The 'Golden Dome' missile defense shield: a Herculean and uncertain project

The "Golden Dome," a missile defense shield desired by Donald Trump to secure American territory, is a Herculean project both technologically and financially, likely to disrupt the strategic balance with China and Russia, analysts agree.

For this project, which evokes a steroid-enhanced version of Israel’s Iron Dome, the American president says he wants to equip the United States with an operational system by the end of his term, which he estimates will cost $175 billion. “Unrealistic” within such a short timeframe given the significant challenges involved, objects Thomas Withington, associate researcher at the Royal United Services Institute.

Carrying it out will require a mobilization “on the scale of the Manhattan Project,” which gave birth to the atomic bomb, according to General Michael Guetlein, deputy head of the U.S. Space Force and appointed leader of the Golden Dome project.

To protect against the threat of ballistic or cruise missiles, the United States is not without means: advanced early warning radars, 44 Ground-Based Interceptors (GBI) installed in California and Alaska, 38 ships equipped with missile defense capabilities, as well as Patriot and THAAD surface-to-air missile batteries, according to the Pentagon. “We have combat-proven systems ready to be deployed today to lay the foundations of the Golden Dome,” Tom LaLiberty, president of Raytheon’s air defense systems, told AFP. Raytheon is also developing “vehicles capable of destroying ballistic missiles in space.” Like the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or “Star Wars” program launched by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, the Golden Dome aims to place interceptor satellites in space.

'Enormous constellation'

“The best time to defend against an intercontinental ballistic missile launch is during its initial propulsion phase” of a few tens of seconds, explains Thomas Roberts, professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “The general concept is that if you had a huge constellation of interceptors permanently orbiting, they could be easily de-orbited to strike an intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM]” he adds. Because it is necessary to ensure that there is always an interceptor satellite near the launch site to destroy the missile.

According to calculations by Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute, about 950 interceptors in orbit are needed to guarantee that at least one is always within range to intercept a missile during its propulsion phase. “If an adversary launches ten missiles in rapid succession, about 9,500 interceptors would be needed in space to guarantee that at least ten are in range to intercept all the missiles,” he writes, recalling that China has 350 ICBMs and Russia 306, not counting missiles launched from their submarines.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan U.S. congressional agency, to simply counter “one or two intercontinental ballistic missiles,” a constellation of nearly 2,000 satellites would be required at a cost between $161 billion and $542 billion. Claiming a foolproof shield against a massive attack therefore seems unrealistic and prohibitively expensive.

Todd Harrison believes this would require giving up other military programs and warns that the “Golden Dome could become the emblematic example of waste and inefficiency in defense.” To avoid debris caused by collisions with missiles, Washington also plans to develop satellites equipped with lasers.

'Deeply destabilizing'

They would need to be very powerful and “today, in terms of technology, that is still beyond what even the Americans are capable of,” says a European industry expert.

According to him, “the Golden Dome is simply an excellent way to funnel considerable funding to the American industry to continue expanding their technological lead without necessarily aiming for an actual operational deployment.” Despite the technical difficulties, the project remains “deeply destabilizing,” Beijing and Moscow warned jointly in a statement. “Far from strengthening U.S. national security, the initiative risks exacerbating global instability, accelerating strategic competition, and triggering a dangerous global arms race,” says Julia Cournoyer from the British think tank Chatham House.

The objective might lie elsewhere. “It is possible that the Trump administration hopes this will bring China and Russia to the negotiating table to discuss reducing nuclear arsenals or revitalizing arms control,” says Thomas Withington. This view is shared by Todd Harrison: “Just as President Reagan used the SDI program as leverage in negotiations with the Soviet Union, President Trump might have a similar strategy in mind for the Golden Dome.”

Le bouclier antimissiles « Dôme d'or », projet herculéen et incertain