Critics of the Trump administration's proposed Golden Dome strategic defense system fall into two camps. Camp One I'll call "The Perpetual Rejects." Label Camp Two "The Nervous Debtors."

In the 1980s, The Perpetual Rejects ridiculed President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, calling it "Star Wars." Perpetual Rejects argued SDI would never work and the concept was "destabilizing." Even attempting to defend against Soviet ICBMs would provoke a nuclear war with the USSR.

In early 1991, Saddam Hussein's Scud missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and Israel demonstrated that a rogue Third World regime could wage a medium-range ballistic missile war with nuclear-capable weapons — if regime fanatics had nuclear weapons.

Thanks to the 1982 Israeli raid on his Osirak nuclear reactor and weapons development facilities, Saddam didn't have deployable nukes. At best his Scuds carried high-explosive warheads, just like the World War II V-2 missiles Nazi Germany fired at London. In fact, Saddam's Soviet-made Scuds were essentially modernized Nazi V-2s.

In late 1991, the USSR collapsed. The Cold War kaput, many Russian scientists believed America could design and build the surveillance, targeting and anti-ballistic missile technology — and eventually deploy a strategic space defense system to defend against ICBM attacks. In other words, Soviet experts thought SDI was technologically feasible.

Saddam's 1991 ballistic missile attacks didn't silence The Perpetual Rejects. In 2003, then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi opined: "The United States does not need a multibillion-dollar national missile defense against the possibility of a nuclear-armed ICBM. What we need is a strong nonproliferation policy with other nations to combat the most serious threat to our national security."

Sad. The future speaker of the House just felt absolutely certain that talk and more talk with the support of the mythical international community would eventually convince Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

North Korea went on to acquire nukes and ballistic missiles. Japan and South Korea now deploy short- and medium-range anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs) to intercept North Korean missiles. The Trump administration's war on Ayatollah Iran has destroyed Tehran's nuclear program. However, Arab states and Israel needed actual advanced ABMs to defend their territory against attacking Iranian missiles. The defenders have intercepted all but a small percentage of Iranian missiles, once again demonstrating their effectiveness against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. As for the very short tactical range: Israel's Iron Dome has demonstrated it can intercept rockets, artillery projectiles and drones.

So, Pelosi and the other Camp One Perpetual Reject prognosticators were dead wrong.

Camp Two, however, makes a very respectable argument. Nervous Debtors contend America's $40 trillion national debt means the nation simply can't afford Golden Dome's trillion-dollar price tag. Despite the 2024, 2025 and 2026 Iranian missile and drone attacks, despite North Korea's continual nuclear threats and Russian nuclear saber rattling, Camp Two argues the debt is America's biggest security threat.

Well, the debt is a major security problem. But so are emerging air and space technologies that threaten the physical security of the U.S., its people, factories and energy resources, its logistics infrastructure and financial centers, every physical component a productive economy must have in order to grow and create the wealth that will reduce the debt.

Cruise and ballistic missiles remain a threat. Add hypersonic missiles. Add cheap drones armed with non-nuclear payloads — high explosives, or perhaps biological and chemical weapons?

This complex, aggregate threat has layers. The weapons can be launched from air, land and sea platforms.

Defeating the layered threat requires a layered defense. The current limited U.S. missile defense system has layers. Patriots defend short-range, THAAD medium range, Navy SM-3 longer range, GMDs defend against the intercontinental shot.

The Trump administration's Golden Dome envisions what the Pentagon calls "a layered, integrated air and missile defense architecture" to defend against existing and emerging nuclear and conventional threats. The short-range defense goal tells me it will ultimately include tactical laser weapons, advanced versions of weapons the U.S. Army is currently acquiring.

When the Perpetual Rejects argued missile defenses increase instability, they had it backward. Defense improves security, which enhances domestic and international stability. Golden Dome deployment also means an enemy can't be certain a cheap shot attack will succeed. Doubt in the mind of an enemy enhances deterrence.

Enhances, not guarantees. A Golden Dome still requires the spine to retaliate when an enemy tests it. And it will be tested.

To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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