On January 27, President Trump ordered the Pentagon to develop “a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield,” which, inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome, came to be known as the Golden Dome. On March 28, the Pentagon blew past the White House-imposed deadline.
This shouldn’t be surprising. “At a minimum” the report must include plans to defend “the United States against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.” The White House then ordered that this report serve as the basis of a follow-on report on how best to provide theater defenses for U.S. bases and allies overseas from missile attacks.
Meeting even half of these requirements is a tall order. Consider: In 1983, when Ronald Reagan first proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the U.S. needed only to convince Moscow that the project was feasible and serious. The Soviets believed him, stoking fears that contributed to the Soviet Union’s collapse even before the U.S. deployed a single interceptor.
With the Golden Dome, success will require more. Unlike SDI, the U.S. will have to actually develop, deploy and demonstrate the system’s ability to deter. Bluffing alone won’t work. The system also will have to face increasingly effective Chinese and Russian anti-satellite programs and, in time, a rival Chinese space-based missile defense system, as well as a growing number of missile threats from not just hostile states, but from non-state proxies.
It’s unclear, however, if the Pentagon plans to use the Golden Dome’s space-based interceptors to address all of these threats. It will depend first on how technically capable the U.S. makes its space-based interceptors and second, on precisely who and what our government decides to protect.
The president’s tasking for a separate Pentagon report on how it might develop regional terrestrial-based “theater” missile defenses suggests that the Dome’s space-based interceptor system may not be for everyone. Taking this approach, though, could be problematic. For allies and U.S. bases close to hostile states — Germany, Israel, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the Philippines, India, Japan and various NATO states — the optimal way to counter short flight-time missiles is to intercept them the instant they’re launched (in the boost phase), rather than waiting until they close in on their targets (in terminal phase). The Golden Dome’s space-based interceptors, not its ground-based theater systems, would be optimized for boost phase intercept.
There are ways, however, around this dilemma. The Pentagon could follow outside advice and shutdown most of America’s overseas bases. Under this scheme, the Pentagon would project force almost entirely from bases located in the continental U.S. rather than from bases overseas. Alternatively, the president could decide to defend only a handful of America’s friends from missile assaults (perhaps only Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Japan). Either approach could reduce demands on the Dome’s global space-based systems.
Reducing the Dome’s protection requirements, however, could be risky. It would likely induce undefended, anxious states to hedge their bets by acquiring nuclear weapons and nuclear-capable missiles that could penetrate the Dome. This could make escalatory missile exchanges — such as those between Israel and Iran — more likely and even more destructive. With any bad luck, such bouts could catalyze into larger conflicts (think World War III).
Conversely, increasing the Dome’s protection of such states could squash such horrors. Instead of going more nuclear or ballistic, states with security ties to the U.S. would seek greater safety by increasing their collaboration with Washington. Of course securing this advantage would require spending more on the Dome.
Finally, the Dome’s space and terrestrial-based systems will have dramatic impacts on future alliance and international security diplomacy. Allies will ask for formal assurances. Adversaries will offer arms control initiatives to limit the Dome to their advantage. Washington will have to have alternative diplomatic initiatives of its own.
Ultimately, the Pentagon will have to address not just the technical, budgetary, and organizational questions the Golden Dome project poses, but the strategic, diplomatic, and policy issues deployment of the system will raise. These questions must be addressed before real progress toward implementation can be made.
It will be tempting to come up with quick answers to all of these issues. But we shouldn’t be in any rush to get them wrong. In fact, these questions will persist as long as the U.S. develops the Golden Dome and has to defend against hostile missiles and drones.
At a minimum, the Pentagon needs to spotlight these questions in its Golden Dome reports and explain how it intends to balance protection of America at home with the protection of our interests, allies and bases abroad.
Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Arlington, Virginia, served as Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy at the Pentagon (1989-93), and is author of China, Russia and the Coming Cool War (2024).
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