During the Cold War years, the concept of mutual assured destruction kept the nuclear powers in check. Each knew that to start a nuclear war would ensure its destruction. Nonetheless, strategic objectives called "countervalue targeting" and "counterforce targeting" were outcomes that military strategists debated. Do you target and hold at risk an adversary's civilian population centers and financial infrastructure to hobble its capacity to function as a country – countervalue? Or is the objective to attack an enemy's military installations and particularly its nuclear missile silos, airbases, and command and control centers – counterforce? President Donald Trump's Golden Dome initiative presents the flip side of the countervalue, counterforce problem. Which nuclear strategic target does Golden Dome protect first?
Status of the Golden Dome
During a press availability in the Oval Office on Tuesday (May 20), Trump revealed his thoughts regarding the Golden Dome initiative. The US chief executive's Jan. 27 executive order directed the Pentagon to come up with an implementation plan to develop and deploy a missile defense capability for the continental United States and Hawaii. The president gave the Department of Defense 60 days to accomplish the task. The gathering in the White House allowed the president and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to provide details on where the Golden Dome stands.
Joined by US Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Sens. James Banks (R-IN), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), and Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Trump announced that a layered missile defense architecture has been adopted. Guetlein was selected as the Golden Dome program manager. Furthermore, the president explained that $25 billion was in the FY2025 reconciliation funding bill to jumpstart the program. Consequently, the two critical elements necessary to ensure an idea turns into reality are to become a program of record with a program manager and to have line-item funding. Golden Dome now has both.
"Today, I'm pleased to announce that we have officially selected an architecture for this state-of-the-art system that will deploy next-generation technologies across the land, sea, and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors," the president explained. He also mentioned that Canada is interested in joining and participating in the Golden Dome program. An essential aspect of the architecture is that “[t]his design for the Golden Dome will integrate with our existing defense capabilities and will be fully operational by the end of my term," Trump told reporters.
Clearly, the president is not expecting Golden Dome to be a "forever program." Trump said, "Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from the other side of the world, and even [if] they are launched from space." Trump explained that the system will be robust enough to defend against "hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles, and advanced cruise missiles."
The senators standing with Trump committed to supporting the Golden Dome program through aerospace and defense companies in their respective states. Sullivan has ground-based interceptors in Alaska; Cramer's state of North Dakota is home to Grand Forks Air Force Base, where the Defense Department flies unmanned aerial vehicles as test beds for detecting hypersonic missiles; Banks explained that Fort Wayne, IN, is home to aerospace companies producing satellites as part of the space-based detection system. The three senators represented the legislative support across America that will mobilize to achieve the missile shield.
Deploying the Missile Shield
There is a sense of urgency in Trump's push to get a missile defense dome in place over the United States. Adversaries across the globe are becoming more and more sophisticated in missile and nuclear warhead technology. RealClear Defense, in its report "The Hypersonic Threat," observed: "At the beginning of this year, North Korea claimed to have tested a hypersonic weapon. While doubts remain about the program's technical maturity, the North Korean test fits a broader trend: hypersonics are no longer emerging technologies, but a key element of modern military arsenals."
The Golden Dome missile defense shield is based on the Israeli Iron Dome layered anti-missile system to defeat ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones and rockets. Iron Dome has proven highly effective. However, the geographic area to defend in the United States dwarfs that of Israel. Critics of Trump's proposal claim the magnitude of such a system is impractical, too expensive, and technologically unachievable.
When unpacked, many of these criticisms tend to attack the Golden Dome projects with a straw man argument, misrepresenting the initiative. For example, Prof. Jeffrey Lewis at Middlebury Institute of International Studies, comparing Iron Dome with the US concept, told NPR recently, "'It's the difference between a kayak and a battleship' … A big part of that difference is the size of the landmass that needs to be protected — Israel is more than 400 times smaller than the United States, and it's mostly flat desert that's easy to defend." Lewis' nautical expertise aside, what if Golden Dome is a federated system with numerous missile defense regions the size of, well, say Israel, across the United States? Each region might be integrated through a network like the air traffic control system for commercial and general aviation. As aircraft travel across the United States, they are passed from one air traffic controller to the next. The exact details have yet to be revealed.
As the Golden Dome becomes a reality, determining what is defended first raises the countervalue or counterforce conundrum. One thing is sure: Count on Donald Trump to be the contractor-in-chief of the project.
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.
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