At the White House on Tuesday, President Trump unveiled the broad contours of his plan to construct a missile defense system around the United States — the first step in what would be a staggering undertaking.
The most interesting parts of the program, now known as Golden Dome, have yet to be determined: what the system would look like, who would build it, how it would be controlled and whether it would reliably protect Americans and the homeland from an ever-changing range of missile threats from around the world.
What we do know is it wouldn’t come cheap, easy or soon. It’s sure to be a yearslong, multibillion-dollar effort involving systems in the air, land, sea and space. Trump put the total cost at $175 billion, but a Congressional Budget Office review estimated that the space elements alone could reach as much as $542 billion to deploy and operate over the next 20 years.
In a sign of the coming sticker shock, Congress set aside $25 billion for Golden Dome in next year’s defense budget. American military contractors and rocket companies, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX, are already strategizing about how to win competitions for contracts to construct the system. For perspective: The U.S. government has doled out roughly $300 billion on missile defense systems over the past four decades.
A new generation of radars, sensors, interceptors and associated systems would be required under Golden Dome to detect, track and blast apart adversaries’ missiles before they strike. That is, Golden Dome isn’t a singular program. It would probably consist of 100 or more programs to be stitched together for a coast-to-coast, border-to-border shield against aerial attacks. Once those components are built, the military will need a way to orchestrate it all through a command-and-control system.
Trump said it would be completed within three years, but industry officials and analysts expect the space-based elements to take much longer. The president also mentioned that Canada wanted coverage under Golden Dome and that the country’s leadership wanted to play a role, but he didn’t elaborate.
Trump is hoping to replicate at home what he sees as the successes of missile defenses abroad. In January his initial executive order called for replicating Israel’s Iron Dome system in the United States. As I wrote then, Israel is the size of New Jersey, and the missiles fired into Israel are often unguided, slow-moving projectiles lobbed from nearby — not the world-spanning missiles U.S. military planners fear most.
The Defense Intelligence Agency last week illustrated the advancing threats facing the United States from countries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea in an unclassified assessment titled “Golden Dome for America.” The graphic depicted a diverse assortment of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, land attack cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons capable of reaching speeds more than five times the speed of sound.
There’s little doubt the United States is at risk from missile attacks, but it’s unclear whether Golden Dome could eliminate that vulnerability with modern technology. And even if the system is proven through testing, Congress would be required to continue the flow of funding to the tune of billions of dollars per year.
Trump said he was “completing the job” that President Ronald Reagan began in the 1980s with his unrealized space-based missile defense program, derisively nicknamed “Star Wars.” The program was canceled after technological challenges proved too difficult to overcome, despite years of effort and billions of dollars in federal spending.
To oversee Golden Dome’s development, Trump named Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, now serving as the U.S. Space Force’s vice chief of space operations. He draws on decades of experience in space acquisitions, missile defense and operations. He probably knows better than anyone else the challenges he’s up against.
