America's 'Golden Dome' Explained

This transcript is from a CSIS event hosted on June 4, 2025. Watch the full video here.

Heather Willliams: On May 20th, 2025, President Donald Trump held an Oval Office press conference to elaborate on his administration’s vision for the Golden Dome Initiative, originally unveiled in an executive order issued on January 27th.

President Donald Trump: (From video.) Today, 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.

Dr. Williams: President Trump announced an ambitious timeline for the completion of the initiative, stating that Golden Dome would be fully operational before the end of his term in 2029. The total projected cost of the initiative is estimated to be $75 billion. An initial $25 billion down payment for the initiative was included in the reconciliation bill. U.S. Space Force General Michael Guetlein was tapped to lead the Golden Dome efforts and will serve as the direct report program manager. The United States nuclear armed adversaries – Russia, China and North Korea – have all made comments warning that the Golden Dome would disrupt strategic stability and might spark a dangerous arms race.

What can the administration execute on this ambitious timeline? What are the ingredients for success and potential roadblocks ahead? I’m Heather Williams, director of the Project on Nuclear Issues here at CSIS. And here to unpack these questions I am joined today by Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project; and Kari Bingen, director of the Aerospace Security Project. We will take audience questions, so please submit those via the homepage.

So, Tom, let’s start at the very beginning here. There’s still a lot that we don’t know. The biggest question that I’m hearing, I suspect you are also hearing, is the feasibility question here. The reconciliation bill earmarks $25 billion for Golden Dome. Trump expects it to cost 175 billion (dollars) over approximately three years. So how feasible do you think this is on that three-year timeline, taking into account technical constraints but also political ones, and some of the budgetary pressures?

Tom Karako: Yeah. So a couple of things. Thanks, Heather.

I think, first of all, let me just start with the threat. We saw in the past week a very impressive intelligence operation and a UAV attack by Ukraine, Operation Spider Web, hitting a bunch of Russian bombers. Of course, couldn’t happen to a nicer set of folks, but it really showed – and I think it sparked some imagination for what innovative and highly proliferated aerial attack is capable of. And it affects strategic stability and lots of other things. I’ll say as well that the Defense Intelligence Agency put out an infographic, which we can pull up here real quick, identifying some of the threat types and the numbers which – the numbers, by the way, were pretty interesting to have up – of fractional orbital bombardment, for instance. And they put some numbers down there in terms of how many they expected China and Russia to have by, I think, 2035.

And you have basically the other categories – your SLBMs, your ICBMs, your long-range cruise missiles. And they also have kind of the maneuvering ballistic missiles or aeroballistic missiles. So, look, it’s the whole spectrum, right? And the executive order also talked about advanced aerial threats. So think sophisticated UAVs, although, again, a huge attack, the biggest single-day attack by Russia against Ukraine, immediately preceded the Ukrainian success. I think it was 450-some Shaheds, which those are the V-1s of today, they’re the buzz bombs of today.

In terms of the reconciliation bill, look, you put it well, Heather, as a $25 billion down payment. I like to say that reconciliation is a Catholic sacrament designed to blot out past sins. And in this case, that down payment is to blot out the years of inattention to this. We’ve known these threats were coming. We’ve known that we needed to do these kinds of things. And so in some respects the Golden Dome Initiative, put aside the name, so much of this has been exactly what multiple NDAAs have called for, multiple defense strategy – National Defense Strategy commissions have called for in terms of a high level, four-star, undersecretary person with substantial authority to go after this, and to pull together integration.

I mean, in some respects the dog caught the car here and now we have to figure out how to execute. And so the question about feasibility and timelines, there will be something, I predict, in 12 months from now. I think there will be something in three years. It will not be a full operational capability of all the things. The president also said that it will come in phases. But they will probably snap the chalk line in three years and have some set of capability to come after that. So that’s good. I think it’s, again, long overdue. But I think there’s a whole lot of integration efforts and tying things together, which we can get to in just a bit, that actually probably can be done on a faster timeline than folks might expect.

