President Donald Trump issued an executive order mandating the creation of a high-tech missile defense system to protect the entire United States from aerial attack.

The order — released on Jan. 27 — dubbed the proposed shield “The Iron Dome for America,” drawing parallels to Israel’s well-known defense system.

“The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States,” the order said.

In light of this threat, Trump instructed the Pentagon to submit plans to him for “a next-generation missile defense shield” within 60 days. The shield — which will have a space-based component — will purportedly protect citizens and infrastructure, deter adversaries and ensure the U.S. has a second-strike capability.

But is such an ambitious undertaking actually feasible? Nuclear experts are doubtful.

Feasibility and affordability problems

“I am skeptical that space-based systems for missile defense could ever be technically feasible and affordable at the scale necessary to protect the U.S. Homeland from a major missile attack,” Christopher Chyba, a professor of astrophysical sciences and international affairs at Princeton University, told McClatchy News.

Echoing this concern, Kanishkan Sathasivam, an international relations professor at Salem State University, who studies nuclear weapons, told McClatchy News, “Such defense systems are extremely costly, and this despite their effectiveness often being questionable.”

These concerns have been borne out by history.

President Ronald Reagan famously tried and failed to implement a similar defensive program in the 1980s. Officially known as the Strategic Defense Initiative — and nicknamed “Star Wars” — the program relied on futuristic, space-based laser technology.

The initiative, which “came with a very high price tag,” never produced its desired result, and it was eventually phased out after Reagan left office, according to the State Department.

Other missile defense programs have been put in place since the Reagan era, though these are smaller-scale and targeted at combating North Korea, Scott Sagan, a professor of political science at Stanford University, who has authored several books on nuclear weapons, told McClatchy News.

Trump’s proposal is “much more ambitious,” Sagan said, adding it “will encourage research on a variety of missile defense technologies, kinetic and non-kinetic alike, but does not guarantee that this research will succeed.”

Laura Grego, the research director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, characterized Trump’s plan as “a fantasy” — in part because of what she called a false comparison to Israel’s Iron Dome.

“The apparent successes of Israel’s Iron Dome system are not relevant to U.S. homeland defense,” Grego said in a Jan. 28 statement. “(Israel’s) Iron Dome defends small areas from short-range nonnuclear missiles. It’s a vastly easier task than defending the whole country against missiles that travel 100 times further and seven times faster than those Iron Dome is built for.”

She added that, over the past six decades, the U.S. has spent more than $350 billion on nuclear missile defense systems — none of which have proved effective.

“What President Trump gets absolutely right is that nuclear weapons present a catastrophic threat, and that as he said in Davos, nuclear disarmament is an urgent priority and is achievable,” Grego said. “That is where the United States should be putting its efforts.”

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