Trump\u2019s \u2018Golden Dome\u2019 US missile defense plan faces major challenges
\nDNA
\nWASHINGTON
\nUS President Donald Trump\u2019s plan for a nationwide missile defense system \u2014 dubbed \u201cGolden Dome\u201d \u2014 faces significant technical and political challenges, and it could cost far more than he has estimated to achieve its goals.
\nTrump wants a system that can defend against a wide array of enemy weapons \u2014 from intercontinental ballistic missiles to hypersonic and cruise missiles to drones \u2014 and he wants it ready in about three years, or as he nears the end of his second term in office.
\nFour months after Trump initially ordered the Pentagon to develop options for the system, however, little in the way of further details has emerged.
\n\u201cThe main challenges will be cost, the defense industrial base, and political will. They can all be overcome, but it will take focus and prioritization,\u201d said Melanie Marlowe, a nonresident senior associate in the Missile Defense Project at Washington\u2019s Center for Strategic and International Studies.
\n\u201cThe White House and Congress are going to have to agree on how much to spend and where the money will come from,\u201d Marlowe said, noting that \u201cour defense industrial base has atrophied,\u201d though \u201cwe have begun to revive it.\u201d
\nShe also cited the need for more progress on sensors, interceptors and other components of the project. Trump on Tuesday announced an initial $25 billion in funding for Golden Dome, saying its eventual cost would be about $175 billion.
\nThat figure is likely far lower than the actual price of such a system.Thomas Roberts, assistant professor of international affairs and aerospace engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said the price estimate was \u201cnot realistic.\u201d
\n\u201cThe challenge with the statements from yesterday is that they lack the details needed to develop a model of what this constellation would really look like,\u201d he said.
\nEarlier this month, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the cost of space-based interceptors to defeat a limited number of intercontinental ballistic missiles at between $161 billion and $542 billion over 20 years.
\nA system such as that envisaged by Trump \u201ccould require a more expansive SBI (space-based interceptor) capability than the systems examined in the previous studies. Quantifying those recent changes will require further analysis,\u201d the CBO said.
\nThe Golden Dome concept \u2014 and name \u2014 stem from Israel\u2019s Iron Dome air defense system. But the United States\u2019 missile threats differ significantly from the short-range weapons that Iron Dome is designed to counter.
\nBeijing is closing the gap with Washington when it comes to ballistic and hypersonic missile technology, while Moscow is modernizing its intercontinental-range missile systems and developing advanced precision strike missiles, according to the Pentagon\u2019s 2022 Missile Defense Review.
\nThe document also said the threat of drones \u2014 which have played a key role in the Ukraine war \u2014 is likely to grow, and warned of the danger of ballistic missiles from North Korea and Iran, as well as rocket and missile threats from non-state actors. Chad Ohlandt, a senior engineer at the RAND Corporation, said \u201cthe threat is clearly getting worse,\u201d but the \u201ckey question is how to most cost effectively counter\u201d it.
\n\u201cAny questions of realism or feasibility\u201d for Golden Dome \u201cdepend on where we set the bar. Defend against how many threats? Threats of what capability? What is to be defended? As you raise the bar, it becomes more expensive,\u201d Ohlandt said.
\nThomas Withington, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said \u201cthere are a number of bureaucratic, political, science and technological milestones that will need to be achieved if Golden Dome is ever going to enter service in any meaningful capacity.\u201d
\n\u201cIt is an incredibly expensive undertaking, even for the US defense budget. This is serious, serious money,\u201d Withington said. \u201cI\u2019m not holding my breath as to whether we will actually ever see this capability.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Trump\u2019s \u2018Golden Dome\u2019 US missile defense plan faces major challenges DNA WASHINGTON US President Donald Trump\u2019s plan for a nationwide missile defense system \u2014 dubbed \u201cGolden Dome\u201d \u2014 faces significant technical and political challenges, and it could cost far more than he has estimated to achieve its goals. Trump wants a system that can defend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-480234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n