[🇺🇸] Golden Dome----Anti Ballistic Missile System

MISSILE DEFENCE SYSTEM
Trump unveils plans for ‘Golden Dome’
China says US plan ‘undermines global stability’

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he had selected a design for the $175-billion Golden Dome missile defense shield and named a Space Force general to head the ambitious program aimed at blocking threats from China and Russia.

The program, first ordered by Trump in January, aims to create a network of satellites, perhaps numbering in the hundreds, to detect, track and potentially intercept incoming missiles.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, when asked about the project at a regular press conference yesterday, said it "undermines global stability" and heightens the risks of the militarisation of outer space and an arms race.

The Kremlin indicated that President Trump's missile shield plans could force the resumption in the foreseeable future of contacts between Moscow and Washington about nuclear arms control.

On Tuesday evening, Trump told a White House press conference that US Space Force General Michael Guetlein would be the lead program manager for an effort widely viewed as the keystone to Trump's military planning.

Golden Dome will "protect our homeland," Trump said, adding that Canada had said it wanted to be part of it.

In a statement, the office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he and his ministers were discussing a new security and economic relationship with their American counterparts.

"These discussions naturally include strengthening NORAD and related initiatives such as the Golden Dome," it added.​

Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ US missile defence plan faces major challenges
Agence France-Presse . Washington 22 May, 2025, 22:22

US president Donald Trump’s plan for a nationwide missile defence system — dubbed ‘Golden Dome’ — 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 against a wide array of enemy weapons — from intercontinental ballistic missiles to hypersonic and cruise missiles to drones — and he wants it ready in about three years, or as he nears the end of his second term in office.

Four months after Trump initially ordered the Pentagon to develop options for the system, however, little in the way of further details has emerged.

‘The main challenges will be cost, the defence industrial base, and political will. They can all be overcome, but it will take focus and prioritisation,’ said Melanie Marlowe, a nonresident senior associate in the Missile Defence Project at Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

‘The White House and Congress are going to have to agree on how much to spend and where the money will come from,’ Marlowe said, noting that ‘our defence industrial base has atrophied,’ though ‘we have begun to revive it.’

She 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.

That 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 ‘not realistic.’

‘The 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,’ he said.

Earlier this month, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office 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.

A system such as that envisaged by Trump ‘could require a more expansive space-based interceptor capability than the systems examined in the previous studies. Quantifying those recent changes will require further analysis,’ the CBO said.

The Golden Dome concept — and name — stem from Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system. But the United States’ missile threats differ significantly from the short-range weapons that Iron Dome is designed to counter.

Beijing is closing the gap with Washington when it comes to ballistic and hypersonic missile technology, while Moscow is modernising its intercontinental-range missile systems and developing advanced precision strike missiles, according to the Pentagon’s 2022 Missile Defence Review.

The document also said the threat of drones — which have played a key role in the Ukraine war — 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 ‘the threat is clearly getting worse,’ but the ‘key question is how to most cost effectively counter’ it.

‘Any questions of realism or feasibility’ for Golden Dome ‘depend 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,’ Ohlandt said.

Thomas Withington, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said ‘there 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.’

‘It is an incredibly expensive undertaking, even for the US defence budget. This is serious, serious money,’ Withington said.

‘I’m not holding my breath as to whether we will actually ever see this capability.’​