Dr. Williams: I think you also hit on a really important theme. You used the phrase, “years of inattention,” which I think applies across – certainly applies on the nuclear enterprise. But I think for all of our programs there have been years if not decades of inattention. And so I would like us at some point to come back to that conversation about the attention might be there, is the political will there to follow through on a lot of these things? Because I think that’s going to be really crucial for this.

But, Kari, I really wanted to turn to you and get your thoughts on the feasibility side. So same question, but particularly on the space component to all this. Space-based sensors are likely to play a huge role in the Golden Dome architecture. So can you give us an evaluation on the current status of space-based sensors and how do you think these existing capabilities might integrate with that architecture?

Kari A. Bingen: Yeah. Sure, Heather. Thanks, and great to be back here with this fantastic group of colleagues.

You mentioned years of inattention. I’d first say, you know, you had both the Congress – both the House and the Senate and the reconciliation markups as well as – you know, Secretary of Defense Hegseth both say, you know, hey, we’re looking to make a generational investment in defense.

So I think you’re absolutely right about that surge, but it needs to have follow through and, hopefully, we’ll get back to that. But feasibility – you know, I want to hit technology, cost, and time, and I think we need to manage expectations here for what will transpire over the next few years.

Technology, you know, in general, I think, largely, this is not a science problem. This is an engineering and an integration challenge ahead of the department. So I think, generally, these pieces are feasible but, you know, you mentioned, there’s still a lot we don’t know. There’s still a lot we don’t know.

We need to see the details of the architecture. There needs to be a strategy. We need to have a better understanding of what’s going to be prioritized over what time period and at what cost.

Tom mentioned Operation Spider Web – phenomenal success by the Ukrainians, and you said it exactly right both from an intelligence placement and access perspective as well as just the capability and the creativity.

But think about the threat of drones over military bases. We’ve already seen that happen in the U.S. at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Langley Air Force Base. The solutions to address that challenge in base defense are very different than the technical solutions to protect us against incoming ballistic or cruise missiles. So there will have to be a prioritization discussion.

Time – I think three years is really ambitious. But, you know, I think the leadership – they’re going to have decisions to make, right? So if the objective is fielding more, I’ll say, robust homeland defense against, like, ballistic missiles or, you know, general missiles you’re, largely, going to build on the existing systems that you have. Ground-based midcourse defense in Alaska and California, Aegis. You’ll accelerate sensors and radars that are already in the pipeline, some of your next-generation kill vehicles.

Space – you’ll probably look to field or expand upon your space sensor network. I think space-based interceptors in three years’ time you’re probably looking at some limited –

Dr. Karako: Demonstrations.

Ms. Bingen: Demonstrations. Exactly. And I think the key to all of this is going to be integration, which I really want to dive into later.

And then just lastly here I’ll say the outset cost. You know, it’s really hard to assess cost. I’d have a hard time saying 25 billion (dollars) this year down payment about right because, again, we don’t know the details. We don’t know the priorities. A hundred and seventy-five billion (dollars), I don’t know. The 500 billion (dollars) that we saw at CBO I really question that because I don’t know what architecture they used to cost that out.

So there’s just a lot here that we don’t know, which makes a lot of these cost numbers hard to evaluate.

Dr. Williams: And if I can just weigh in a little bit on the feasibility thing from the nuclear perspective. My concern – I think we did in our earlier discussion when it was then Iron Dome and now it’s, obviously, been upgraded.

But one of my concerns has been this major investment. That doesn’t – you know, that’s going to have to come from something. My concern is how are these investments going to be spread out, really, across all of the strategic forces that we think about. There’s a huge bill coming up for nuclear modernization and, I mean, you want to talk about years of inattention and kicking the can down the road, and those investments just can’t be delayed anymore.

And so if you see that huge investment coming along, along with Golden Dome and the space-based technology that’s going to go with it, where is all that money going to come from? And I just hope that it doesn’t – that the Golden Dome investments don’t come at the expense of something like nuclear modernization.

But I think Kari is making a really important point, which is that there are really big decisions and priorities that have to be made. There has to be a strategy behind this. I also just haven’t seen that yet..

