U.S. President Donald Trump claims to have completed greater than any of his predecessors in lower than a 12 months. However one of many largest proposals of Trump 2.0—the Golden Dome missile protection system—stays little greater than an idea almost 12 months after it was first unveiled. Though Trump has mentioned that Golden Dome shall be accomplished earlier than the tip of his second time period, that’s trying more and more unlikely. He has even tied in his pursuit of Greenland to the initiative, saying in his speech in Davos, Switzerland, this week that the Danish territory is the “land on which we’re going to construct the best Golden Dome ever constructed.”
There are numerous open questions as as to whether such a system is really price the associated fee, each by way of the funds it would take to construct and keep—with some estimates putting the associated fee as excessive as trillions of {dollars}—and its potential to gas a brand new arms race. Whereas some specialists agree that present U.S. missile protection capabilities are topic to vulnerabilities that might be exploited, in addition they have doubts about whether or not Golden Dome is really the answer.
At the moment, america has a number of missile protection methods, together with the Floor-Primarily based Midcourse Protection (GMD) system, designed to guard the U.S. homeland from intermediate- and long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles within the midcourse section of flight; the Aegis Ballistic Missile Protection (BMD) system, which is ground- and sea-based for protection in opposition to short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles within the midcourse section of flight; and the quickly deployable and cell Terminal Excessive Altitude Space Protection (THAAD) system, designed to protect in opposition to short- to medium-range ballistic missiles within the terminal section of flight.
However some specialists warn that newer applied sciences, resembling hypersonic missiles, drones, and superior cruise missiles, have launched harmful gaps in U.S. defenses at a time when high adversaries—suppose Russia, China, and North Korea—are increasing and modernizing their arsenals.
The U.S. Protection Division is working to handle these vulnerabilities with small, extra focused initiatives. However Trump desires a far bolder, extra complete answer. The president has mentioned that Golden Dome will finish the missile menace to the U.S. homeland “endlessly.”
Right here’s what it is advisable find out about Golden Dome, together with its function, anticipated capabilities, potential value, growth timeline, and potential dangers.
What’s Golden Dome, and what’s it meant to do?
Golden Dome can be a multilayered missile protection system able to thwarting a variety of aerial threats, however it will deal with destroying long-range missiles. In some ways, it’s about weaponizing area for the sake of protection however would additionally contain ground-, sea-, and air-based layers.
One would possibly characterize Golden Dome as a modernized, extra expansive model of the Strategic Protection Initiative—nicknamed “Star Wars”—proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1984. That mentioned, it’s price noting that that challenge by no means turned operational.
The Trump administration has described Golden Dome as a “next-generation missile protection protect.” And U.S. Area Drive Gen. Michael Guetlein, who’s main the initiative, in contrast it to being “on the magnitude of the Manhattan Challenge.” However the challenge’s scale could also be even larger.
Golden Dome is supposed to protect in opposition to mainly all the things—“aerial assaults from any foe,” as a Could 2025 press launch from the Protection Division put it. Its preliminary conception targeted totally on intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) launched by U.S. adversaries resembling Russia and China. ICBMs—superior long-range missiles designed to hold nuclear weapons that journey into area earlier than reentering Earth’s environment to strike targets—usually have a spread of greater than 3,400 miles.
However for the reason that White Home first introduced the initiative in late January 2025, the protection system’s proposed capabilities have expanded to incorporate a number of different potential threats, together with “cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, drones, whether or not they’re typical or nuclear,” U.S. Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth mentioned final Could.
U.S. Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth explains the “Golden Dome” missile protection system alongside President Donald Trump within the Oval Workplace on the White Home on Could 20, 2025.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos
That is a part of an effort to handle a change in trendy warfare from Chilly Battle-era nuclear fears to the sensible issues of drone expertise. The battle between Russia and Ukraine has notably proven the effectiveness of low-cost, disposable drones for all the things from reconnaissance to direct concentrating on. It’s estimated that roughly 70 % of the casualties for each side in that battle may be attributed to drones.
“We can’t transfer quick sufficient on this area,” Gen. James Mingus, vice chief of workers of the U.S. Military, mentioned final July, as many navy leaders and specialists have emphasised that america is behind the curve in the case of addressing the menace posed by short-range drones.
Though there are questions on how, exactly, Golden Dome will handle the threats posed by drones, the Pentagon is working to sort out the difficulty in different methods—with a notably robust focus on learn how to get the U.S. navy on top of things in countering the kinds of small, unmanned aerial autos which have change into the weapon of alternative on trendy battlefields. To do that, the Military is more and more focusing on drone coaching. Final August, the Pentagon established a brand new joint interagency activity drive to speed up the navy’s capabilities to counter small drones, in yet one more signal of how this difficulty has change into a precedence for the navy.
