Hegseth’s vision a costly step in arms race that has never paused
As Secretary Hegseth takes the reins of the Pentagon, he said one of his priorities would be an effort to create an “iron dome” missile defense system to protect the United States, like the one that guards Israel.
Those old enough might remember President Ronald Reagan’s prime-time address to the nation on March 23, 1983, when he outlined his vision for the Strategic Defense Initiative, which was quickly dubbed “Star Wars.” Reagan very much believed that a defensive system was more moral than a system of nuclear deterrence.
A few facts. Israel is about 85 miles at its widest point and 290 miles long, roughly the size of New Jersey or just over 8,000 square miles. The U.S. is roughly 3.8 million square miles.
The Iron Dome system is not inexpensive to build or to maintain. It works against short-range missiles but not against long-range missiles, which presumably is the most likely threat against the United States. Israel says it has been 90% effective.
The system Reagan proposed looked at a host of different technologies — lasers, directed energy beams, small missiles parked in low earth orbit (Brilliant Pebbles). Tens of billions were allocated but a report by a distinguished panel of scientists in 1986 found that the necessary technologies did not yet exist, and Congress reduced funding.
With the demise of the Soviet Union, SDI died in 1993 when the Clinton administration shifted focus to theater missile defenses, but each administration since has kept missile defense research funded.
In 2002, President George W. Bush unilaterally pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty that would have prevented the deployment of a defensive system. That said, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the Non-Proliferation Treaty are still possible impediments to the deployment of an ABM system, depending on the technologies utilized.
Reagan’s system was a defense against the Soviet Union, but today the U.S. faces other possible adversaries and that suggest parts of any system might have to be deployed in other countries, which presents diplomatic challenges. For example, the deployment of a THAAD missile defense system in South Korea in 2016 provoked retaliation against South Korea by China.
In 2019, funding for the observation portions of a ballistic missile defense system was inserted into the National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Trump. The program was placed under the Space Development Agency. Then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo called for an “SDI for our times — SDI II.” Now the new Trump administration has made a more full-throated call to fund such a system.
Of course, that would mean developing a system that actually works, and such a plan cannot be viewed in isolation.
The New START Treaty, the last man standing from the era of U.S.-Russia arms control, is set to expire in February 2026. Back in 2020, President Trump signaled an inclination to extend it for another five years but said what he really wanted was a bigger deal to include China. China, however, has expressed no interest while it builds up its nuclear arsenal to reach U.S./Russian levels.
President Biden extended New START and it continues to limit the U.S. and Russia to 1,550 deployed warheads. Now President Trump will have to decide to extend the treaty, negotiate a new treaty, or let it die and, possibly, set off a new (expensive) arms race. Deployment of an ABM system would complicate that.
That said, the U.S. is poised to spend roughly $1.7 trillion over the next 20 years upgrading all three legs of the nuclear triad — land-based missiles, bombers, and submarine-launched missiles. In some ways, the race never paused.
Can Trump convince Congress to spend billions and will that expenditure will make us safer?
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His new book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.