Ms. Bingen: Well, and we – I think we talked about this maybe last time. As with reconciliation it is a generational investment in defense but it’s a onetime injection or boost. I think, Tom, you said this last time.

So what I’d really like to see when the budget comes – the budget details come out in a few weeks is what is that FYDP, what is that future year projection to see all of these investments happening now – are they being sustained in the out years.

Dr. Karako: Unfortunately, we’re not going to see those FYDP numbers for, basically, until this time next year when FY ’27 comes out. But you’re exactly right. I’m not counting those chickens until they’re actually in the ’27 budget, PB.

Dr. Williams: So we will come back to both Ukraine and some of these budget questions about what comes next. But one really interesting development I thought from President Trump’s announcement and since then has been the role of Canada potentially in Golden Dome – and not just Canada, but some of our other allies and partners. Canada has, obviously, been the most vocal in responding to President Trump’s announcement. Most of the other allies have been a little bit quiet. But the initial announcement about Iron Dome did talk about working with allies and partners. From conversations I was having, that seemed to be really well received as an indication that the administration does want to work with them on things like strategic forces, missile defense, potentially wider deterrence issues.

So, Tom, can you just say a little bit about what might be the role of allies, partners, particularly our friends to the north, but then also industry? Like, industry is going to have to be a huge part of this as well.

Dr. Karako: Yeah. So on the Canada front, I would say, broadly speaking, remember, the EO has an allied and theater missile defense review. So presumably OSD Policy is going to be cranking on that here soon. There’s a lot of potential for, I would say, mini-Golden Domes, you know, everywhere. The interests of this are already manifest in, say, Germany and NATO’s or NATO members’ European Sky Shield Initiative, right. The Japanese and the Australians and now the Brits with the Strategic Defense Review, they say up to 1 billion pounds more for air and missile defense. That just came out – that just came out this week.

I’ll say, in terms of the execution of this, connecting it to the feasibility thing, about a week ago the SecDef reportedly signed the memo basically granting the DRPM the sort of – I’ve heard it described as godlike acquisition authorities. Outside JCIDS, you know, the DR and DRPM stands for “direct report.” It’s a direct report to the DepSec, which is good.

That high-level interest is going to be absolutely critical. This is only the fourth time in history that missile defense has really gotten the presidential attention. So that’s going to be really important. And I think that’s important because it’s about the contracting. It’s about the acquisition authority to no-kidding get stuff on contract and move out. So it’s not the business as usual.

But nevertheless, I think – and this is kind of channeling some of what you were saying, Kari – I don’t expect this to be pie-in-the-sky, tilting-at-windmills kind of capability. I expect it to be actually more meat and potatoes, the kind of architectural elements and plans that we’ve basically had on the shelf and are now being pulled off. Again, the dog caught the car and now we have to go do it.

And that’s the long-winded way to get to what’s Canada involved here. It’s because Canada is part of NORAD. And the plan on paper for some time has been, hey, we need domain awareness. We need lots and lots of especially OTHRs, over-the-horizon radars. Canada has already announced that they’re going to be doing that. We are in the process of doing that. That’s what NORAD and NORTHCOM want and need to see those – back to the DIA graphic, to see those cruise missiles coming in from distance so you can actually do something about it.

So domain awareness – you know, whether they put something over Ottawa, look, that’s up to them in terms of intercept capability. But lots and lots of sensors and the integration, yes, of those sensors into some kind of battle-management layer. We’re not going to reinvent the tons and tons of new systems – the Aegis, the GMD, the THAAD, the Patriot/IBCS. Those are probably going to be the interceptor building blocks. But there’s going to need to be a battle-management layer over top of all that, with lots of lightning bolts of connectivity between all the different inputs. And that’s where the – you know, the software and the tech-bro innovation, I predict, in the near term has some potential to deliver results.

Dr. Williams: You know, Kari, I know you’ve been doing a lot of thinking on the integration side of things. Did you want to weigh in on that piece of it as well?

