Strategic Defense Initiative 2.0: Can Trump Achieve What Reagan Failed?

From the Depths of the Cold War
One of the most controversial topics in stories The development of weapons and military-technical confrontation between the USSR and the USA is the American program "Strategic Defense Initiative" (SDI), launched on March 23, 1983 by then US President Ronald Reagan.
It is characteristic that the topic of anti-ballistic missile defense (ABM) was first developed in the USSR back in 1949, when Ronald Reagan's ultimate dream was to become president of the Screen Actors Guild. Nevertheless, the public learned about the ABM system after Reagan declared the USSR an "evil empire" and called on America to make every effort to gain a decisive advantage over the Soviet Union by creating an anti-ballistic missile shield within the framework of the SDI program, which received the half-joking name "Star Wars".

We have previously discussed the history of the creation of missile defense systems in the USSR and the USA in the article Cold War missile defense and "Star Wars".
It would seem that after the collapse of the USSR there was no longer any point in deploying missile defense systems?
However, having abandoned the most ambitious directions, the US Armed Forces focused on more achievable goals, not on creating a global anti-missile shield, but on intercepting single intercontinental ballistic missiles. missiles (ICBMs) and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs).
The new missile defense systems were positioned as a means of defense against “rogue states” like Iran and North Korea, although by some “coincidence” the elements of the missile defense systems were positioned so as to intercept missiles launched from Russian territory – however, everyone understood this perfectly well. In terms of creating strategic and non-strategic missile defense, not everything went smoothly for the United States, but it is hardly worth underestimating the importance of the work carried out there.

Often there is a sharp reduction in the amount of information in open sources about achievements in a particular area, for example, in terms of creating a laser weapons or rail guns, may not mean that "everything is bad" there, but on the contrary, that certain results were obtained, after which the corresponding programs were transferred to the status of "black", implemented in a regime of increased secrecy. These are just examples, it is far from a fact that the US has advanced in the creation of combat lasers and "rail guns", but who knows?
And now, the newly elected US President Donald Trump is once again talking about the need to create an anti-missile shield over America, calling it an advanced analogue of the Israeli "Iron Dome", thereby causing a surge of emotions among a number of politicians and regulars of thematic resources. But in fact, Donald Trump did not say anything new from what he said earlier - back during his first presidential term.
The Ghost of the Cold War
On January 17, 2019, Donald Trump released the Missile Defense Review at the Pentagon. The document included a new US strategy in space, which was called defensive and provided for the expansion of the missile defense arsenal.

In particular, the strategy proposed placing a new generation of early warning satellites in space. According to the document, the most serious threats to the United States are North Korea, Iran, Russia and China. The report says that the United States will not limit itself in developing missile defense against countries that do not recognize international norms.
That is, five years ago, “friend” Donald, without a moment’s hesitation, sent Russia, and at the same time China, to the list of rogue states and announced the need to build a global US missile defense system (Sunset of the nuclear triad. US missile defense: the present and near future).
What happened in this direction during the first administration of Donald Trump and his successor, “Self-Propelled Joe”?
What happened here is this: despite the relative calm in terms of the deployment of strategic missile launchers such as the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GBMD), the US Armed Forces began deploying satellites into orbit Silent Barker, designed to control outer space directly from space, HBTSS and PWSA satellites, designed to track hypersonic missiles, and potentially any other air targets, as well as Starshield satellites, capable of linking all components of the US Armed Forces into a single whole, including combining the capabilities of satellite constellations for various purposes.

Limited capabilities and unlimited potential
After the inauguration of the new US president, several sources "from Trump's circle" simultaneously reported to the Financial Times that the decree on the creation of a new American missile defense system had already been signed. Within the framework of SDI 2.0, it is planned to ensure the interception of ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles using satellites equipped with laser and kinetic weapons.
The statements about laser weapons capable of intercepting ballistic missiles from space immediately led to a mass throwing of hats on a number of thematic resources, but in the meantime, everything is much more complicated than it seems. Already now, lasers in orbit can potentially solve the problem of filtering out light false targets, and this is a very important task, since there will be only a few heavy false targets on a ballistic missile, but dozens or even hundreds of light ones.

Inflatable transatmospheric false warhead of the American Minitman ICBM
In the future, with the growth of laser power, it may become a very realistic task to defeat ballistic missiles at the initial stage of their trajectory, for example, by burning through the walls of the second-stage tanks or by affecting the sensors of the “bus” distributing the warheads.
Critics are no less skeptical about the possibility of creating, within the framework of SDI 2.0, some kind of kinetic interceptors capable of attacking targets both in space and in the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, the private American company True Anomaly is already developing the concept of “inspector” satellites – read Jackal interceptors ("Jackal"). And True Anomaly is planning to launch thousands of these satellites into orbit, supplementing them with the Mosaic complex system, which will receive information from the Jackal interceptor sensors, process it using artificial intelligence, and present it to operators in a clear graphical form.
Conclusions
Despite the struggle between the Republican and Democratic parties, preparations for the deployment of missile defense systems and dominance in outer space in general are being carried out tirelessly in the United States.
The above-mentioned orbital satellite groups Silent Barker, Starshield, HBTSS and PWSA are nothing more than a “sensor layer” – a kind of “skeleton” of the future missile defense system – as they say, “if there are bones, the meat will grow.” And the “meat” is already visible – these are Jackal interceptor satellites. Of course, these are not yet “diamond stones” – interceptors of ICBM warheads, but Jackal interceptors may well become the basis for them.

It is also worth remembering that the cornerstone of building orbital infrastructure is the low cost of launches, an advantage in which the US has already provided partially reusable launch vehicles (LV) from SpaceX – surprisingly, some still manage to believe that all their launches are unprofitable, even when some stages have flown into space dozens of times.
But the super-heavy, fully reusable Starship / Super Heavy launch vehicle is on the way – Elon Musk launches prototypes with maniacal persistence, despite any obstacles, including crashes of expensive prototypes.
If his efforts are successful and the cost of launching one kilogram of cargo into orbit can be reduced by an order of magnitude, then the United States will gain a colossal advantage simply because it will be able to conduct as many test launches and experiments in space on a variety of programs as needed, just as we now launch rockets at test sites here on Earth, delivering them there by truck, where the cost of delivery is only a small part of the costs.

It is quite possible that in five to ten years the United States will be able to intercept “goodies” launched by countries such as Iran or North Korea, and By 2040, the American SDI 2.0 may well begin to pose a threat to Russia's nuclear deterrent forces as well.
So we should not engage in boasting, but work on creating symmetrical and asymmetrical response solutions, and one of the most important tasks here is the creation of fully reusable Russian launch vehicles of all classes.
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