During much of the Cold War, America placed a high priority on defense of the American Homeland. Radars, Missiles, and Jet Interceptors were pervasive across the Continental United States. These capabilities withered greatly with the fall of the Wall dividing Berlin and Germany in 1989. Since that time, the American Homeland has been largely barren of defenses against hostile aircraft, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drones, or rockets. The existing missile interceptors in California and Alaska are small in number and the rest of the defenses in the United States are spotty and almost insignificant.
President Trump announced an end to this era of defenselessness on January 27, 2025 with his Executive Order entitled, “The Iron Dome for America”, which he now refers to as “Golden Dome”. Iron Dome references the Israeli systems that were originally designed to knock down simple, small rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Lebanon, but has evolved into a much larger, tiered network of capabilities that proved an integral part of the historic events of 2024 where two mass volleys of different weapons were launched at Israel from Iran and other locations.
In past missile defense initiatives, the technology was just not ready
President Eisenhower created an urgency for air defense of the United States, and Congress responded with a well funded appropriation. Nike Missile bases sprouted up everywhere. I grew up close to several Nike sites and remember the White and Green, nuclear tipped missiles on duty, raised toward the sky.
Jet Interceptor bases were pervasive, and the old Paine Field in Everett, Washington, now crowded with pre-delivery Boeing airliners, also had nuclear armed jets and was prepped to receive the nascent forebear of hypersonics, the long range BOMARC anti-aircraft missile system. As the threat from the Soviet Union evolved toward the ballistic missile issue, Nike attempted to pivot toward a missile defense mission. This shortly became the first generation of a broad missile defense program called “Sentinel”. This is not to be confused with the current Sentinel Ground Based Deterrent system designed to replace the aging, floppy disk fed, Minutemen III ballistic missiles – the same ones the Chinese spy balloon mapped out in 2023.
The Sentinel Missile Defense System had several shortcomings such as very short range and also a nagging, low probability of intercept. Liberals went berserk with Sentinel and honed their skills in lawfare and contrived outrage trying to block Sentinel which became Safeguard under President Nixon. Ft. Lawton, very close by to downtown Seattle was one of the initial sites chosen for Sentinel and the young Hippies who decades later would set up the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) swarmed the gates and fence lines of Ft. Lawton.
The Hippies did have astute operational opinions. Why put the anti-ballistic missile system right in the middle of the target and why have them at all when the probability of intercept was maybe in the 20-30% range?
The experts in strategic weapons realized the shortcomings of strategic missile defense and arrived at “Mutually Assured Destruction” as the national policy. President Reagan introduced the “Star Wars” concept for a holistic missile defense solution in the 1980s. Star Wars missile defense of the 1980s made significant improvements over Sentinel and Safeguard but still fell short of a very high confidence of successful defense.
2024 showed that mass missile and drone attacks could be defeated with high confidence
The Iranians threw everything they had at Israel and partner nations and facilities in April and October 2024. The Iranian fusillades were the largest ballistic missile, cruise missile, and drone barrage in history. The integrated and layered defenses included Israel, the United States Navy and Army, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan. Bottom line, with several hundred weapons launched by Iran and their proxies, the intercept rate was almost 99.9%. This success was remarkable and shocking. Missile Defense of 2024 drew upon decades of operational and technological development back to the early days of Nike.
The Hippies from Ft. Lawton days were probably mad over the successful defense of Israel, but even more upset because their USAID money laundering operation was being shut down. The overwhelming success of the defensive efforts in 2024 had been in place for almost 20 years with Contingency Plans tested repeatedly. Iran received vigorous and successful Israeli retaliatory strikes which showed off the success of the F-35 in methodically destroying the Chinese and Russian supplied air defense systems. Iran was neutered in both their offensive and defensive capabilities. It is very possible Chinese “advisors” at the Iranian sites may have taken casualties.
What will Trump’s “Golden Dome” look like?
In some ways, “Golden Dome” will be a return to the glory days of Eisenhower’s Nike Plan only this time, more reliable, higher levels of effectiveness, and perhaps not as noticeable. “Golden Dome” will be a layered defense of missiles, cannon, electronic warfare, and lasers defending dozens of America’s cities, ports, airfields, factories, and sensitive strategic sites. Some of these capabilities will be on the ground and some may be in orbit like the Star Wars concept of operation. Sensors such as radars, electro-optics, heat, and motion sensors will be linked to regional and national command centers to conduct engagement decisioning with advanced Artificial Intelligence at cyber speed.
Because of ranges and reliabilities, the modern day “Golden Dome” sites will not have to be right in the middle of the target areas. The success of layered missile defenses in 2024 showed that an integrated and networked constellation of sensors and “shooters” where large numbers of targets can be taken out with very high levels of confidence is not only possible, but now to be considered routine. America’s days of defenselessness from aircraft, missiles, rockets, and drones are coming to a close with “Golden Dome”.
All viewpoints are personal and do not reflect the viewpoints of any organization
