Donald Trump is looking forward to being president again:
An exultant Donald Trump has promised to act with “historic speed and strength” when he returns to the White House on Monday.... “Starting tomorrow, I will act with historic speed of strength and fix every single crisis facing our country,” he said.
....Trump said he would instruct the military to construct an “iron dome” missile defence system.
That sounds pretty good. But I have a question: Does Trump even know what Iron Dome is, aside from having a cool name?
The short answer is that it's an Israeli system for shooting down short-range rockets. The United States (a) already has layered missile defense systems (Patriot, THAAD, C-RAM, NASAMS, Aegis) that do much the same thing, (b) is already developing a long-term, more integrated missile defense system called IFPC, and (c) doesn't use any of these things to protect the US itself because, unlike Israel, we're under no threat from short-range missiles.¹
An "Iron Dome" for the US would be a system that protects against long-range ICBMs. As even Trump should know, he doesn't need to order anyone to construct this because we've been working on it since the Reagan era.² It just doesn't work yet. Nevertheless, we spend about $10 billion per year just on the Missile Defense Agency, which accounts for roughly half of all missile defense spending:
I suppose eventually somebody will tell him this. Or else they'll just salute and then keep doing whatever they're already doing now.
¹There's an exception: we have missile defense batteries that defend the airspace around Washington DC.
²Or well before that if you count Nike-Zeus, Sentinel, and other early ABM systems.
All he really cares about is the branding. Remember the magic transformation of NAFTA into whatever the hell his first administration called it after slapping a few fake gold-plated handles on visible surfaces and saying the world had been born anew. He'll be perfectly happy re-branding IFPC as "trump iron dome" by spinning it off into a separate service with a tacky new uniform and anthem. And of course franchising it to his buddies in various cash-rich countries that are nominally aligned with us, and possibly selling the plans to other not-so-aligned buddies.
Or maybe just renaming it will do. Like a free-roaming dog, he just has to make sure his scent is on everything.
Is "Iron Dome" solely the short-range system, or has it become a convenient shorthand for (Israeli) missile defense? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-20385306 Kindasorta like kleenex
Kevin is behind the times. An Israeli-model Iron Dome will be essential once war breaks out with Canada, Greenland, Panama and Mexico.
Yes, but then we will find it is useless against explosive-laden Caribou and Llamas...
Kevin Drum misunderstands Trump again. This will be a literal iron dome. Once the Wall surrounding all the US borders is complete, Trump will put an Iron Dome on top.
He is the real life impersonation of Mr Burns. Just needs the dome to complete the circle.
Except Iron Dome is a bit of a misnomer. Trump instructed the defense contractors they should use pink marble with gold trim.
$10 billion a year sounds like a natural for Muskaswamy to cut.
Guess you haven't heard - it's just Musk now, they ran off Ramaswamy & it doesn't seem to have bothered him as he's going to run for governor in Ohio.
He knew it was bullshit to begin with. Musk might know it too but I think his ego demands he stay in it longer.
Thanks. Looks like mostly unconfirmed news as of, at the earliest, yesterday. Have to admit he'd be smart to get away from the giant Musk/Trump train wreck that's about to happen.
Wonder how Ohio will sit with being told "white values" suck so bad...?
We should mix AI to automate the missile defense system and give it control of nukes, too. There's going to be very little time to react against hypersonic missiles so let AI handle it all.
/S
You snark, but you're actually prescient.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(novel)#:~:text=Colossus%20is%20a%201966%20science,(1977)%20continued%20the%20story.
I thought the voice of Colossus sounded a lot like the Daleks.
We can call it Skynet!
A constant theme of science fiction for nearly a century now...
The soviets actually did build a completely automated nuclear retaliation system. It was called "the dead hand."
Unclear whether or not it actually went into operation; reports were that some soviet general with a brain/conscience freaked out and demanded that there be some humans in the loop.
Maybe they saw an advance screening of "Dr Strangelove."
Yippee. The orange turn will soon be sworn in as POTUS. LET THE GRIFT BEGIN IN ERNEST! And also the numerous things he'll take credit for, most of them completely unearned.
They will tell him, but he won't listen or understand. As with who pays tariffs.
Kevin is wrong. It will not be called Iron Dome.
It will be called the Trump Patriot Dome. For a small donation to Trump patriots will be allowed to have their names put on a missile. Their money is going to go poof any way.
How about an iron dome over his head. To muffle the nonsense.
I thought the ABM Treaty forbade that kind of missile defense? On the grounds that any country so protected would have no reason not to do a "first strike" nuclear attack?
Or have we already broken or abrogated that? Israel gets its "iron dome" thingy, because it is not subject to any laws, norms, treaties, or even basic decency. It is entitled to attack and be invulnerable to counterattacks. Just ask them.
ABM Treaty is no more. Cheney (er, Dubya) unilaterally withdrew post-9/11 to start the Missile Defense Agency to shoot down Al Qaeda ICBMs.
Thanks! I should have recalled. Cheney/Bush broke so many things. Funny the Republican Party nonetheless seems to have "disappeared" them.
Like all things Trump, Iron Dome will be all hype with little or no substance. His rubes will love it.
Damn, Kev, did you forget that he was already president?