‘How are you going to do that?’ Pentagon scrambles to make Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system a reality

CNN
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US army officers are scrambling to develop a “Golden Dome” protection system that may defend the nation from long-range missile strikes and have been informed by the White Home that no expense will likely be spared with the intention to fulfill certainly one of President Donald Trump’s high Pentagon priorities, in accordance with a number of sources accustomed to the matter.

“Golden Dome” is the Trump administration’s try to rebrand obscure plans for creating a missile protection system akin to Israel’s Iron Dome.

At a time the Pentagon is trying to lower budgets, the Trump administration has ordered army officers to make sure future funding for “Golden Dome” is mirrored in new finances estimates for 2026 to 2030 – however the system itself stays undefined past a reputation, the sources mentioned.

“Right now, Golden Dome is, it’s really an idea,” one supply accustomed to inside discussions in regards to the undertaking mentioned, including there could also be know-how within the pipeline that, if ever scaled up, might apply to it, however as of now discussions are purely conceptual.

That makes projecting future prices practically unimaginable, the supply added, although it might seemingly price billions of {dollars} to assemble and preserve.

Trump has repeatedly insisted the US wants a missile protection program much like Israel’s Iron Dome, however the methods are orders of magnitude aside. In sensible phrases, the comparability is much less apples to oranges, and extra apples to plane carriers.

Israel’s Iron Dome missile protection system selectively protects populated areas from short-range threats in a rustic the scale of New Jersey; Trump desires a space-based missile protection system able to defending all the United States from superior ballistic and hypersonic missiles.

For one factor, “Israel is tiny,” the supply accustomed to ongoing inside discussions in regards to the Golden Dome undertaking mentioned. “So, it is 100% feasible to blanket Israel in things like radars and a combination of mobile and fixed interceptors.”

“How are you going to do that in the United States? You can’t do it just at the borders and the shoreline, because intercontinental ballistic missiles, they can re-enter the atmosphere over Kansas.”

Nonetheless, Trump issued an government order throughout his first week in workplace ordering Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth to submit a plan for creating and implementing the next-generation missile protection defend by March 28.

And a senior Pentagon official insisted earlier this week that work is underway.

“Consistent with protecting the homeland and per President Trump’s [executive order], we’re working with the industrial base and [through] supply chain challenges associated with standing up the Golden Dome,” Steven J. Morani, at present performing the duties of undersecretary of protection for acquisition and sustainment mentioned this week on the McAleese Protection Packages Convention in Washington.

On the identical time, Pentagon officers have been realigning the Protection Division’s 2026 finances proposal to fulfill Hegseth’s priorities, which had been outlined in a memo delivered to senior leaders final week and represents a significant overhaul of the army’s strategic objectives, in accordance with a replica obtained by CNN.

The memo particularly directs Pentagon management to give attention to strengthening missile protection of the US homeland via Trump’s “Golden Dome.”

“There is a rigorous analytic process underway taking a relook at [the budget],” Morani added. “This is standard practice for any new administration that takes office.”

Nevertheless it stays unclear how a lot cash the Pentagon will request for Trump’s Golden Dome in its finances proposal or how officers will decide the quantity of funding is required.

Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery believes making a ballistic missile protection system could also be attainable in 7-10 years, however even then, it’ll have extreme limitations, probably able to defending solely essential federal buildings and main cities.

“The more you want it closer to 100%, the more expensive it’s going to get,” mentioned Montgomery, the senior director of the Middle On Cyber and Know-how Innovation on the Basis for Protection of Democracies.

A complete system would require totally different units of satellites for communication, sensing incoming missiles, and launching interceptors, Montgomery informed CNN. These forms of methods are long-term tasks, he mentioned, requiring present defenses to fill the hole within the meantime.

“You’ve gotta be responsible here,” Montgomery mentioned. “You’re not going to be able to defend everything with these ground-based missiles. They defend a circle around them, but it’s not large.”

US arms producers are already seeing greenback indicators. The Missile Protection Company held an Business Day in mid-February to solicit bids from corporations fascinated by serving to to plan and construct Golden Dome.

The company obtained greater than 360 secret and unclassified abstracts about concepts for easy methods to plan and execute the system.