However the push for Golden Dome has additionally been catalyzed by issues over the worldwide race to supply hypersonic missiles, which journey at 5 instances the pace of sound (Mach 5) or sooner, making them exceptionally tough to intercept.
How will Golden Dome perform in idea?
Golden Dome would make use of a constellation of a whole bunch or even perhaps hundreds of satellites with sensors and interceptors to trace and destroy threats like hypersonic missiles, amongst different weapons methods.
The Trump administration has envisioned that the space-based system shall be able to intercepting missiles within the increase section, or the preliminary interval after launch that lasts as much as roughly 5 minutes. Missiles are straightforward to detect in the course of the increase section however tough to destroy as a result of doing so requires having interceptors within the neighborhood of the launch website. By deploying interceptor satellites in low Earth orbit, Golden Dome might theoretically present america with the capability to destroy enemy missiles within the increase section, or early on in flight.
The US’ present missile protection methods are targeted on taking out missiles within the midcourse section (when the missile coasts by way of area for as much as 20 minutes after its boosters have burned out, which is the longest section of a missile’s flight and a first-rate alternative for interception earlier than atmospheric reentry) and the terminal section (when the missile reenters Earth’s environment up till it hits its goal).
A ground-based interceptor missile takes off at Vandenberg Air Drive Base, in Santa Barbara County, California, on Could 30, 2017. Gene Blevins/AFP through Getty Photos
If an ICBM have been fired on the U.S. homeland right this moment, Washington’s main line of protection can be ground-based midcourse protection methods, which might intercept missiles whereas they’re nonetheless of their midcourse section. Nevertheless, solely 44 ground-based interceptors are operational as a part of the GMD system, which relies within the western U.S. states of California and Alaska. Though the GMD system is designed to guard all 50 states, it’s solely meant to protect in opposition to restricted assaults from adversaries resembling North Korea—not in opposition to the bigger, extra superior arsenals of Russia and China.
The Aegis BMD, although thought of extremely dependable, can also be not designed to take out ICBMs. It’s a extra regionally targeted protection system and isn’t meant to counter large-scale assaults or defend all the U.S. homeland.
Whereas america additionally has the THAAD and Patriot methods which are able to taking out missiles within the terminal section, that’s the least supreme time to destroy such threats on account of an array of challenges, together with a restricted period of time (it may be lower than a minute) and the proximity of a missile to its meant goal. These methods are additionally usually not designed to destroy ICBMs or longer-range missiles.
That is the place Golden Dome is available in. The proposed system would be capable to intercept missiles of various ranges from adversaries with extra technologically superior arsenals and through all flight phases—increase, midcourse, and terminal.
However, once more, this stays theoretical.
And there are vital hurdles to growing Golden Dome, beginning with the sheer variety of space-based interceptors wanted for it to perform.
“Should you’re coping with nuclear weapons, you’ve acquired to have such a excessive share intercept to essentially really feel such as you’re secure,” mentioned Michael O’Hanlon, a protection skilled on the Brookings Establishment. “You want a number of tiers. And the issue is that a number of tiers, a number of layers of protection, a lot of them may be spoofed or fooled or, you recognize, saturated by a significant energy.”
Which means all a U.S. adversary must do to overwhelm Golden Dome’s capabilities is to flood the system or use decoys. The US has not but developed the expertise to find out whether or not a warhead in area is a real menace or a deception.
How a lot will Golden Dome value?
Maybe the most important hurdle to growing Golden Dome is the associated fee. Trump has mentioned that the challenge will value roughly $175 billion, however the precise price ticket is estimated to be far increased.
Counting on space-based interceptors is an costly technique, as dozens of interceptors are wanted to take out only a single incoming projectile. “The absentee ratio is the true killer: the truth that most of those interceptors or lasers—as a result of they’re always orbiting given their altitude—will due to this fact not be in good place, and we’ll need to have, like, 10 up there for each one which’s in the fitting place,” O’Hanlon mentioned.
The common procurement unit value of only one interceptor in a constellation is estimated to be between $4.4 million and $8.9 million, in line with Todd Harrison, a senior fellow on the American Enterprise Institute. Which means if 1,900 interceptors are wanted for Golden Dome to offer steady world protection to counter a most of simply two missiles, then whole procurement would value between $8.6 billion to $17.2 billion. But when extra projectiles are launched (as a part of a flood-the-system technique, for instance), then extra interceptors shall be wanted—forcing the price of procurement to skyrocket. In response to an estimate from the Congressional Price range Workplace, even a restricted space-based interceptor system would value greater than $500 billion.
That’s not making an allowance for Golden Dome’s whole value, which is estimated to be between $252 billion and a whopping $3.6 trillion over 20 years, relying on which threats are prioritized and the place protection is offered.