Ms. Bingen: I completely agree with Tom. For me, you have all of these building blocks already. And many of them are fielded. The linchpin in Golden Dome is going to be that integration of all of these pieces and organizations. It will be automation as well as, you know, if you think about all these different radars that Tom mentioned – land based; dozens to hundreds of satellite sensors doing detection of missile launches, tracking those missiles in flight – in real-time machine speed, we’ll have to figure out, how do you –how does one satellite who’s tracking pass off that track to another satellite to another satellite to an interceptor? Which interceptor is optimally placed? Is it a space-based interceptor? Is it a ground-based interceptor to take the shot? How many do you have take the shot? If that misses, do you have another interceptor ready to go to take the next shot? So it’s this massive automation optimization problem as well.

So this is – it’s not just hardware. To Tom’s point, it’s absolutely software. And, you know, I think of this – this is – you know, everything we talk about in DOD right now in innovation, this is an innovation and an integration problem at massive scale, but within a traditional defense ecosystem.

So, I mean, I’ll tell you, I feel for General Guetlein because the – I mean, the headwinds of traditional defense acquisition, requirements, culture, you know, how do you get all of these services to each have a piece of the pie, how do you get them to work together, how do you get the intelligence community to bring their assets to bear. You know, you’re working cross-domains. You’re working across all these different companies that probably want to own their – (laughs) – data rights and whatnot. So how do you get all these folks to play together so, you know, if you’re going to have any chance of success?

I’m noodling on a commentary here and I haven’t quite put it together, so I’ll run it by you. But you know, in many respects it is you have to empower that program manager. And it’s both empowering him to have – you know, be able to use all acquisition authorities that are on the table – OTAs, you know, some of these other software ones – but at the same time be able to waive those to be able to go fast and deliver: fail, learn, adapt. Like, that’s the only way we’re going to get something fielded – integrated and fielded in a three-year window.

Dr. Williams: Mmm hmm.

Dr. Karako: Yeah, I’ll go – yea, verily, I’ll go even further. I’m old enough to remember the phrase “integrated deterrence” – (laughter) – which was about whole-of-governmentism and military and nonmilitary means.

Dr. Williams: I thought that was just from, like, two years ago. (Laughter.)

Dr. Karako: Yes indeed. But the concept is not especially new, but it also called for the nonmilitary side of things. And what all am I talking about here? We put out a report on national homeland air and cruise missile defense a couple years ago called “North America Is a Region, Too,” and we pointed out that there’s tons of sensors, tons of inputs: FAA radars, weather radars.

Here’s where the interesting big data and AI automation – so much of the inputs on that are just laying fallow. It’s data being left on the cutting-room floor. So for wide-area surveillance of the continent, we’re not going to put a new radar on every corner necessarily, but we have lots of stuff that’s already there that actually could be stitched together. So that’s where the innovation of and the urgency behind the DIRCM’s role is. Go listen to what NORAD/NORTHCOM has been saying on this for years and start there. Start with the AOAs and the plans that have already kind of been thought about. We don’t have to do everything from scratch. This is more tractable than I think people might realize.

Ms. Bingen: That’s a – that’s a great point too. I’m now channeling my time at the Pentagon, where I was fortunate to have this team called Project Maven within my organization that were really pathfinding on bringing AI into the department to solve our problems. But what I really liked about what the team did, it was in their approach. It was we’re going to do sprints. They did six-month sprints. They had a wide set of competitors. So you may start with eight, 12 competitors. You give them six months, and then you have a bake-off. (Laughter.) You know, don’t just bring me your PowerPoint; bring me your prototype. We’re going to test it. And then the ones that meet that, you know, part of the relay, you go on.

And so, you know, space-based interceptors, you know, some of these other kill vehicles, it’ll be different, but infusing that same philosophy and approach of sprint, wide competitors that account for both maybe the traditional as well as some of these newer software and tech companies, doing bake-offs and focusing on fielding and output, like, that, I think, is going to be, you know, the recipe to success.

Dr. Williams: A strategic bake-off. I really – I really like it. The Kari Bingen special. (Laughter.)

