Golden Dome faces challenges of size, scope and scale from every angle

The announcement of the Golden Dome missile defense system to protect the United States from missile attacks represented a major shift in defense priorities for the US military — and presents myriad challenges when trying to protect a country the size of the US. 

The model is Israel’s Iron Dome, but that system covers a relatively small area and mostly protects against traditional ballistic missile attacks. Golden Dome will cover a much larger area, and must be able to counter intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles. All of those requirements add complexity, engineering challenges and cost considerations.

The US has announced $175 billion to fund the program, and has placed it under the control of Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein. Guetlein will have oversight and acquisition authority for Golden Dome, which signals a different approach than the norm, says John Plumb, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy.

“Not just a new initiative and a system, but also new acquisition authorities vested in the new position that Gen. Guetlein’s now in, which is interesting, and signals an intent to move faster than normal acquisition processes,” Plumb said as part of a recent Breaking Defense roundtable discussion on Golden Dome.

Creating this nationwide shield will require overcoming a number of engineering and technical obstacles, as well as the potential response from Russia and China to what they may view as destabilizing technology.

The technical challenges of Golden Dome

ICBM defense, which is what the US has traditionally focused on, is a relatively straightforward problem. ICBM launches can be detected and flight paths can be tracked, and those flight paths are fixed.

But Golden Dome will have to meet other challenges. Cruise missiles can take unpredictable flight paths and even loiter over targets, and hypersonic missiles offer speed and flexibility in maneuvering that makes them much harder to identify, track and intercept.

That challenge is defined as the “absentee ratio,” which is the number of interceptors needed to ensure that one is always available to strike a target. That ratio becomes more complex to figure out as new capabilities make targets harder to track, says Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at CSIS.

“The biggest problem is the absentee ratio, at least in terms of the Brilliant Pebble kind of architectures,” says Karako. “Most of your space-based interceptors, especially if they’re in a stable orbit of 300, 400 kilometers, or potentially higher, they’re out of range, right? Their divert cone to be able to deorbit quickly and get that (ICBM) that’s rising is very limited.

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“There’s many, many interceptors that are not able to get there. The fact that you can group your shots with a next generation interceptor, NGI, or a GBI (ground-based interceptor), is one of the reasons we’ve gone that way, against the limited, rogue threats that we’ve got.”

For cruise missiles, the flexibility in their launch platforms makes them harder to combat. Cruise missiles can be launched from aircraft or submarines, and do not have to follow a fixed flight plan. A missile launched from an aircraft or a submarine can be on target faster than an ICBM, and can fly low enough to escape detection by many radar systems.

“It has nothing to do with a high-powered ICBM boosting out of a landmass on the other side of the Pacific,” said Plumb. “Helping solve that problem, putting more pressure on the adversary, terribly fascinating. But that does not exist in any real way right now, outside of point defense with Patriots, for example.”

To combat these new threats, Golden Dome will require an extensive detection and tracking infrastructure, with space-based surveillance being a critical component to detect and track launches from anywhere. Satellites will play a major role in surveillance, but they cannot hover in one place, so the movement of both satellites and the Earth will affect surveillance.

In low-Earth orbit, a satellite is moving at roughly 7.8 kilometers per second, which is fast enough to orbit the Earth in about two hours. But when the satellite completes an orbit, the Earth’s rotation means that the satellite is not over the same spot that it was when it started its orbit.

“Let’s say you want coverage over the Korean Peninsula. (For) North Korea, you know where there’s a rough launch site and you say, ‘I’m going to cover this,’” said Plumb. “How many satellites do you need to have? Something is there, it’s basically overhead for about six minutes. The number goes up exponentially in order to cover that one location, to say nothing of the math, of trying to hit something coming up [over] the top.”

Building the surveillance infrastructure will create cost and logistical challenges, including replacing satellites on a regular basis to provide the necessary coverage.

“If the satellites the commercial industry is developing are good for 5 to 10 years, and you want a 20-year life cycle, you’re going to replace them two to four times,” says Plumb. “That all costs.”

How Russia and China will respond

Any major military initiative will be watched closely by Russia and China, and those countries will – if they are not already – develop ways to respond. They will likely view Golden Dome as potentially destabilizing, and that potentially creates a new arms race.

“It wasn’t that many years ago when Russia was saying that a single Patriot launcher in Poland with no missiles on it was provocative and destabilizing,” said Karako.

Golden Dome could be viewed as a way around the idea of mutually assured destruction, which is a delicate balance between nuclear powers. If Russia and China feel that card is off the table, they may begin exploring ways – not necessarily nuclear – to create an advantage in the event of a major conflict that allows them to circumvent Golden Dome’s capabilities. Those strategies may be kinetic – e.g., attacking satellites in space – or they may be cyber and electronic warfare driven, such as trying to disrupt communications or surveillance capability.

Ultimately, building Golden Dome will likely lead to both diplomatic and military responses as Russia and China try to keep pace with what the US hopes to achieve.

“If China and Russia are not a little bit irritated by what we’re doing on Golden Dome,” said Karako, “I’m going to be very disappointed, because that means that we’re not doing enough of the right things to counter the actual threats and to impose costs.”