To date, Congress has offered roughly $25 billion towards the Golden Dome initiative, which was additionally vaguely referenced within the 2026 Nationwide Protection Authorization Act however with out particular spending directives.
How lengthy will it take to develop Golden Dome?
In October 2025, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet mentioned the aerospace firm plans to check at the least one space-based anti-missile interceptor that’s a part of Golden Dome by 2028.
Golden Dome shouldn’t be characterised as a “system”—notably on condition that it doesn’t exist but—however slightly as an “initiative” that shall be rolled out in phases over a “variety of years,” mentioned Tom Karako, director of the Missile Protection Challenge and a senior fellow on the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research. Karako, who mentioned such an strategy to missile protection is lengthy overdue, described Golden Dome as an “accounting perform” and underscored that many particulars in regards to the initiative stay up within the air.
The Trump administration has a “idea of a plan,” mentioned Eric Edelman, a former U.S. undersecretary of protection for coverage. “In the event that they need to truly present leads to Trump’s time period, they’ll go after the low-hanging fruit,” resembling tackling present cruise missile vulnerabilities. “In any other case, they’re not gonna have a lot to point out for this in three years as a result of it’s gonna take for much longer,” he mentioned.
But the Protection Division stays optimistic. Golden Dome stays a “strategic crucial” for the Pentagon, a protection official instructed International Coverage in October 2025, including that extra data couldn’t be supplied because the company stored “operational safety high of thoughts.”
“We proceed doing our half to satisfy the President’s imaginative and prescient,” the official, who declined to offer touch upon the document, added.
FP reached out to the Pentagon a number of instances over the course of 2025 to ask for updates on Golden Dome’s growth however obtained no extra particulars.
Is Golden Dome much like Israel’s Iron Dome?
The Israeli Iron Dome missile protection system (left) intercepts rockets fired by Hamas, as seen within the sky above the Gaza Strip, on Could 14, 2021. Anas Baba/AFP through Getty Photos
Some protection specialists have pointed to Israel’s Iron Dome system as proof that Trump’s Golden Dome initiative is possible. However key variations make this an imperfect comparability.
For one, Israel is geographically a lot smaller than america, which means that it has much less territory it wants to guard; Israel is roughly the dimensions of the U.S. state of New Jersey. As well as, a lot of Israel’s adversaries, such because the Iranian proxy teams Hamas and Hezbollah, primarily launch low cost rockets with easy trajectories and small, typical payloads. To maintain prices down, the Iron Dome system permits rockets headed towards unpopulated areas, such because the Negev desert, to hit, as they don’t pose an actual menace to civilians. The US, in distinction, can be countering a number of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals that may seemingly be concentrating on huge city facilities. It could due to this fact not have the luxurious of letting strikes go.
“You’ve acquired to hit all the things,” Edelman mentioned. “That is the issue with leak-proof protection.”
Russia has greater than 5,400 nuclear warheads, and China has round 600 nuclear warheads, although it’s anticipated to have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035. The full variety of nuclear warheads in North Korea is unconfirmed, although the Federation of American Scientists believes that Pyongyang has upward of fifty stockpiled. (The US has roughly 5,225 nuclear warheads.)
Golden Dome is “not going to be a protecting drive area that may intercept the amount of missiles that both Russia or China has; the intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal sizes of each these states are too massive,” mentioned Stacie Pettyjohn, the director of the Middle for a New American Safety’s protection program. “It’s extra meant to be a protect that may intercept restricted strikes.”
What are the dangers of Golden Dome?
Nuclear succesful DF-31BJ ballistic missiles on transporters are seen as they’re unveiled throughout a navy parade in Beijing on Sept. 3, 2025. Kevin Frayer/Getty Photos
Moreover issues about effectiveness, many critics fear that Golden Dome will spark a worldwide arms race. “So, the concern right here is that [adversaries] have a look at [Golden Dome] and assume that the U.S. is planning to launch a primary strike on them, which causes them to construct up extra missiles and extra superior missiles to get across the protect,” Pettyjohn mentioned. “So no matter Golden Dome can take care of, they’re going to construct X plus that and a few new sorts that attempt to reap the benefits of a number of the weaknesses of the brand new system.”
That goes again to O’Hanlon’s concern of flooding the sector or utilizing decoys—a technique that america merely doesn’t have the expertise to counter but.
However some specialists contend that it’s signal that international adversaries usually are not joyful in regards to the Golden Dome initiative. “Missile defenses exist to contribute to deterrence. It’s a pace bump within the sky,” Karako mentioned. “Once we hear the Chinese language complain about it, that’s in all probability sign that we’re doing one thing productive.”