Lockheed Martin has taken it a step additional, creating a refined web site for Golden Dome claiming the world’s largest protection contractor has the “proven, mission-tested capabilities and track record of integration to bring this effort to life.”

Within the Nineteen Eighties, President Ronald Reagan introduced the Strategic Protection Initiative to create a space-based protection towards ballistic nuclear missiles. The system was derisively nicknamed “Star Wars,” and consumed tens of billions of {dollars} earlier than it was in the end cancelled, going through insurmountable technical and financial hurdles.

Laura Grego, a Senior Analysis Director of the World Safety Program on the Union for Involved Scientists, says the identical challenges stay and have been identified for years.

“It has been long understood that defending against a sophisticated nuclear arsenal is technically and economically unfeasible,” Grego informed CNN.

America’s present ballistic missile protection is designed to thwart a small variety of missiles from a rogue state comparable to North Korea or Iran. The system depends on the Floor-based Midcourse Protection (GMD), which has failed practically half of its assessments, in accordance with the Arms Management Affiliation, rendering it incapable of stopping a significant assault from Russia or China.

However in his government order, Trump referred to as for a much more complicated and sturdy system – space-based interceptors able to downing a goal moments after it launches.

Such a system would require 1000’s of interceptors in low-earth orbit to intercept even a single North Korean missile launch, in accordance with the American Bodily Society (APS), which has studied the feasibility of ballistic missile defenses for years. A single interceptor in orbit is nearly by no means on the proper place and time to quickly intercept a ballistic missile launch, so that you want exponentially extra to make sure ample protection.

“We estimate that a constellation of about 16,000 interceptors would be needed to attempt to counter a rapid salvo of ten solid-propellant ICBMs like the [North Korean] Hwasong-18,” the APS wrote in a research earlier this month.

Even then, Grego says a space-based missile protection system is weak to enemy anti-satellite assaults from far inexpensive ground-based methods.

“The most critical weakness of a system like this is its brittleness, its vulnerability to attack,” Grego added.

Within the Crimson Sea, the US has fired scores of multi-million greenback interceptor missiles at Houthi drones and missiles that price a fraction of the value. The fiscal imbalance will get far worse when the system is in house, in accordance with John Tierney, a former Democratic congressman who held years of hearings on ballistic missile protection.

“It’s a joke. It’s basically a scam,” Tierney mentioned bluntly. Now the chief director for the Middle for Arms Management & Non-Proliferation, Tierney ripped Trump for being “willing to throw billions and billions and billions of dollars at something that won’t work.”

Because the US pours cash into analysis and creating the Golden Dome, present and former officers say America’s adversaries will seemingly broaden their very own arsenal of ballistic missiles in an effort to remain forward.

However because the offensive ballistic missiles are far inexpensive than the interceptors wanted to cease them, Tierney says the system shortly turns into financially unfeasible.

US army officers are additionally assessing how Golden Dome might disrupt the present stability supplied by nuclear deterrence, in accordance with the supply accustomed to inside planning discussions associated to the undertaking.

At the moment, the principle US deterrent towards one other nation launching a preemptive nuclear assault is its survivable second strike, or means to retaliate even after enduring an preliminary nuclear assault, the supply mentioned.

“If you implement something that your nuclear armed adversaries believe is a reliable countermeasure that just nullifies their nuclear arsenal, now you’ve done away with deterrent stability, because you’ve improved the ease of the United States sending a nuclear attack to them with impunity,” the supply added. “And then you have to ask yourself, well, how much do we trust the US not to do that?”

“If I’m China, if I’m Russia, my confidence is lower and lower, that that the US won’t strike us with a nuclear missile in in a crisis,” in accordance with the identical supply.

“Strategically, it doesn’t make any sense. Technically, it doesn’t make any sense. Economically it doesn’t make any sense,” Tierney added.

CORRECTION: An earlier model of this story incorrectly attributed a quote in regards to the complete system obligatory to offer the form of safety President Donald Trump has requested for. Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery mentioned, “You’ve gotta be responsible here. You’re not going to be able to defend everything with these ground-based missiles. They defend a circle around them, but it’s not large.”