US Golden Dome moves forward as questions mount over feas...

This month, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported that at the Reagan National Defense Forum, US Space Force General Michael Guetlein, head of the Golden Dome program, revealed that the ambitious air and missile defense shield ordered by US President Donald Trump in January will achieve initial operational capability by summer 2028.

Designed to expand existing defenses against a limited North Korean missile attack into a nationwide system capable of countering advanced ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons, cruise missiles, drones and even fractional orbital bombardment systems (FOBS), Golden Dome will integrate a network of sensors, interceptors and command-and-control systems, including space-based interceptors and data-transfer satellites.

Guetlein emphasized the program’s complexity and risks but said a “solid plan” is in place, with contracts already awarded to industry partners for interceptors and software architecture.

While details remain classified, Congress and defense firms are receiving briefings, and Senator Deb Fischer, chair of the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee, expressed satisfaction with the information.

The US Department of Defense anticipates costs in the hundreds of billions, with funding uncertain amid inflation and competing priorities such as nuclear modernization and shipbuilding. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth noted a historic $156 billion boost in 2026, but future budgets remain unsettled. Guetlein underscored that Golden Dome will build on existing systems, extending protection to the entire homeland including Hawaii, Alaska and Guam.

Making the case for a renewed emphasis on US homeland and missile defense, Robert Soofer and other writers mention in a January 2025 Atlantic Council report that the US must strengthen homeland missile defense because long-range threats from North Korea, China and Russia are growing in number, diversity and sophistication.

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Noting the missile threats to the US homeland, the US Defense Intelligence Agency’s May 2025 Worldwide Threat Assessment report mentions that North Korea has fielded an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental US. It is also developing new systems such as the Haeil nuclear torpedo, expanding the range and complexity of its arsenal.

It adds that China and Russia are both expanding their missile inventories, including FOBS and “superweapons” such as the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile and Poseidon nuclear torpedo designed to bypass US missile defenses. It notes that Russia retains a full strategic nuclear force able to strike the US homeland, while China is rapidly growing its nuclear and missile arsenal to enhance its strike options.

These uncertainties come as analysts warn that the US can no longer rely on legacy assumptions about limited threats or stable deterrence.

In view of those advancements, Soofer and other writers stress that current US policy – relying mainly on nuclear deterrence for great-power threats while defending only against a limited attack with a few missiles by a rogue state – no longer matches reality. However, they also state that US missile defenses need not be leak-proof; they must instead complicate adversary plans, reinforce freedom of action, and assure allies.

Soofer and others say that a layered architecture, combined with offensive measures, would better counter coercive missile threats and enhance nuclear force survivability, thereby strengthening overall deterrence.

Furthermore, the recently published 2025 US National Security Strategy stresses the urgency of bolstering US missile defenses. The document emphasizes that US nuclear deterrence and homeland defense must reinforce one another. It calls for maintaining “the world’s most robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent” while simultaneously building advanced missile defenses – framed as a “Golden Dome for the American homeland.”

It notes that these defenses are meant to shield the population, overseas assets and allies from missile threats and ensure no adversary can hold the US at risk. The strategy presents nuclear modernization and layered homeland defense as mutually essential components for preserving national survival, preventing coercion and deterring attacks across the spectrum of strategic threats.

Delving into the architecture of the Golden Dome, the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation notes that the concept proposes a fully layered missile defense shield over the continental US, built around a mix of advanced and still-maturing technologies.

The concept imagines a network of space-based sensors able to spot and track launches in real time, paired with land, sea and space-based kinetic interceptors. It adds that high-energy lasers could attempt boost-phase shots, while AI-enabled command-and-control would speed decision cycles and targeting.

However, it states that achieving this vision would demand breakthroughs in sensing, battle management and interceptor performance, as well as unprecedented investments in infrastructure – far beyond anything the current US missile defense enterprise has fielded to date.

Those ambitions contrast sharply with longstanding scientific skepticism about whether such a system can actually be built at scale. A February 2025 report by the American Physical Society (APS) argues that strategic missile defense – especially architectures using space-based sensors and interceptors – remains technically and economically unfeasible.

The report says that defeating even a limited ICBM attack would require hundreds of space-based interceptors, demanding 240–2,400 tons of hardware in orbit and costing between $100 billion and $180 billion. Long-term sustainment and replenishment could push total costs into the trillion-dollar range.

At the same time, the report notes adversaries can cheaply add missiles or decoys, while core technical barriers such as discrimination of warheads from countermeasures, kill assessment and plume-to-hardbody tracking remain unresolved.

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The report also points out that boost-phase intercept – shooting down missiles just after launch – is unrealistic due to the two-to-four-minute engagement window and impossible basing requirements to get the interceptors close to enemy launch sites.

In response to those arguments, Christopher Stone argues in a July 2025 Global Security Review (GSR) report that critics ignore the current strategic environment, in which China and Russia have already expanded nuclear forces and deployed anti-satellite (ASAT) and space-attack systems that threaten US satellites and the homeland.

Thus, Stone argues that those who claim space-based defenses are destabilizing or unnecessary are backward, because the destabilization is already occurring due to adversary buildups.

He rejects the view that such systems rely on untested technology, arguing that many sensors and layers listed in the January 2025 Executive Order implementing Golden Dome already exist in programs of record or are in orbit, while interceptor technology has decades of testing behind it.

Rather than being infeasible or premature, Stone frames the Golden Dome as overdue and technologically achievable, emphasizing that vulnerability is no longer acceptable.

Taken together, these developments point to a growing consensus that rising missile threats are driving the US toward far more ambitious homeland defenses, even as Golden Dome’s feasibility remains sharply contested. Its fate will ultimately hinge on whether US leaders judge that the risks of inaction outweigh the uncertainties of attempting a shield on this unprecedented scale.