Sticking with the theme of integration and innovation, I did want to come back to Ukraine and have a question for both of you, and then we’ll turn to some questions that are coming – some great questions coming in from the chat. And it’s the idea of not just integrating on our end hardware/software, but also integrating to address a very diverse range of threats. And if we think about what happened in Ukraine, there’s been some reporting on this, is that should raise – what happened in Ukraine, and the drone attacks there on Russian nuclear-capable bombers, should raise concerns about the security and vulnerability potentially of U.S. strategic forces as well. If it can happen there, could something similar happen here?

And there was a really great quote from the Air Force chief of staff that I just want to read out and get your reactions to. He had said, “I think the fascinating thing,” – this was in response to a question about the Ukrainian drone attack. “I think the fascinating thing will be to what extent in the future the Golden Dome will integrate not only systems to counter the larger ballistic, cruise, hypersonic missiles, but also some of these closer in, more effective ones.” And so, Tom, maybe I’ll start with you, and then turn to Kari, and what you think we – should be our lessons learned from what just happened in Ukraine. What does it mean for U.S. strategic forces? Can Golden Dome protect us against those in the future?

Dr. Karako: Well, first of all, just on the UAV thing, I mean, we’ve been – this is sort of an I told you so moment. And go look at the opening scene of the 2019 movie “Angel Has Fallen,” where essentially that scenario is depicted. It’s probably the best UAS threat kind of visualization. And, you know, that’s going to happen. And, you know what? It is going to come here. It’s just a matter of time. All these Chinese shipping ships that are on our coast at any given time, all the shipping containers – no. That is coming. And it’s – perhaps we’re just lucky that it hasn’t happened yet. And that’s why we’re always talking about how counter-UAS is just the next chapter of air defense. It’s why counter-UAS was built into the 2022 Missile Defense Review, because it is adjacent. Again, Shaheds are just the V-1s, poor man’s cruise missile, of today.

Nevertheless, as important as that is – and Project Replicator 2.0, all good to focus on that, and there’s money in the reconciliation bill for that. That’s all good. As I understand it, the Golden Dome, as an accounting function, is mostly focused on some higher-end threats. Again, as the DIA graphic, what’s the problem they’re trying to solve? It’s the kind of the cruise missile and up thing. And that’s why, at least in the reconciliation, over half of it goes to space. It’s really hard to do counter-UAS from space. And so I think that the quote there is absolutely correct, that the capabilities-based approach and the technology that’s going to be ingested here will have offshoots and spin offs, just as STI had tons of technological spin offs over the years, that will be applicable to counter-UAS and everything else. Because, yeah, I worry about an adversary putting little easter eggs on every ICBM silo. I mean, the – it gets a little spooky when you start thinking about the potential for these delivery systems affecting our bombers, our subs and pens, and all that kind of stuff.

Dr. Williams: Sure.

Kari, your thoughts on this?

Ms. Bingen: Three thoughts on that. When David is up against Goliath, you have to be imaginative and creative. And I think that’s what we saw here with, you know, they’ll say the little that you have. So, again, I mean, kudos to Ukrainians for pulling this off.

Second, channeling my old intelligence days, you know, we’ve seen in reporting that this was a year and a half in the making. So something like this just doesn’t happen overnight. There is a tremendous amount of planning, and relationship building, and whatnot that has to go into – you know, scouting the landscape, maintaining access, trying this out, red teaming yourself. You know, in some respects this is somewhat – you know, what the Ukrainians have done is somewhat similar to also what the Israelis did with the pagers against Hezbollah. And that was also probably years, you know, in the making. And then you have it available at the time and place of your choosing.

The third piece is, you know, close to home here. I think we’re going to have to have a serious conversation on what base defense looks like going into the future. Who does it? The authorities that base commanders will have. I mean, they do have self-defense capabilities today, but do you think more broadly than that? And then when we think about capabilities, it’s detection and tracking. So radars. And there’s a spectrum of implication that I’ll turn to Tom on, but, you know, you have to be able to detect and track those threats incoming. And you have to be able to take action. So is that kinetic action? Electronic warfare, that we’re seeing in spades on the Ukrainian battlefield and Israel? Is it laser weapons to take down those drones? And no matter what capability you invest in, you’re going to have to be able to test it. So we need to be able to have the test ranges to actually go off and do this. And there are spectrum implications in all of that too, that Tom knows very well.

