President Donald J. Trump issued a January 2025 executive order mandating the construction of a Golden Dome missile defense system to combat next-generation weapons. U.S. ARMY
THE WATCH STAFF
The United States will build a “Golden Dome for America” missile defense system to shield the United States against “next-generation aerial attacks.” A January 2025 executive order “accelerates the development and deployment of hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor layers, proliferated space-based interceptors, a proliferated warfighter space architecture, capabilities to defeat salvoes prior to launch, non-kinetic missile defense capabilities and underlayer and terminal-phase intercept capabilities.” The order states that the missile defense system would address an increasing threat from U.S. adversaries’ next-generation missile delivery systems.
The January 27, 2025, order also mandates that the missile defense system be exclusively manufactured in the United States. In addition, the order directs the military to review its missile defense posture to protect U.S. troops abroad and to increase cooperation with allies and partners on missile defense technology development, capabilities and operations.
The U.S. has worked with Israel to build a similar missile defense system to protect its territory. Since 2011, the U.S. had spent at least $1.7 billion in that effort. Israel’s Iron Dome has proved effective in protecting Israeli citizens from missile attacks launched by its adversaries, including the terrorist organizations of Hamas and Hezbollah, and an October 2024 missile attack by Iran in which about 200 Iranian ballistic missiles were shot down. A new round of U.S. funding was announced in January 2025, totaling $5.2 billion for missile defense, including money for the Iron Dome. “The Iron Dome system has transformed the battlefield, protected critical infrastructure, and saved many civilian lives,” said the Director General of the Israel Ministry of Defense (IMOD), Maj. Gen. (Res.) Eyal Zamir, according to Israel National News, an Israeli media website.
The U.S. missile defense policy has focused on “rogue nation” threats and accidental or unauthorized missile launches, the order states, which is insufficient in the face of the current “catastrophic threat” of ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles. “Over the past 40 years, rather than lessening, the threat from next-generation strategic weapons — including hypersonic — has become more complex with the development of next-generation delivery systems by our adversaries,” the order states.
A U.S. Golden Dome would address a wide array of missile threats. “The end here is that there is [a] gratifying prioritization of the problem. So that’s good. It deserves to be a White House priority,” said Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, according to The Hill, a U.S. news website.
Details of the system are not yet available. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been directed to provide a framework for the development of a U.S. version of the Golden Dome within 60 days of the executive order. The order states the system will deter adversaries from launching attacks on the U.S. homeland by providing second-strike capability. “I will direct our military to begin construction of the great Golden Dome missile defense shield, which will be made all in the USA,” Trump said.