WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 20: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office at the White House on May 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Trump announced his plans for the “Golden Dome,” a national ballistic and cruise missile defense system. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Early reviews agree that Kathryn Bigelow’s frightening, mesmerizing new film “House of Dynamite,” is a searing portrayal of the continuing danger of nuclear weapons. But even moreso, House of Dynamite is an indictment of the popular notion that high tech missile defense systems can save us from a nuclear attack. As an incoming missile is detected, one interceptor after another fails to intercept it, despite unfounded confidence in the control room and among senior officials. It takes a junior official to tell the assembled policy makers that missile defense tests have failed nearly half the time, which prompts one general to say “that’s what we spent $50 billion for?”
“House of Dynamite” is a fictional film, for sure, but when it comes to the latest missile defense scheme, Golden Dome, the truly fictional portrayals are coming from the White House, the Air Force, and the contractors that stand to profit from it.
President Trump has asserted that a leak proof system can be built in three years at a cost of $175 billion.
The theory behind Golden Dome is that the flawless system will be developed by adding some bells and whistles to current anti-missile technology. But these claims ignore 40 years of experience since President Reagan promised a perfect missile defense system in his 1983 “Star Wars” speech. Even back then, thousands of scientists signed a statement saying that the goal of a flawless system was physically impossible, and declared that they would refuse to work on the program.
In the tests of systems aimed at protecting against long-range ICBMs, roughly half have failed. Even more important, the tests that have been conducted are wildly unrealistic. No test has ever tried to intercept large numbers of incoming warheads hidden among decoys, a likely scenario in the event of an actual attack. As attractive as the idea of a leak proof defense is, it is not possible to develop a system that will work as advertised.
Pursuing the fool’s errand of a leak proof Golden Dome won’t just waste huge sums of our tax dollars. It could also accelerate the global nuclear arms race. Military planners deal in worst case scenarios, so there is a danger that they may develop their nuclear forces to deal with the possibility that the Golden Dome system might actually work. That would mean building more nuclear delivery vehicles that are more accurate and more evasive, including the possibility of going back to the days of multi-warhead missiles. In short, Golden Dome could spark an offense/defense arms race that would undermine the possibilities of placing safeguards regarding the development and use of nuclear weapons.
It’s a dangerous world, but contrary to the administration’s claims, pouring money into the Golden Dome is likely to make it more dangerous, not less. The only winners will be weapons contractors like Lockheed Martin, RTX, and Anduril – the old guard contractors and the Silicon Valley upstarts. The rest of us should be pressing to spend the money that will be wasted to meet urgent national needs, whether that means improving military training and building more relevant, resilient defense systems or investing in addressing non-traditional challenges like climate change and pandemics. We can’t afford to waste scarce tax dollars on an unworkable fantasy that could stoke a new nuclear arms race.