Last week, China claimed it’s fielding its own Golden Dome prototype and has advanced ahead of America’s Golden Dome program. Perhaps it has. As it is, the Pentagon has yet to clarify precisely what the Golden Dome for America is designed to do, how it will work, or what its strategic impact might be.
Last month, NPEC held a workshop, “The Golden Dome: What’s Its Story?” to examine these questions.
Participants included Pete Worden, a former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center who served in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) Office during the Reagan years; James Graham Wilson, an official Cold War historian with the State Department; Brian Chow, a former RAND space policy analyst; Pete Hays, a military space analyst and former advisor to the Secretary of the Air Force; Peter Garretson, a former Air War University space wargame designer; Matt Daniels, former senior advisor at DoD and engineer at NASA; and Bryan Clark, Hudson’s senior director for the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology. Their insights are captured in the slim volume, The Golden Dome: What’s Its Story?, and today’s NPEC SpaceNews op-ed (both below).
The group agreed that the Pentagon might be able to lock down the Golden Dome for America without any narrative or explanation by simply lofting a relatively small constellation of space-based missile interceptors before 2029. There was just as much agreement, though, that the program might run over budget and fall behind schedule. In this case, the group thought a narrative clarifying what the program’s aims and strategic implications were could be essential.
Any such rationale would need to address several questions: What if anything can be learned from SDI’s history that might be relevant to the Golden Dome? How much of Golden Dome’s architecture can the Pentagon realistically build with $175B in 40 months? How essential is any narrative if the Pentagon can launch a limited, working system before 2029? Would getting NATO on board strengthen the dome and reduce its overall cost, or just the opposite?
These and other key questions are fleshed out in the small volume and the attached op-ed. The hope is that they might help shape the Golden Dome debate.
As always, I’m curious to get your take.
As Ever,
Henry S.
For the full PDF version, click here.
For a physical copy of the book, click here.
To read the SpaceNews article, click here.
Golden Dome: What’s Its Story?
Edited by Henry Sokolski
October 2025
In less than forty months, President Trump’s presidency will end. The question is, will his signature project—The Golden Dome—survive? This slim volume is designed not so much to provide the answer, as to clarify what must be addressed to secure it.
The conventional and somewhat cynical wisdom in Washington is that the president can lock in the Dome if the Space Force can loft a “working” space-based interceptor constellation before President Trump leaves office.
Under this scenario, outlined by Peter Garretson, a former space strategist, deeds will speak louder than words. He recommends that America launch a constellation of at least fifty space-based interceptors and demonstrate its capability as soon as possible. Mr. Garretson warns that getting this done before the end of Trump’s presidency won’t be easy. If it can’t be done, the Golden Dome might be politically at risk.
This recommends hedging with a second approach—creating a narrative that could garner long-term, bipartisan support. This has not yet been done. Some fear the Golden Dome has already been made far too parochial.
What might help is to characterize the project’s mission as something larger than just putting a protective “bubble” over America. So far, the President has portrayed extending the Golden Dome’s protection as a transactional proposition. He’s demanded Canada pay $71 billion to participate. Other U.S. friends and allies could also be “customers” who could buy access to Golden Dome services and ground-based systems. This cash-and-carry approach feeds a fortress American gestalt. It makes “globalist” Democrats uncomfortable.
Then, there is what the Golden Dome system might defend. Some supporters argue that its prime mission, initially, should be to protect U.S. offensive nuclear forces and silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). While this mission is legitimate, its narrowness and truculence compares poorly against Reagan’s magnanimous Strategic Defense Initiative rationale.
James Graham Wilson, an official State Department historian, explains how for Reagan, the key mission of space-based missile interceptors was to protect people and make the elimination of “nuclear missiles” possible. Reagan hoped to share the security benefits of such defenses with all nations—even our adversaries. Reagan, George Schultz, and Fred Ikle all backed eliminating ballistic missiles. This was the rationale behind the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and Reagan’s Reykjavik proposals. Reagan promoted the Strategic Defense Initiative to support an optimistic, happy-ending vision.
In contrast, Trump’s Golden Dome pitch is akin to his tariff strategy – a pay-to-play, zero-sum proposition. This could cause problems. Can the Dome properly function without Canadian and Mexican cooperation? Aren’t both needed to site warning radars to protect the lower 48 and Alaska?
Beyond this, don’t we want our allies to stay under our protection and on our side? Whatever the Dome’s marketing is, at the very least, shouldn’t it avoid spooking our allies to go their own way or nuclear?
As already noted, Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative pitch was benignant. Might the Trump administration devise a similarly positive narrative for the Golden Dome? What of transitioning the world away from relying on nuclear missile threats for security towards a world predominantly protected with active, nonnuclear air and missile defenses? Could this deemphasize offensive nuclear force spending (e.g., reducing the Sentinel buy). Could this increase Democratic support of the Golden Dome?
Another question Matt Daniels raises is should the Golden Dome be used as an anti-satellite system? If the system can defeat ballistic missiles as they’re launched from their pads, he notes, it can easily be re-oriented to shoot at objects in space or military targets on Earth. As such, the Dome raises the question of what space superiority and strategic deterrence will consist of. Mr. Daniels notes the system will produce new forms of space rivalry that could easily eclipse the nuclear missile contests the major powers currently are engaged in.
What might Russia and China do to counter an American Golden Dome system? Would they pre-deploy nuclear weapons in space? Would it be necessary to demand pre-launch inspections to prevent this prospect? What would the United States and its allies be prepared to do if China and
Russia blocked such inspections? Might the United States and its allies attempt a space blockade against Moscow and Beijing? What would this entail?
Then there is a question of using space-based interceptors to hit terrestrial targets other than missiles. If the Dome is used in this fashion, how might it change not only U.S. force structure, but the military balances against peer competitors? What new forms of competitive strategies might the Dome set in motion? How might these strategies be impacted if many more nations acquire nuclear missiles of their own? Will there be more catalytic wars (a.k.a. nuclear Sarajevos)?
Viewed through the lens of these questions, the Dome, then, is not just another military system, but potentially is a gamechanger. At a minimum, Bryan Clark and I argue that the Pentagon and our allies will have to rethink what the proper balance should be between missile offenses and missile defenses and offensive and defensive systems generally.
As for our NATO allies, the administration has assumed they should pay for any defense the Dome might afford them. What if this gets things backwards? Brian Chow argues NATO collaboration could make the Golden Dome stronger, its deployment quicker, and its price tag lower. If he’s right, the Pentagon should welcome NATO participation rather than demand a fee.
Finally, the Golden Dome might provide what’s been missing in U.S. arms control diplomacy now for at least a decade—leverage. Should Washington offer to forgo using the Golden Dome to shoot at Russian and Chinese ground targets unrelated to missiles or satellites? What should it ask for in exchange? Is it simply wishful or delusional to believe one could effectively verify space agreements?
Currently, there is no Golden Dome narrative raising or answering these questions. It’s hoped that this slim volume might help spark and shape this needed discussion.
To read the full book, click here. To read the SpaceNews piece, click here. To purchase a hard copy, click here.