Trumps Golden Dome is a destabilizing pipe dream

The Trump administration’s recently released National Defense Strategy reaffirmed its commitment to building a “Golden Dome” capable of stopping any “advanced aerial attacks” on the US, including conventional and nuclear-armed cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles, as well as drones.

President Donald Trump himself recently invoked the project to justify why the US needs Greenland, much to the chagrin of America’s NATO allies. Yet, more than a year after Trump announced the initiative, the Golden Dome remains a futile and dangerous fantasy.

The administration has described it as a “system-of-systems” that will integrate America’s various missile defense capabilities, supplement them through a vast network of Space-Based Interceptors (SBIs), cost a hefty US$175 billion and be completed by 2029.

Yet progress on the Golden Dome has already stalled, sparked skepticism across the defense industry and drawn Congressional criticism for its opacity.

The initiative’s supporters argue that “more diverse, capable, and complex threats” leave America increasingly vulnerable. China and Russia, in particular, are rapidly developing nuclear, conventional, and cyber weapons, all while expanding their missile systems.

According to those observers, the Golden Dome could mitigate damage while reassuring allies that the US will protect them even as the US homeland is under threat.

Most importantly, after pursuing ruinous countermeasures, adversaries would realize that attacking America is pointless. Therefore, the Golden Dome would incentivize diplomacy, as President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense project aimed to do before the end of the Cold War.

Yet the reality is far less flattering. First, establishing a credible large-scale missile defense system for $175 billion is impossible, even if the US drastically scaled down its ambitions to protect only key military facilities, critical infrastructure and major cities.

Faced with this challenge, the Pentagon seeks to leverage new acquisition processes, AI integration and autonomy and breakthroughs by leading companies such as SpaceX in rocket launches, satellite deployments and, potentially, dual-use satellites. Working with allies could also reduce costs.

Yet, even if successful, those measures may not fill the gap. According to some estimates, the Golden Dome’s stated ambitions could cost up to $3.6 trillion over two decades.

Although this sum is a worst-case scenario, a mere fraction of it would suffice to dramatically increase America’s national debt and divert resources from other security commitments.

Second, the feasibility of the Golden Dome remains questionable. Despite $350 billion in expenditures totaling over the last 60 years (including Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative), the Pentagon’s simulations have repeatedly evidenced that those systems would struggle to stop a small number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), even against less advanced assets such as those of North Korea. Moreover, defense corporations have failed to produce reliable assets in many other domains.

Although Washington initially called its initiative the “Iron Dome for America,” in reference to Israel’s missile defense system, such comparisons are purely “marketing,” given that Israel has a far smaller territory, targets rockets with predictable trajectories and limited ordnance, and leaves uninhabited areas unprotected.

As the US Government Accountability Office noted, many technologies associated with the Golden Dome are immature and may require decades to develop. Most importantly, physical barriers may be insurmountable. The Golden Dome would engage enemy assets during their boost phase, when they are slower and easier to detect.

Yet, given the inherent speed and continuous motion of its orbiting SBIs, destroying a single North Korean ICBM during that phase may require about 1,600 SBIs. By 2035, China and Russia might field a combined total of 16,000 ICBMs, not to mention hypersonic missiles and other aerial weapons.

Moreover, America’s adversaries could shorten their burn time, reduce their “infrared signature,” launch from secret sites, and employ various countermeasures.

Although repurposing SBIs for mid-course interception would give the US more time to intercept, this approach would be far more expensive and would not provide any means to distinguish decoys from real targets or destroy weapons in the atmosphere or underwater.

More broadly, China and Russia could counter America’s efforts by fielding more missiles capable of evading defenses, developing counterspace assets (e.g., jammers and energy weapons), and “flood[ing] the skies” with ground-based missiles, which are inherently far cheaper. Thus, Washington risks being “ensnared in a perverse process of self-cost imposition.”

Therefore, the Golden Dome has often been derided as a political stunt that will do little to bolster America’s defense but primarily benefit the US military-industrial complex.

Yet its pursuit could be destabilizing. For instance, it may revive China and Russia’s fear that, despite their limitations, US missile defense systems could intercept their few remaining nuclear weapons after a massive US first strike.

Moreover, the Golden Dome builds on a network of missile defense systems that encircle America’s enemies in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East and could readily be repurposed for intelligence collection and offensive operations.

Thus, it could encourage preemptive attacks and cloud crisis signaling. Moreover, it could dramatically increase the amount of space debris orbiting Earth, creating a chain reaction that could harm the global economy and cripple the intelligence and communication systems that underpin Washington’s military operations.

It would also undermine Trump’s desire to secure a trilateral arms control agreement immediately after the last US-Russia arms control treaty expired.

Washington should scale back the Golden Dome, enhance the survivability of its deterrent through hardening, mobility, concealment and redundancy, and exploit its adversaries’ anxieties to advance diplomacy and nudge them to curb their arms buildup.

Thomas P. Cavanna is non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and collaborating academic visitor at Lehigh University. Follow him on X and LinkedIn