You could practically hear the snickers on the Left when, on June 18, 2018, President Donald Trump directed the Department of Defense to begin the process of establishing a new military branch called Space Force.

“Our destiny, beyond the Earth,” he said, “is not only a matter of national identity but a matter of national security.”

Nobody’s laughing now.

On Monday night, Trump continued his shock-and-awe strategy by signing yet another executive order — this one to create a next-generation missile defense shield he calls “Iron Dome for America.”

That reference is, of course, to the highly successful missile defense system that Israel uses. But the system that the Trump administration envisions would be much different, much more powerful — because it would have to be.

According to the White House fact sheet, Trump’s executive order “directs implementation of a next-generation missile defense shield for the United States against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks.”

The devil is in the details, though, and the order lays out some of the necessary technological advancements: “the development and deployment of Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor Layers, proliferated space-based interceptors, a Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, capabilities to defeat salvoes prior to launch, non-kinetic missile defense capabilities, and underlayer and terminal-phase intercept capabilities.”

That “non-kinetic” part is an essential step-change, especially in the age of hypersonic missiles. Instead of doing what Israel’s Iron Dome does — knocking bullets out of the sky with other bullets — the American Iron Dome would disrupt or destroy incoming missiles with space-based, blink-of-an-eye cyber warfare and other electronics.

As Stephen Clark explains it at Ars Technica, hypersonic missiles are harder to track because they move faster and spend more time in Earth’s atmosphere than do traditional ballistic missiles, which have a predictable parabolic arc and an easy-to-see exhaust plume. He writes, “In space, Trump’s order would accelerate the deployment of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) layer, a fleet of satellites tuned to detect and track hypersonic missiles, providing warning of an attack against the United States or its allies.”

Tom Karako, who directs the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the project “deserves to be a White House priority” and approves of its “prioritization of speed, focus on adversaries like Russia and its potential to address a multiplicity of missile threats.”

Russia, sure, but not just Russia. As our John Bastiat laid out in late 2021 and our Brent Ramsey did again last October, the hypersonic missile threat from the Communist Chinese is also a game-changer.

Trump himself is, in a way, the ultimate game-changer. His willingness — indeed, his desire — to disrupt the status quo forces fresh thinking, which leads to reform and improvement. The editors at The Wall Street Journal also like what they see here:

This has the potential to be a great leap forward on defense. Most Americans don’t realize how vulnerable the U.S. homeland is these days, as missile and other technologies improve and proliferate. Gone are the days, going back to the early 2000s, when the U.S. had to worry mainly about a rogue North Korea firing an ICBM at California. Hypersonic weapons that China and Russia have today could strike the U.S. with a warning of only a few minutes. This is far more worrisome than climate change.

Iron Dome would also cause our enemies to think twice. As the Journal’s editors add: “A second strike doesn’t protect the Americans who would have already died in a missile attack. Deterrence is enhanced if an adversary contemplating a first strike can’t be confident its attack will get past U.S. anti-missile defenses.”

That was precisely the thinking behind Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative: Peace through strength.

In keeping with his oft-stated desire to rebuild American manufacturing, Trump’s order also “secures the supply chains for all components of the Iron Dome.” In other words, it ensures that Iron Dome isn’t built with a single Chinese chip. Or, in Trump’s plain language, “I will direct our military to begin construction of the great Iron Dome missile defense shield, which will be made all in the USA.”

Another crucial detail is, of course, cost. After all, we’re $36 trillion in the red. We don’t have a number yet for Iron Dome, but it will undoubtedly be a big one. Trump’s order calls for a plan from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth within 60 days. (For reference, we currently spend around $10 billion annually on missile defense.)

Not everyone is on board, of course. “President Trump’s vision of an Iron Dome over America is a fantasy,” says Laura Grego, research director and senior scientist for the Global Security Program at the hard-left Union of Concerned Scientists. “The apparent successes of Israel’s Iron Dome system are not relevant to US homeland defense. … Invoking Iron Dome is just marketing, trying to manufacture credibility for something that has never worked.”

The electric lightbulb was a fantasy at one time. So was landing a man on the moon. So, too, according to the critics, is Donald Trump’s Iron Dome initiative. And they’ll keep saying it’s a fantasy — until one day it isn’t.