Trump and Hegseth unveil $175 billion plans for Golden Dome missile shield

[F-22Raptor]

President Trump on Tuesday touted $25 billion in initial funding for the "Golden Dome" and put Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein in charge of realizing the hemispheric missile shield.

The big picture: Golden Dome — previously dubbed Iron Dome, but separate from Israel's missile defense program — is a mammoth undertaking with enthusiastic backing from the president but many doubters in the national security community.

• Trump said the project will cost around $175 billion and be built over the next three years, though those are both just estimates. The initial $25 billion will be included in the "big beautiful bill" working its way through Congress, Trump said.
• Planning, building, operating and maintaining the Golden Dome, as well as paying for it, will require intense coordination between the Pentagon, Congress, current and future presidents, defense contractors and troops. Trump said Canada also expressed interest in being covered by the shield but would have to "pay their fair share."
• Analysts have expressed doubts about the plausibility — and immense costs — of replicating Israel's air defense capabilities at a continental scale. Trump, however, remains bullish.

The latest: Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed the envisioned countermeasures during a televised Oval Office meeting.

• They said the missile shield will be designed to block hypersonic missiles, ICBMs and other projectiles, including nuclear weapons, whether they are launched from the earth's surface or from space.
• Trump said President Reagan had wanted to build something similar during the Cold War "but they didn't have the technology." Now, he said, the U.S. has "super technology."
• "This is very important for the success and even survival of our country. It's a pretty evil world out there," Trump said.

How it works: At the heart of Golden Dome is a mesh of sensors and spotters and space-based interceptors.

Zoom out: Defense companies have been jockeying for position since Trump signed an executive order in January to pursue it.

• Lockheed Martin pitched its F-35 stealth fighter, Sentinel A4 radars, command-and-control networks and more as components. Chief operating officer Frank St. John told Axios the project will "require the best of every technology company."
• Booz Allen Hamilton unveiled Brilliant Swarms, a nod to the Reagan-era Brilliant Pebbles. It envisions masses of satellites capable of detecting and smashing into missiles. "The longer you wait to kill an enemy ballistic missile, the harder your problem gets," executive vice president Chris Bogdan told Axios.
• Meanwhile, Anduril Industries, Palantir Technologies and SpaceX were collaborating on dome-related plans, according to Reuters.

 

[F-22Raptor]

MDA unveils $151 billion SHIELD plan to advance Golden Dome​

The Missile Defense Agency has unveiled plans for a contract vehicle that could reshape the future of U.S. missile defense, outlining a $151 billion procurement framework to field next-generation capabilities across nearly every dimension of the enterprise. The effort, known as Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD), will be structured as a 10-year, multiple-award, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract, supporting a vast range of research, development, testing, integration, production and sustainment activities. On May 21, MDA published a pre-solicitation...

MDA unveils $151 billion SHIELD plan to advance Golden Dome | InsideDefense.com

The Missile Defense Agency has unveiled plans for a contract vehicle that could reshape the future of U.S. missile defense, outlining a $151 billion procurement framework to field next-generation capabilities across nearly every dimension of the enterprise.

insidedefense.com

 

[52051]

100% success rate, cost only $175billion, and ready in 3 years?

I am sure they are talking about a missile defense system in China.

 

[Vox Non Dei]

President Trump on Tuesday touted $25 billion in initial funding for the "Golden Dome" and put Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein in charge of realizing the hemispheric missile shield.

The big picture: Golden Dome — previously dubbed Iron Dome, but separate from Israel's missile defense program — is a mammoth undertaking with enthusiastic backing from the president but many doubters in the national security community.

• Trump said the project will cost around $175 billion and be built over the next three years, though those are both just estimates. The initial $25 billion will be included in the "big beautiful bill" working its way through Congress, Trump said.
• Planning, building, operating and maintaining the Golden Dome, as well as paying for it, will require intense coordination between the Pentagon, Congress, current and future presidents, defense contractors and troops. Trump said Canada also expressed interest in being covered by the shield but would have to "pay their fair share."
• Analysts have expressed doubts about the plausibility — and immense costs — of replicating Israel's air defense capabilities at a continental scale. Trump, however, remains bullish.

The latest: Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed the envisioned countermeasures during a televised Oval Office meeting.

• They said the missile shield will be designed to block hypersonic missiles, ICBMs and other projectiles, including nuclear weapons, whether they are launched from the earth's surface or from space.
• Trump said President Reagan had wanted to build something similar during the Cold War "but they didn't have the technology." Now, he said, the U.S. has "super technology."
• "This is very important for the success and even survival of our country. It's a pretty evil world out there," Trump said.

How it works: At the heart of Golden Dome is a mesh of sensors and spotters and space-based interceptors.

Zoom out: Defense companies have been jockeying for position since Trump signed an executive order in January to pursue it.

