what’s at stake
As he pushes for greater US control of Greenland, President Donald Trump has repeatedly emphasized his plans for a missile defense shield known as the Golden Dome.
Put into motion by an executive order Trump signed last year, the Golden Dome is billed by proponents as a way to better guard the US homeland against fast-evolving missile threats from the likes of China and Russia.
But critics say the costly project — some analysts put its price tag at as much as $1 trillion — could have the unintended effect of triggering an arms race, rather than deterring adversarial behavior.
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who’s making the case
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., who is among the cosponsors of House legislation to establish the Golden Dome, argued that it is a needed deterrent because of the superiority of US technology:
“The issues that we have before us, of potential attacks, would be coming across the Arctic. And so a way to defend is to have the Golden Dome. It’s a way to deter war criminal [Vladimir] Putin, the Chinese Communist Party, and that’s my interest.
“To me, it’s a way of deterrence because it makes it unfeasible to attack the United States. A really good example of how American technology is so good is the capture of [Nicolás] Maduro. The Russian antiaircraft capability proved to be not effective, and the Chinese radar did not work properly. And so, we can actually deter our enemies by having capability.
“It’s deterrence because of technological superiority, and that’s what we need to have.”
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, argued that while some programs likely to fall under the program are worthwhile, the idea as a whole is deeply flawed:
“Some programs that will probably fall under Golden Dome — better protection from drones, better missile tracking from space, and more Patriot interceptors — are undoubtedly a good use of our money.
“But the core of Trump’s idea, a miracle missile shield that will make America invincible from nuclear attack, is dangerous and destabilizing. Large-scale homeland missile defense undermines Mutually Assured Destruction, the bedrock of nuclear deterrence for 80 years.
“It makes a first nuclear strike more likely and will spark a global arms race, as our adversaries build more weapons to overwhelm our defenses and find creative — and destabilizing — ways of getting around them. Golden Dome will make nuclear war more likely, not less. And it is going to be incredibly expensive: The realistic estimates are well over a trillion dollars.”
Benjamin Giltner, a defense and foreign policy policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, argued that the Golden Dome would be a “waste” of US security resources:
“With scarce resources, national leaders must pick and choose how to best allocate the country’s time and money. This means they must assess if and how a particular weapon system contributes to their country’s interests. Given significant US constraints, it is safe to say the Golden Dome is a waste of the country’s security resources.
“The Golden Dome’s missile defense system is expected to cost anywhere from $844 billion to $1.1 trillion, a sizable expense for any defense program. While some may argue that defending Americans from nuclear missiles is worth that expense, the reality is that the Golden Dome will be unable to defend the entire homeland.
“Countries such as Russia, China, and even North Korea also have a plethora of options to counter the Golden Dome, all at a cheaper cost to them. Such means include the use of decoy warheads to trick missile detection systems, jamming or destroying satellites, and simply building more missiles and warheads to overwhelm radars and missile interceptors.”
Notable
- A funding bill moving through Congress would force the Pentagon to detail where the $23 billion allocated for the missile shield is going, Defense One reported.
- The Washington Post published a deep dive in October on the Golden Dome, which would be modeled in part after Israel’s Iron Dome.