[sudoscript]

Can someone explain why it's so hard to build a missile shield around the US? We've been at it for decades and it's still not reliable. Meanwhile, Israel has the Iron Dome. I know we're a lot bigger, but I feel like this should still be possible, yes?

[burkaman]

We have one, but intercepting long range missiles is very hard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-Based_Midcourse_Defense

There are also lots of political issues around weaponizing space and deploying interceptors where we would need them. The US had to withdraw from a treaty with Russia in order to build the current system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty

[freehunter]

Last time I checked, Iron Dome was only 90% effective and only had a range of 70km. The area that is constantly lobbing missiles at them is very small and easy to cover with overlapping missile defense systems. It'd be much harder and more expensive to cover Japan, and Japan is super tiny compared to many other countries that are targets for NK missiles (like the US).

It's really hard because of the massive amount of area you need to cover with a system that's basically like shooting a bullet out of the air with another bullet.

[christophilus]

The closest we have ever come to having a nuclear strike on US soil was when the soviets were convinced we were about to build such a shield. MAD falls apart when someone builds an effective shield... I don't think we actually want to build such a shield for this reason.

[kharms]

The Qassam rockets that Hamas uses fly at about 200m/s, while these North Korean ones fly at about 800m/s. Additionally, Israel is tiny compared to the United States.