Politics

Trump tries again, signed the order for the space shield

Among the first executive orders formed by President Donald Trump There is to develop a new generation “internal” missile defense shield, which marks a change in the United States defense strategy, which if so far was concentrated on threats from rogue nations such as North Korea and the Iran rather than opponents such as China or Russia, now it also wants to be prepared for an attack conducted near its territory. The order, entitled “Iron Dome for America”, is inspired by the Israeli one (which also uses US effectives), but should also be able to neutralize hypersonic and cruise missiles. Among the novelties, the search for solutions to create spatial interceptors, a concept that has been discarded several times in recent history due to the technological challenges and high costs associated with the development of these weapons, but of old conception, for the precision incurred for the First time by the Reagan administration. The question, on a technical level, is this: the cruise missiles for terrestrial attacks can be launched by the air, land or sea and, since they fly at low altitude driven by an internal engine, it is difficult for radar to detect them.

For this the military could only have a couple of minutes To respond to the fire, however, running the risk that they are hitting from missiles launched by different directions. Ballistic missiles, on the other hand, can be detected much earlier because they come from major quotas and this allows you to take advantage of time to trace them, decide and act. The first consequence of Trump’s executive order implies that the defense secretary must present an architecture project of the new system, outline its requirements and develop an implementation plan within sixty days of the signature. Tom Karako, missile defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, interviewed by the head of the Defense News, said: “The base of an Iron Dome for America must be the air defense and missile defense, and then from there from there proceed upwards. Those are the gaps to which we are most vulnerable, that we must fill and on which we must work more urgently. It is not just about being able to intercept high -end hypersonic devices or intercontinental ballistic missiles, but all these things together with the same system “.

The idea is therefore not new, During the first term of Trump the Pentagon had worked to process a defense plan of the United States territory from cruise missiles, and from what emerged to date the technicians were defining the design requirements while the defense department was formulating his own Budget request within the tax year 2024. However, the work had lost momentum in favor of other priorities deriving from the need to update existing programs. Currently the national missile of the United States is made up of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System, a system developed to combat intercontinental ballistic missile attacks directed to the continental United States from North Korea and Iran. It consists of interceptors based on Alaska and California. In addition, defensive architecture includes some radars positioned in places like Clear, Alaska, and in the Pacific. And soon a constellation of satellites for detection should also be added to all this. Now the new Trump shield will expect to be able to shoot from space after a network of orbiting sensors for the
Hypersonic and ballistic tracking discovered the attack. With the demolition that would happen before the final descent phase of these devices.

Deciding to position interceptors in space has always been a controversial question For several reasons: in addition to the technological feasibility, the probability of high development costs and the idea that could trigger an armament race in space had prevailed. Moreover, a battery of missiles in orbit can certainly not be easily maintained as a terrestrial or naval station, and missiles do not have a long enough operating life in order to be lined up in orbit and then “forgotten” by giving them for efficient. There are also threats against which space interceptors are useless, such as cruise missiles flying from Rasoterra out of the radius of a spatial interceptor. But it is certain that the implications of what it means to really treat space as a war domain are just starting to manifest themselves and soon they will return to the center of diplomatic discussions among the great powers.