My vote is looking more spectacular every day.
The Department of Defense has selected a design for President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative, Trump announced on May 20.
“I’m pleased to announce that we have officially selected an architecture for this state-of-the-art system that will deploy next-generation technologies across the land, sea, and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
In his first week in office, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Defense to devise a plan to implement his missile defense proposal.
When Israel got their “Iron Dome” I wondered why we didn’t do the same thing for ourselves. We helped them develop it, so why wouldn’t we apply that technology at home? This goes back to President Ronald Reagan’s SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) that critics called “Star Wars.”
The technology just wasn’t ready at the time, but now it is.
Canada may also partner with the United States to help develop the improved missile defense shield, the president said.
“Canada wants to be a part of it, which would be a fairly small expansion, but we’ll work with them on pricing,” he said.
Canada’s like the kid who pretends not to be impressed by, but also secretly wants to be like, his older brother. #MeToo
In addition to new and improved space-based sensors and interceptors, Trump’s January executive order called for the Department of Defense to consider non-kinetic missile interception technologies such as lasers.
The order also tasked the department with examining methods and technologies for intercepting missile threats before they can launch, or in their initial boost phase.
Trump vowed that the $175 billion missile defense program would allow the United States to effectively counter advanced cruise missiles and hypersonic ballistic missiles.
“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they’re launched from space. And we will have the best system ever built,” the president said.
I balk slightly at the $175 billion price tag because we still have mountains of debt that we need to get rid of. We also know that initial estimates can quickly double or triple when it comes to government spending.
On balance, however, I approve this effort. Global technology and improved weapon systems are outpacing our current level of countermeasures. We need to defend against Russian and Chinese ballistic missiles, not to mention drone swarms and hypersonic missiles.
Trump placed Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein in charge of the project.
Guetlein indicated the Golden Dome is necessary to preserve the safety, security and the quality of life Americans are used to.
“We owe it to our children and our children’s children to protect them and afford them a quality of life that we have all grown up enjoying. Golden dome will afford that,” said Guetlein.
The general said “our adversaries have become very capable and very intent on holding the homeland at risk.”
“While we have been focused on keeping the peace overseas, our adversaries have been quickly modernizing their nuclear forces, building up ballistic missiles capable of hosting multiple warheads, building out hypersonic missiles capable of attacking the United States within an hour and traveling at 6,000 miles an hour, building cruise missiles that can navigate around our radar and our defenses, building submarines that can sneak up on our shores and, worse yet, building space weapons,” Guetlein said.
“It is time that we change that equation and start doubling down on the protection of the homeland.”
Trump’s “Golden Dome” (Trump has a thing for gold, doesn’t he?) is expected to be partially operational by the end of his term. That would be amazing for a government project.