Photo: Anna Barclay/Getty Images
Since its deployment in 2011, Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system has repeatedly captured the world’s attention for its ability to intercept rockets—over 5,000 and counting—and its impressive success rate—over 90 percent. In recent months, President Trump has made it clear that he is among the many who are impressed by this system, which relies on investments and ingenuity from both the United States and Israel.
On the campaign trail, Trump has cited the Iron Dome, declaring that if elected, the United States would “build . . . a state-of-the-art missile defense shield.” Within weeks of entering office, Trump issued an executive order to accelerate efforts to develop a next-generation missile defense shield against “ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks.” President Trump’s goal for an Iron Dome–like missile defense system for the United States has become known as the “Golden Dome.”
Past efforts to build new military technologies launched from innovative, outside-of-the-box thinking. When the first stealth aircraft were developed, for instance, military contractors began by thinking in completely new ways about the design, material, and shape of aircraft. Unfortunately, in Washington’s discussions over how to optimize radio spectrum to guarantee both the military and economic aspects of U.S. national security, some in the defense community are using the bold aspirations of a Golden Dome to short-circuit necessary conversations about mutually beneficial military and commercial technology innovation. Instead, these discussions should focus affirmatively on finding groundbreaking ways to satisfy both of those critical national security goals.
It is true that Golden Dome will undoubtedly require access to spectrum for purposes of tracking incoming missiles. However, claims that the Golden Dome will require precisely the same spectrum, in precisely the same bands, that the Department of Defense (DOD) uses for its radars today—without any accompanying evidence and without accounting for new methods for spectral efficiency and optimization—simply do not pass muster.
First, according to U.S. Chief of Space Operations General Chance Saltzman, satellites—which use different spectrum bands for ground-based radars—will have a “central role” in the Golden Dome. High-speed missiles “generate tremendous heat, giving off a strong infrared signal to track from space.” Thus, one important method a forward-looking missile defense system would use for monitoring such missiles would be from space and won’t require radio spectrum at all (beyond the standard use of existing satellite frequencies), let alone the lower 3 gigahertz (GHz) band.
Second, there are a variety of bands—including federal spectrum at 2.7–3.1 GHz (immediately below the band that the DOD’s radars use today), as well as spectrum at 8.55–10.00 GHz (the X band)—that potentially could be used by the Golden Dome. Indeed, the U.S. Navy has already received billions of dollars for X band radar research and development, and those efforts should be leveraged to find ways to use this spectrum. Given the need to optimize both military and commercial needs for access to spectrum—both crucial for U.S. national security—it is critical to examine the potential for the Golden Dome to use those frequencies.
Third, ground-based radars for the Golden Dome should be designed to avoid precluding commercial advances, and to that end, they should aim to improve spectral efficiencies. Ground-based radars can be located on coasts and borders, facing out of the United States, with coordination in place to ensure that new inland commercial use is possible. The United States will want to sell such equipment to its allies and partners to benefit its defense industrial base—and, by extension, the U.S. economy; to protect U.S. bases and interests operating in allied countries; and so that it can also protect those vital allies as well. That probably won’t be an option, however, if the Golden Dome exclusively uses spectrum in lower 3 GHz that the DOD uses for ground-based radars today, since most of the United States’ allies and partners—including Mexico, India, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Japan—have already allocated part of those frequencies for 5G. Further, to resist enemy jamming, the Golden Dome will need to be more spectrum-agile than our systems are today, relying less on having reliable access to a single massive spectrum band like lower 3 GHz.
Most importantly, however, both in the spectral domain and beyond, building Golden Dome will require us to take inspiration from those past military innovators who pushed past the bounds of conventional technology. To be effective, Golden Dome will need to use AI to incorporate a variety of sources of information, including infrared and thermal imaging, radio spectrum, and various types of intelligence, and act on that information faster than any human would be capable of. By building a system that is more reliant on AI, less reliant on past uses of spectrum, and more agile and efficient in the spectrum it uses, we can create a more effective missile defense capability.
Importantly, such an approach will also ensure that the United States wins the 5G race against the People’s Republic of China (PRC), generating the economic-based national security benefits that it needs to stay ahead of the PRC in the long term. Indeed, given that the United States can’t afford to lose the technological race against the PRC in either the military or the commercial domain, our country faces no other choice than to advance the United States’ position in commercial spectrum while building the advanced military technology necessary for Golden Dome.
Matt Pearl is the director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Clete Johnson is senior fellow with the Strategic Technologies Program at CSIS.
