Few months ago, U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled plan to develop state-of-the-art multi-layer defense shield dubbed the “Golden Dome.” Lockheed Martin, the potential primary contractor of this project, has described it as a defense system that shields America from aerial threats, hypersonic missiles and drone swarms with unmatched speed and accuracy. Trump’s proposed Golden Dome, estimated to cost $175 billion USD, will comprise of four integrated layers, including three land-based missile and potentially laser interceptors and one space based sensing and targeting layer. For this purpose, U.S. plans to construct a new missile field in American Midwest to complement already present two fields in South California and Alaska. Tentatively, U.S. will be raising 11 missile-batteries across mainland.
Missile defense systems work by detecting, tracking, and intercepting an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in three distinct stages. The first stage is the boost phase in which missile gradually gains speed after launch, producing extreme heat signature due to ignition of booster and missile’s engine. At this stage missile is highly prone to detection and also, if feasible, to interception. The midcourse phase lasts longest and is most complex, with the missile traveling through space and releasing decoys, warhead(s), or glider(s) at this stage. The terminal phase is the final phase in which the warhead(s) re-enters the atmosphere at high speed towards its target. U.S. current missile defense system possesses the capability to detect and track missile at all stages but can undertake interception in mid-course and terminal phase only. The most ambitious—and politically controversial—layer is the boost phase, moments after launch, which requires weapons positioned in space. The Golden Dome will allow U.S. to ensure interception even in boost phase using space-based interceptors placed in low Earth orbit (LEO). And this is where the political, legal, and technical complications arise.
The idea of using outer-space as a medium for safeguarding U.S. from Soviet Union’s nuclear armed ICBMs is not a new concept. Back in 1983, President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), nicknamed “Star Wars,” was announced to intercept Soviet ICBMs in outer-space using land and sea based defenses and space-based interceptors. Under the umbrella of SDI, other specialized projects were also launched. For example, “Project Excalibur” envisaged employment of nuclear powered X-ray laser systems to disrupt and destroy the missiles using high precision laser beams. Similarly, another program, called “Brilliant Pebbles,” was also devised in 1987-88 which involved interception of ICBMs in boost phase by deploying constellation of thousands of small satellites dubbed as “pebbles.” Each satellite was planned to carry sensors, power arrays, and an infra-red interceptor missile to track and engage ICBM in boost phase. These projects, however, suffered challenges due to technological limitations and growing economic costs and were eventually cancelled in 1990s following dismantling of perceived threat from Soviet Union.
Technology has made significant strides in decades since. Advances in satellite deployment—demonstrated by Starlink’s satellites constellation—now make the idea feasible, though still enormously expensive. Today, system like the U.S. Space Force’s Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS), comprising of IR satellites, can detect heat signature of missile launches around the globe. Once detected, ground based systems like the Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) in Alaska track the missile’s trajectory, distinguish real warheads from decoys, and guide interceptors to their targets. The U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA), part of the U.S. Space Force, is already working on a project known as Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensors (HBTSS) that will utilize a network of LEO satellites to track both ballistic and hypersonic threats.
Similarly, next generation laser technologies, like Coherent Beam Combining (CBC) – which combines multiple fiber lasers into one powerful beam; now offer much superior efficiency and practicality than legacy chemical lasers designs. By developing miniaturized versions powered by hybrid source incorporating solar arrays and fuel cells, and supported by AI-based tracking systems, such intercepting satellites can be constructed in near-term future provided economic and political feasibility is there.
Beside space-based interceptors, traditional land and sea based interceptors will continue to play important role as low-medium layer of missile defense. At the lower and higher altitudes, land-based Patriot missile batteries and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system can provide protection against low-flying cruise missiles, drones, and ballistic missiles. Above that, the U.S. Navy’s Aegis-equipped destroyers and cruisers, along with their land-based equivalents, can target missiles in midcourse outside the atmosphere.
In addition to technological and budgetary challenges, Golden Dome is bound to cause global ramifications as far as strategic stability and balance of power is concerned. The space-based component is most controversial as it can be employed, at-least in concept, for offensive purposes making it a dual-use system. Although Outer Space Treaty bans employment of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in space but it does not forbid use of space for defensive (or even offensive) application using conventional weapons. But problem is, such space based defensive and offensive systems can undermine the deterrence stability which nullifies the likelihood of conflict eruption between global powers by making them mutually vulnerable to nuclear weapons. Golden Dome, in concept, will be able to intercept all types of ICBMs as well as submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) around the globe thus diminishing the concept of assured retaliatory capability. It will incentivize first strike, deepen use-it or lose-it dilemma, trigger space-arms race, and will undermine concepts like crisis stability and deterrence stability, which have kept the global peace in fragile balance since World War II.
Beside aforementioned challenges, the efficiency of Golden Dome – particularly space-based interceptors, will remain a major concern against saturation attacks and emerging offensive technologies. China and Russia, both already possessing potent ASAT weapons, have already warned that initiative like Golden Dome have “offensive implications” and could justify their own space-based weapons programs, and henceforth triggering space arms race. As technologies will evolve, corresponding developments in stealth aircrafts, drones, hypersonic gliders, and missile systems will also take place. Beside traditional missile based anti-satellite weapons (ASAT), cyber, electronic, and directed energy threats to key components and communication nodes of Golden Dome cannot be ruled out at all.
The future of the Golden Dome remains uncertain. It aims to offer global coverage, therefore the scale, complexity, finances, and technological requirements are exponentially larger. Even if fully funded, its development will likely take decades, evolving alongside the threats it intends to counter. Meanwhile, the U.S. will continue to integrate and upgrade its existing systems, enhance coordination between air, land, sea, and space-based assets, and weigh the strategic risks of expanding missile defense into space. In parallel, its primer adversaries will expand and accelerate their space programs as a balancing measure. The Golden Dome is therefore more than a military project. It’s likely to initiate a new era of power politics where traditional concepts and legacy systems will no longer determine the functionality of global order.
Author: Ahmad Ibrahim is Research Associate at Maritime Center of Excellence (MCE), Pakistan Navy War College (PNWC), Lahore.
