Congressional Republicans are trying to get President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” passed before Memorial Day. Of course, we’re hearing a lot about the economic aspects of the legislation, particularly tax cuts and Medicaid. But there’s one fascinating aspect of the bill that’s worth looking at: the “Golden Dome.”
Israel’s impressively successful Iron Dome technology is the obvious inspiration for a similar system to bolster U.S. defenses, and the president issued an executive order in January tasking the Department of Defense with planning for such a system.
The text of that executive order outlines why this type of defense is necessary:
The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.
President Ronald Reagan endeavored to build an effective defense against nuclear attacks, and while this program resulted in many technological advances, it was canceled before its goal could be realized. And since the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and initiated development of limited homeland missile defense, official United States homeland missile defense policy has remained only to stay ahead of rogue-nation threats and accidental or unauthorized missile launches.
Over the past 40 years, rather than lessening, the threat from next-generation strategic weapons has become more intense and complex with the development by peer and near-peer adversaries of next-generation delivery systems and their own homeland integrated air and missile defense capabilities.
Senior officials with the DoD testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee last week about Golden Dome. Army Maj. Wes Shinego wrote for the DoD website that “officials acknowledged that Golden Dome is an ambitious undertaking and would require scaling the Iron Dome concept to a national level.”
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Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot told senators that Golden Dome would incorporate already existing sensors and trackers with new infrastructure. He said that Golden Dome will help track threats from land, sea, air, and space.
"We're at the core of helping support and inform [DOD] in putting together an architecture that's comprehensive, that covers all pieces and parts, and [that can] be executed," Air Force Lt. Gen. Heath A. Collins, director of the Missile Defense Agency, told the committee.
Shinego wrote:
Retired Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, who led Northcom and NORAD until earlier this year, estimated that developing and deploying the space-based sensor and interceptor layer could take five to 10 years.
Golden Dome will incorporate multiple layers of defense — from ground-based interceptors and fighter jet defenses to ship-borne and space-based systems — under one unified command and control system. Because of the complexity, defense leaders agree that building such a comprehensive shield will not happen overnight.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that one of the important goals of the One Big, Beautiful Bill is “rebuilding our national defense.” President Trump promised a more robust national defense, and in an increasingly hostile world, that’s something we need more than ever. Hopefully, Congress and DoD can get Golden Dome in the works sooner rather than later.
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