’s Fort Greely and North Dakota’s PARCS radar system, and integrate all aspects of U.S. missile defense, including Aegis,” Sullivan said.
The legislation is supposed to work in concert with the president’s executive order, which he signed on Jan. 27.
Trump’s name for the policy, “Iron Dome for America,” is a misnomer and not a literal call for the United States to use the system that Israel utilizes for its security.
The U.S. and Israel jointly built the Iron Dome, which Israel uses as one layer of its air defenses. Israel’s Iron Dome is designed to intercept short-range fires such as mortar shells, smaller rockets, and artillery shells. It is most commonly used to intercept rockets fired by jihadists, such as Hamas, in Gaza.
Comparatively, Trump’s executive order calls for “a next-generation missile defense shield” to protect the homeland from “ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks,” which is a much broader scope than that of Israel’s Iron Dome.
The executive order issued a 60-day deadline for the defense secretary to submit a “reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield.”
An undated, unsigned “strategic guidance” from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called for a two-phase process led by the undersecretary for policy and supported by the assistant secretary for space policy, according to Breaking Defense. Elbridge Colby has been nominated for the undersecretary for policy role but has not had a confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee yet.
In late January, the Missile Defense Agency issued a request for information to nongovernmental companies in the industry for ideas on how to implement Trump’s order.
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The MDA is “conducting market research to assist in the identification of innovative missile defense technologies (system-level, component level, and upgrades) architectures, concepts, and Concept of Operations (CONOPS) to detect and defeat the threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks,” according to the RFI.
Sullivan noted that the U.S. is facing “intensifying” from threats China and Russia as they expand their arsenals and develop their capabilities.