Dr. Williams: We have some really great questions coming in. So I do want to turn to those. I can already see we’re not going to get to nearly all of these. So I apologize in advance. But there’s two in particular here that I want to flag, because you both have picked up on these a bit.

The first one I think I’m going to direct to Tom. This comes from Jason Suslavich at Applied Intuition. And the question is: The modern battlefield will be defined by masses of both complex and inexpensive systems paired with rapidly upgradable autonomous software. Our missile defense systems must effectively and efficiently reflect this reality. What role do you believe autonomy can and should play with Golden Dome?

I’m going to read out the second one because I have a feeling you might want to weigh in on this one as well, time permitting. This one comes from Matt McLaughlin at GAO. Do you think there is potential for other high-level programs to see Golden Dome as a precedent for high-interest items obtaining alternate procurement authorities? Shipbuilding comes to mind as a topic that’s also had a recent executive order. And so, Kari, I might ask you to take that one. But I want to put them both out there because, I think, particularly because you both have experience on the Hill and working on budgets, and obviously on the DOD side, you might want to weigh in. But, Tom, autonomy. Discuss.

Dr. Karako: Yeah. So I think autonomy, machine learning, automation generally, is going to be – is super important for things like really quick threat classification. When a UAV pops up over the horizon, and it has a different configuration than what we’ve seen and what is in our threat library, we’ve got to figure that out. Is it friend or foe? That’s one thing. Likewise, AI/ML for looking at a threat cloud that may be spread out over miles in space and figuring out what’s the good – what’s the good objects and what’s the bad objects to go to shoot. But also – and this – I think we kind of talked about this already, which is that the autonomy to be able to ingest massive amounts of data and use that big data very quickly to figure out that, hey, this swarm of things that are being picked up by the OTH radars, doesn’t really move in the way that a Cessna or a 747 would move, and kind of that tipping and queuing from this broad surveillance.

And then I’ll just say, in terms of the acquisition authorities, I certainly hope so. You know, the PPBE Commission report that was from a couple years ago basically said our acquisition system is broken. It can’t be fixed. And so over the past several years we’ve seen workarounds, this kind of surge of workarounds. OTAs, everybody likes that, but other kinds of things. And, again, by putting this out of the traditional acquisition system it’s an acknowledgement that the traditional acquisition system ain’t working. And that I certainly hope that for shipbuilding and for other things – we’ll know that we’re serious and that we’re acting as if a potential war with China is coming when you see more of these things, whether it be for nuclear shipbuilding or what have you.

Dr. Williams: Kari, what do you think? Alternate procurement authorities?

Ms. Bingen: Well, you know, it’s a really great question. And I’m thinking about all of my time on the Hill dealing with this, and then being in the department myself. You know, if there’s something that is that high of a priority to the secretary, to the administration, they’ll pluck it out of the services. They’ll pluck it out of individual agencies. And you’ve seen that throughout time. Missile Defense Agency was created because you didn’t have the services focused on missile defense, and it was one of President Bush’s top priorities in 2002. Most recently, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kath Hicks, she was the person that quarterbacked the JADC2, the Joint All Domain Command and Control initiative, because it really – it was an integration challenge as well.

But you’re integrating across weapon systems in each of the services. And they’re going to focus on their own thing. You’re integrating across different agencies, across different domains – land, air, sea, space. The first point of integration in the department, I’m sad to say, is the deputy secretary of defense. (Laughter.) So there’s – you’re right. I mean, we’ve got to figure out ways to fix this. But at the same point in time, if it’s a high priority and it cuts across all of these different, I’ll say, equities and organizations, you do kind of need that central leadership to get it done.

Dr. Karako: And Project Replicator was her other initiative, that actually she stuck her neck out and it did pretty dang well. NC3 and MRAPs, I mean, those are all very, very high-level –

Ms. Bingen: Yeah. I mean, heck, you’re seeing it with the White House, creating their shipbuilding office, which also is a suggestion of priorities. Heather, I’m going to steal your thunder, but I think nuclear modernization could also be one of those things as well.