• Lockheed Martin pitched its F-35 stealth fighter, Sentinel A4 radars, command-and-control networks and more as components. Chief operating officer Frank St. John told Axios the project will "require the best of every technology company."
• Booz Allen Hamilton unveiled Brilliant Swarms, a nod to the Reagan-era Brilliant Pebbles. It envisions masses of satellites capable of detecting and smashing into missiles. "The longer you wait to kill an enemy ballistic missile, the harder your problem gets," executive vice president Chris Bogdan told Axios.
• Meanwhile, Anduril Industries, Palantir Technologies and SpaceX were collaborating on dome-related plans, according to Reuters.

Starwars.... once again.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

China is waiting to reciprocally reply the Golden Dome with something much more powerful, and it is already ready.

This is a set up by China.

 

[SaadH]

In the end it will actually cost $1.7 trillion, will be five years delayed and useless against most future missile types.

 

[gambit]

Starwars.... once again.

And 'Star Wars' scared the shid out of the Soviet Union.

 

[Vox Non Dei]

And 'Star Wars' scared the shid out of the Soviet Union.

Well, it was a reaction of "making missiles like sausages". Ultimately, sausages turned out to be false. Wonder what kind of game China is playing.

 

[gambit]

Well, it was a reaction of "making missiles like sausages". Ultimately, sausages turned out to be false. Wonder what kind of game China is playing.

The issue is less about what China is doing but about what can we do.

Here is the deal...

If you can intercept %50 of the projectiles launched at you, that is not a problem for you but a problem for the other guy.

Same with misses. If the other guy misses you %50 of the time, that is more a problem for him than it is for you.

But whether you intercept or he misses, a %50 success rate is not a good reason to engage in a war. That is what happened in the Cold War.

 

[Vox Non Dei]

The issue is less about what China is doing but about what can we do.

Here is the deal...

If you can intercept %50 of the projectiles launched at you, that is not a problem for you but a problem for the other guy.

Same with misses. If the other guy misses you %50 of the time, that is more a problem for him than it is for you.

But whether you intercept or he misses, a %50 success rate is not a good reason to engage in a war. That is what happened in the Cold War.

I question the rationale of this kind of defense. US has ZERO threat of conventional missiles. Because coming close enough to USA for a conventional strike is pretty hard.

So it comes down to a strategic threat. That threat is not easily going away no matter the dollars you throw at it because defense has to succeed almost all the times and even few failures are fatal.

Ultimately, it will become a problem of scale. Who can scale faster, better and cheaper. Defender or attacker. The one who can overwhelm the capacity of other to defend or attack will win. And game is almost always in attacker's favor.

But that said, this initiative, like last one will fund lots of research and breakthrough so I am fine with it. Let American tax-payers pay for breakthroughs. Rest of the world will just copy that.

 

[gambit]

I question the rationale of this kind of defense. US has ZERO threat of conventional missiles. Because coming close enough to USA for a conventional strike is pretty hard.

If you are going to invest in a missile program to attack a target on the other side of the world, aka interCONTINENTAL ballistic missile (ICBM), why would you want to make it conventional?

W80 (nuclear warhead) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The W80 is physically quite small: the physics package itself is about the size of a conventional Mk.81 250-pound (110 kg) bomb, 11.8 inches (30 cm) in diameter and 31.4 inches (80 cm) long, and only slightly heavier at about 290 pounds (130 kg).​

So it comes down to a strategic threat. That threat is not easily going away no matter the dollars you throw at it because defense has to succeed almost all the times and even few failures are fatal.

Let us say we have these critical targets:

1- Army HQ
2- Hospital
3- Fuel depot

But also there are:

4- Parking lot
5- Farm
6- Shopping mall

For any missile, there are 6 possible targets. But we know there are 3 PROBABLE targets: 1 2 and 3.

So should I deploy 6 defenders, one for each where each defense has only one chance of success?

Or should I deploy 6 defenders for the 3 probables where each defense has 2 chances of success? How about more than 6 defenders?

That was SDI then, and now. And that was why the Soviets got nervous.

Israel adopted the idea of SELECTIVE defense from SDI and created Iron Dome where each attacker is calculated to its final ground destination and launch the best interceptor. The system is not perfect. Nothing is. But combat proven successfully enough to copy.

 

[Davey Crockett]

Starwars.... once again.

Need to keep the Military Industrial Complex humming away.

American Big Business, Wall Street and the Banksters.

Major-General Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a United States Marine Corps officer and writer. During his 34-year military career, he fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, World War I, and the Banana Wars. At the time of his death, Butler was the most decorated Marine in U.S. military history. By the end of his career, Butler had received sixteen medals, including five for heroism; he is the only Marine to be awarded the Marine Corps Brevet Medal as well as two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.