President Trump has unveiled his plans to develop a new massive missile defense system to cover the entire territory of the United States, which he has dubbed the “Golden Dome,” a project that will almost certainly kick off a new arms race.
The president claimed the project would cost $175 billion and would be completed within three years, although an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office put the price tag at $500 billion over 20 years. Next year’s budget will include $25 billion to start the construction.
The idea of the Golden Dome is to develop space-based interceptors that could shoot down the most advanced missiles in the world. President Trump said it was something President Reagan wanted “many years ago,” referring to the failed “Star Wars” program.
“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
The president announced that Michael Guetlein, a general in the Space Force, a branch of the US military that Trump established in his first term, will oversee the Golden Dome construction. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is reportedly the frontrunner to build key parts of the missile shield.
Daryl G. Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, said President Trump was “doubling down on a strategic blunder” by pursuing the Golden Dome project.
In a blog post published in response to Trump’s announcement, Kimball noted that “nuclear and defense strategists have long understood that the development and deployment of strategic missile interceptors is ineffective against determined nuclear-armed adversaries because it could lead them to build more numerous and sophisticated offensive missile systems — at relatively lower cost and more quickly — to overwhelm and evade missile defenses.”
Kimball said Trump’s Golden Dome “flies in the face of these realities” and will cost much more than the $175 billion estimate. He said if Congress “rubber stamps Trump’s radical and unrealistic strategic missile defense gambit in full or in part, we should expect the Chinese nuclear arsenal to grow even more substantially and Russia to resist any offensive nuclear reductions.”
