It’s an undoubtedly ambitious proposal. Some critics have even framed it as the “most ridiculous” plan ever floated by new President Donald Trump, one that’s unrealistic for a country as sprawling as the United States.

But analysts and national security insiders say that Mr. Trump’s unwavering pledge to build an “Iron Dome for America” offers concrete proof that the new president is serious about safeguarding the homeland by constructing a state-of-the-art missile shield. Such a shield would aim to protect the U.S. from the increasingly dangerous, sophisticated missile threats posed by China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — or even a coordinated assault by all or some combination of those nations.

The plan may not be as expensive as one might think, with rapid advances in space-based capabilities laying the groundwork for a workable, robust missile defense system with a price tag in the tens, not hundreds, of billions of dollars to implement.

In trademark Trumpian rhetorical style, the promise to build an Iron Dome for America is not a literal promise to build an exact replica of the famed Israeli system, which has proven highly effective in helping the Jewish state fend off rocket and mortar attacks from Iran and its allies across the Middle East. Such a system doesn’t seem financially or logistically feasible for a nation as big as the U.S.

Nor is an exact copy strictly necessary, given that the Israeli Iron Dome is heavily focused on shorter-range threats, not long-range ballistic or hypersonic weapons.

In fact, the Pentagon in October 2023 reportedly sent back to Israel two Iron Dome systems it had purchased to protect American military sites on Guam. The move reflected the belief inside the Biden administration and in national security circles that the Iron Dome systems would be better used in Israel to ward off potential attacks by Iran and its proxies following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack.

Specialists say that Mr. Trump chose the “Iron Dome” term as something of a rhetorical device, a way to make clear that he intends to construct a cutting-edge missile defense shield using space-based interceptors and other 21st-century tools that can fend off adversary attacks.

“I think he chose the words very specifically,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering III, the former director of the federal Missile Defense Agency and now a senior executive adviser at Booz Allen.

“When you ask an average American what the Iron Dome is, they immediately think of the Israeli missile defense system. It’s been in the news so much, it’s been performing so well for the threats it was designed for, in Israel,” he said.

“We need to protect ourselves, the homeland, from missile threats, both ballistic as well as maneuvering and hypersonic missile threats, ” Gen. Obering said in an interview. “We’ve got to be able to destroy anything and everything that North Korea or Iran could throw at us. And we’ve got to be able to destroy anything that Russia or China could throw at us — and have enough capacity to ensure deterrence.”

Vulnerable homeland

When breaking down America’s existing missile defenses and the prospects for improving them, there is both good news and bad news.

The bad news first: Military insiders are quick to point out that existing U.S. missile defenses are far more porous than the average American might believe. And not only that, but with the rapid expansion in fast-moving hypersonic weapons, the country’s limited defenses simply aren’t enough.

“Right now, the U.S. can’t comprehensively defend itself against a conventional cruise or ballistic missile attack,” said retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, now the senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.

“This means we can’t detect them, we can’t track them and we can’t engage them in the vast majority of the country,” he told the Threat Status weekly podcast recently. “We need to have an ability to sense, detect, target and eliminate cruise and ballistic missile threats to our country.”

The U.S. military does have considerable ground-based missile defense capabilities. During the 2000s, the George W. Bush administration spent more than $60 billion on missile interceptors in California, Alaska and elsewhere. There are additional missile defense capabilities in Hawaii. Washington, D.C., is protected by the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD system, and the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS.

Still, those defenses simply aren’t enough to counter the significant numbers of ballistic missiles that an adversary, particularly Russia or China, could theoretically fire at the U.S. Mr. Montgomery said that “you’re not going to shoot down thousands of weapons inbound,” no matter how large America’s missile defense budget or how many anti-missile systems are constructed on land or in space.

A long-term investment

The good news is that a well-funded, cutting-edge missile defense strategy could potentially stop most of the incoming salvos. Combine that with a clear deterrence strategy that lets potential enemies know that the U.S. will hit back even harder in the event of an attack, and specialists say the pieces are in place now for the Trump administration to take transformative steps.

National security sources say it’s entirely possible that, given the pace of technological innovation, the U.S. over the next few years could put as many as 1,000 space-based missile interceptors in orbit for about $20 billion, or one-third of the cost of the ground-based initiative seen during the Bush administration two decades ago. Exact costs are difficult to nail down and most ambitious military projects end up being more expensive than initially projected.

It’s the price tag, and the structure of the system itself, that drove criticism of Mr. Trump’s pledge. A Mother Jones article last September dubbed the proposal “perhaps the most ridiculous Trump idea yet,” citing cost estimates of about $2 trillion to construct a literal Iron Dome-style system that could take down rockets, mortars, or virtually any other threat over the entire continental United States.

To be fair, some of Mr. Trump’s key advisers have at times seemed to suggest that they are indeed eyeing such a system. Late last year, in the midst of a string of unidentified drone sightings over the eastern U.S., incoming White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said the “Iron Dome for America” needed to be able to take down drones, too.

“We need to take a hard look at our homeland defenses. President Trump has talked about an Iron Dome for America. That needs to include drones as well, not just adversarial actions like hypersonic missiles. We need to have an all-of-the-above protection of U.S. airspace,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation” program in December.

Other than those potential drone threats, America’s geography largely protects it from the kinds of rocket attacks routinely seen in Israel. Rather than a strict apples-to-apples comparison, analysts say the Iron Dome for America concept should be viewed as shorthand for protecting the U.S. from the most significant threats it faces, such as ballistic and hypersonic weapons.

“We can do this. We have the resources to do it. Really, what it takes is the will. I believe that’s what the Trump team is picking up on,” Gen. Obering said. “We can defend America in an Iron Dome context.”

• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.