The American Iron Dome Is an Expensive Boondoggle That Won’t Work
Angry Planet19 Helmi 2025

The American Iron Dome Is an Expensive Boondoggle That Won’t Work

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.com


President Donald Trump wants to build an American Iron Dome. He even signed an executive order to make it happen. It’s a terrible idea, one we’ve tried before, and one that will make America less safe.


In this episode, Joseph Cirincione returns to the program to detail his personal history with complicated and costly missile defense systems.


  • It all starts during a snowstorm in 1982 and with the High Frontier
  • Zombie defense pitches
  • It’s almost impossible to knock a bullet out of space with a bullet
  • How Israel’s Iron Dome works
  • Slow and hot vs fast and cold
  • Lasers don’t work, thanks Teller
  • Pitch: lasers in space. Reality: missile batteries in Alaska
  • These systems only work half the time and only under perfect conditions
  • SpaceX contracts abound!
  • A Pentagon Powerpoint slide enters chat
  • Jason’s Superman reverie, starring Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor
  • How do China and Russia react?
  • “The enemy gets a vote.”
  • The last arms control treaty
  • Ronald Reagan: anti-nuclear advocate
  • How SDI kept us from eliminating nuclear weapons
  • Anatomy of an arms race
  • AI is coming to nuclear command and control


Project 2025 and Trump Are Cooking Up a Recipe for a New Nuclear Arms Race


The Iron Dome for America Executive Order


The national missile defense fantasy—again


Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture


Why the US General In Charge of Nuclear Weapons Said He Needs AI

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jaksot(498)

Making the Case America Was Winning in Iran

Making the Case America Was Winning in Iran

Recorded March 24, 2026. Subscribe at angryplanetpod.com to hear episodes first and commercial free.Last week an article published in Al Jazeera by an academic at the University of Doha in Qatar propo...

10 Huhti 1h 3min

Neutralizing Iran’s Nuclear Material During a War Is ‘Nearly Mission Impossible’

Neutralizing Iran’s Nuclear Material During a War Is ‘Nearly Mission Impossible’

America went to war in Iran, we’re told, because the idea of the country developing nuclear weapons was intolerable. Nukes are complicated and technical weapons that require scientists and experts to ...

27 Maalis 54min

The ‘AI as Nuclear Weapons’ Obsession

The ‘AI as Nuclear Weapons’ Obsession

AI enthusiasts love to say that the technology is as revolutionary and important as nuclear weapons. Even the Trump administration has adopted the metaphor. The President and the Department of Energy ...

13 Maalis 1h 2min

A Killer True Crime Fandom & Islamic State’s Digital Caliphate

A Killer True Crime Fandom & Islamic State’s Digital Caliphate

Things have gotten very surreal in the dark corners of the internet. AI-generated prophets are preaching jihad in Facebook groups, Minecraft servers host digital caliphates, and school shooting fandom...

4 Maalis 1h 22min

When Americans Became ‘Splendid Liberators’

When Americans Became ‘Splendid Liberators’

America spent most of the 19th century at war with itself. It conquered its western expanse then collapsed into civil war. Once the North beat the South, partisan politics consumed the country for a g...

20 Helmi 1h 5min

Puffins, Zyn, and ‘Polar War’

Puffins, Zyn, and ‘Polar War’

Greenland fever has faded for now but it will return. The world’s polar region, you see, is pretty damn important. As the planet heats and the ice melts, what was once an impassible warren of ice and ...

6 Helmi 55min

Online Culture Is the Whole Culture

Online Culture Is the Whole Culture

There was a time, just before the pandemic, when folks would say “Twitter isn’t real life” as a means of dismissing the horrors of social media. This was a cope, a way to ignore the worst political an...

30 Tammi 1h 24min

How We Thought the First Year Would Go

How We Thought the First Year Would Go

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comOn January 28, 2025, I sat down with Aram Shabanian to talk about how we thought the first year of the Trump administration would go...

16 Tammi 1h 2min

Suosittua kategoriassa Politiikka ja uutiset

uutiscast
aikalisa
politiikan-puskaradio
ootsa-kuullut-tasta-2
rss-ootsa-kuullut-tasta
tervo-halme
viisupodi
rss-podme-livebox
aihe
rss-vaalirankkurit-podcast
rss-asiastudio
rss-ulkopoditiikkaa
rss-pinnalla
otetaan-yhdet
the-ulkopolitist
radio-antro
rss-mina-ukkola
rss-polikulaari-pitka-kiekko-ja-muut-ts-podcastit
rss-girls-finish-f1rst
rikosmyytit