Iron Dome: What is to be Done? (From CBS Radio “Eye on the World” with John Batchelor)

On January 27, a Trump White House Executive Order directed the building of the Iron Dome missile defense shield for America. Israel’s Iron Dome is a shorter-range system, so the question is how to defend American territory. And none of it can be done without protecting the military radar spectrum, like S-band, needed to detect incoming missiles and warheads. Host of CBS Radio’s “Eye on the World” John Batchelor, Gordon Chang and I discussed the concept. Highlights below, or listen here.

“We’re looking at the ambition of the Trump administration, right now, to build an Iron Dome for North America,” Batchelor said. Is this practical, can it be done?” John asked. 

“I think Iron Dome is a little bit of fact and a lot of hard work lies ahead. The technology has evolved to the point where we can detect and track and hit and kill incoming missiles. The difference of course, for the United States, the threats is coming across the oceans,” I said. “We’ll be dealing with exo-atmospheric intercept, cruise missiles, drones, and different threatscapes than what we saw with Israel and Iron Dome. So it’s not exactly like an Iron Dome, more like an ‘iron outfield,’ different ways to catch and kill incoming.”

“The first place in the United States that’s getting an Iron Dome is Guam. They put an Aegis ashore and actually tested an incoming intercept with a Standard Missile 3-Block IIA missile back in December. Guam is going to be very tightly buttoned up. It’s going to take a lot more to extend that across the continental United States. Remember, we do have a missile defense capability right now. It’s just that an ‘Iron Dome’ style system would greatly improve on the coverage, the intercept rates and covering all of the continental United States as well.”

Gordon asked: “Could we have an Iron Dome for America without taking down China’s and Russia’s satellites? space systems?”

“Such an interesting question. It’s really more about making sure that our US satellites stay up. If you look at the Executive Order, launching some new and augmented satellite systems is key. How we’re going to do a missile shield for America is through completely new space-based tracking, and with the addition of space-based interceptors. That means weapons in space that can hit missiles coming in. Right now, we use land or sea-based missile launches to kill out in the exo-atmosphere, that’s way up in space, but we’re going to need to add a space-based system as well. We can’t have Russia or China attacking our satellites in space and still preserve the missile shield.  

John recalled that once upon a time, there was the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and could there be a new agreement modelled on an ABM?

My reply: “I think the big problem there is that China does not do arms control. At all. And it is the Chinese systems that we are very concerned about.”

Gordon: “Defense experts say defense never beats offense. Can we change that now with an Iron Dome over the United States?”

As I said, “The success rates are very, very good. Good enough to make it worth exploring. One thing we have to be very careful about is that we can track all the potential objects. That comes down to an issue of radar spectrum allocation. The radars we need are S-band radars. A lot of the 5G wireless providers want to get into that part of the spectrum. We can’t have the military share spectrum if we expect to track every incoming object, including from a warhead that may release chaff, junk and multiple warheads. 

“What they’ll have to decide in the 60-day review ahead is if it is good enough to justify the cost and investment commitment.”

John asked about the military’s attitude.

“The military is very in favor of this; although very aware of the technical hurdles,” I replied. “But with China building up its nuclear forces, and with the exotic hypersonics and cruise missiles we see in test, and in development, from China and Russia, I think the military is all in favor, and willing to move out smartly.  It’s just about making a choice about what to defend, and which investments should go first. A lot of this is going to rely on space and on getting the space launches to get these constellations up.