Beltway bloat could doom Trump's Golden Dome
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President Trump, a Golden Dome graphic and the Oval Office. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Intercepting missiles — hitting a bullet with a bullet — is difficult. Overcoming bureaucracy may be even harder.
The big picture: President Trump's Golden Dome, a continent's worth of 24/7 overhead defense, will be a jigsaw puzzle of ideas, authorities, personalities, contractors, procurements, production lines, users, fixers, technological leaps and diplomacy.
- Realizing even the most basic form in three years, as the president and Pentagon promised, will require intense coordination.
- Getting it done fast means resisting Washington's greatest vice: new offices, task forces, branches, blue-chip studies and advisers.
Driving the news: Axios consulted a half-dozen analysts, businesspeople and former defense officials and tuned into some timely think-tank discussions to get a temperature check.
- Simply put, Golden Dome is polarizing. (And that's without asking what the Chinese or Russians think of it.)
The latest: "I think there's been a lot of discussion about the capability ... and there's been little discussion about the organization and the authorities to get stuff done," Tom Karako, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview.
- "We don't need to re-create the wheel."
State of play: Trump this month gave the world its best look yet at Golden (née Iron) Dome during an Oval Office address. He was accompanied by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a handful of lawmakers.
- The president tapped Gen. Michael Guetlein, the vice chief of space operations, as his lead. Folks Axios spoke with applauded that choice.
- Trump, who mentioned "super technology," also slapped on a $175 billion price tag. That's low, considering the costs of space-based interceptors at the heart of the concept.
- He also described Alaska as a key contributor to the vision. A Boeing-led team recently finished building 20 new silos for the homeland missile defense system at Fort Greely, Defense News reported.
What they're saying: "There was a rollout, but there was almost no information," Laura Grego, a senior research director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Axios.
- "I think the way most people are starting to use 'Golden Dome' is synonymous with space-based missile defense. But the executive order covered every missile from every adverse area every time," she said.
- "I can hardly imagine potential adversaries just sitting still, not developing the ways to counter such a system."
Yes, but: The defense industry is raring to go.
- Jordan Blashek, a managing partner at America's Frontier Fund, told Axios "breakthrough technologies have now made something like Golden Dome possible, fulfilling the Reagan administration's vision" for the Strategic Defense Initiative.
- Trump cited Reagan several times in his Oval Office remarks.
Case in point: Apex, a satellite bus maker, is "heavily investing in internal research and development funding for this, as are our partners," CEO Ian Cinnamon said in an inteview. (The company recently announced a $200 million Series C.)
- Cinnamon foresees different methods for different threats: intercontinental ballistic missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles, fractional orbital bombardment systems.
- "There are so many pieces ... and they all need to talk," he said. "They all need to listen. They all need to be able to do that within milliseconds."
What we're watching: Where political deadlines clash with technical readiness.
- How much of what will be called Golden Dome in 2028 already exists today?
