WASHINGTON —
U.S. President Donald Trump’s order to build an American version of the Iron Dome to shield the U.S. from aerial attacks will deter China and Russia from coercing the U.S. using nuclear weapons but could drive a three-way arms race, said analysts.
The U.S. government’s Missile Defense Agency to identify technologies and capabilities available to construct the Iron Dome for America. The deadline is the end of February.
It made the request in response to Trump’s executive order signed on Jan. 27, setting forth a motion to build an American Iron Dome.
“The United States will provide for the common defense of its citizens and the Nation by deploying and maintaining a next-generation missile defense shield,” stated.
The American Iron Dome will defend the U.S. “against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries,” according to the statement.
It will ensure the U.S. has “its second-strike capability,” meaning it would be able to launch nuclear retaliation.
The Iron Dome would also include a review of missile defense posture to identify ways for U.S. allies and partners to increase cooperation on missile defense development and operations.
Trump ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to draw up a plan within 60 days to build the missile shield.
Robert Peters, research fellow for Nuclear Deterrence and Missile Defense at the Heritage Foundation, said on Thursday via phone, the Iron Dome for America “will take away the option for nuclear coercion that an actor could try to hold over the U.S.” in addition to defending the U.S. from an actual strike.
“It is feasible for us to build an Iron Dome,” he said, “and there is no reason why we should not do so, particularly given that we are seeing the autocrats in North Korea, China, and Russia engaging in nuclear coercion.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons multiple times during an ongoing war in Ukraine that began with its invasion in 2022.
In November, Putin revised the Russian threshold for using nuclear weapons in a doctrine issued after former U.S. President Joe Biden allowed Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia with U.S.-made longer-range missiles.
The doctrine announced that Russia has the to respond to a conventional weapons attack. Previously, Russia reserved the right to use nuclear weapons only when an attack threatened its existence.
Patrycja Bazylczyk, a research associate for the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, “If implemented well, an ‘iron dome for America’ could bolster American defense and affect the strategic calculus of our adversaries.”
She told VOA on Monday, “Improving homeland air and missile defenses reduces the confidence of a potential attacker, thereby raising the threshold for attack and contributing to deterrence.”
The Iron Dome plan resembles former President Ronald Reagon's proposed dual objective of Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and nuclear disarmament, said Hans Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
The SDI, also came to be called Star Wars, was announced in 1983 to develop a space-based defense system to protect the U.S. from nuclear missiles.
Trump's "Iron Dome initiative, to some extent, echoes his concern about nuclear weapons," but "a stronger U.S. missile defense system would almost certainly make it more difficult to reach a nuclear agreement with Russia and China because of their concern that more effective missile defenses would increase the threat to their nuclear retaliatory capability," continued Kristensen.
Trump said in a video message to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 23 that he wants to discuss "denuclearization" with Russia, and that China would need to come along.
Kristensen told VOA on Thursday that "FAS applauds Trump's remarks about the need for nuclear limits and eventually denuclearization and urge the administration to pursue these goals."
He added, "Nuclear deterrence can be maintained with far fewer nuclear weapons" and having nuclear reduction talks is "urgent because the New START treaty expires in about one year."
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russia, is set to expire in February 2026.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of Arms Control Association, told VOA on Friday Trump envisions "more ambitious system to thwart strategic missile attacks by Russia or China" than his efforts in 2019.