Dr. Williams: Let’s hope. (Laughter.)

If I can, I actually want to use that to jump to what I think is going to have to be our last question. And it is to bring this all home and put it in the bigger picture. And so a lot of this comes back to your comment about years of inertia, this being a generational investment. And also, it really is about meeting the threat. It’s about meeting the current environment. And so this question was – it’s about, is Golden Dome validating, and is it contributing to responding to, this new era of strategic competition? How is it responding to that?

If I can jump in, again, on the nuclear, more so the broader deterrent side, I think, just at a purely political level this is a huge signal. After so much inertia, after atrophy, after not making these investments for so long, just the purely symbolic function that I think this investment, you know, 125 billion over three years – yes, it’s going to be phased. We all have some, you know, questions about its feasibility, but that still sends a really important signal. And I think it’s an important signal to be picked up by Moscow, Beijing, but also by our allies and partners who are looking at what has been a lack of U.S. investment in a lot of ways for the past few decades. And so I think that symbolic function is a really important one. But final thoughts from either of you about how Golden Dome is responding to the new threat environment?

Dr. Karako: It’s responding to the threat environment because missiles are the weapons of choice. They’re the things the Russians, the Ukrainians, and the Iranians are reaching for, early and often. And the long-range precision fires are the top modernization priorities of lots of countries these days. So that’s just a – that’s just a fact. And then I would just say, Heather, you know, the Biden administration at the tail end, at an event that you hosted, said, hey, this is a nuclear age too. That salience is not going away at all. We may have to do more on that.

And I’ll just say, in terms of response, you know, actually Beijing did reply to the Oval Office announcement about Golden Dome, and kind of groused about it a bit. To which I say, good. That’s a signal it’s the right thing. If it doesn’t irritate our main strategic competitor, the pacing threat – if it doesn’t impose costs on them and they’re unhappy about it, then we may be doing the wrong thing. We want to be doing the things that they’re not jazzed about.

Dr. Williams: Kari, your thoughts on meeting this moment?

Ms. Bingen: Yeah. You know, I guess I reflect back as well as, you know, we spent 20 years focused on a counterterrorism mission posturing our force, investing in capabilities that would allow us to successfully go after terrorism targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over those 20 years, Russia and China invested in really advanced strategic and tactical capabilities. So all the things that Tom showed in that first chart – the hypersonics, cruise missiles, FOBS – those fractional orbital bombardment systems – nuclear modernization, space – I mean, I wouldn’t be the aerospace person here if I didn’t at least talk space too. But just, you know, the criticality now of space to all aspects of our national security, our warfighting, our ability to project power, our economic vitality, we’re just in a very different era now that – and, really, that demands these kind of defenses.

And you know, probably a whole nother discussion we could have on strategic stability. But I mean, these threats are there, so, I mean, we have an obligation if the technology is within our means to actively defend ourselves against them. And that’s not just against missiles and missile defense, but it’s also, I’d say, looking at counter-space – how do we defend our interests in space? – as well. So it’s just – it’s a different landscape.

Dr. Williams: Yeah. I think we’ve covered as much as we can in a very short period of time. A lot of questions still remain. These issues aren’t going away. I know our three programs are all going to keep working on them and have a few things in the hopper. I think some folks from your team and the PONI team will have a Critical Questions piece coming out today about the Ukrainian drone attack. But also, there’s more being done – more work being done on Golden Dome across all of our programs.

And so, with that, we are going to bring this to a close. But please continue to engage with all three of these programs in CSIS on these developing issues. Thank you all so much for tuning in to this discussion. Thank you to the CSIS streaming and broadcasting team. Please do stay tuned for more joint discussions between Missile Defense Project, Aerospace Security Project, Project on Nuclear Issues. I think we really do have a unique group here, unique set of expertise to really try to make sense of a rapidly changing geostrategic environment, deterrence requirements, policy, and budget space. So thank you again so much for joining.

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