US military officials are scrambling to develop a “Golden Dome” defense system that can protect the country from long-range missile strikes and have been told by the White House that no expense will be spared in order to fulfill one of President Donald Trump’s top Pentagon priorities, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
“Golden Dome” is the Trump administration’s attempt to rebrand vague plans for developing a missile defense system akin to Israel’s Iron Dome.
At a time the Pentagon is looking to cut budgets, the Trump administration has ordered military officials to ensure future funding for “Golden Dome” is reflected in new budget estimates for 2026 to 2030 – but the system itself remains undefined beyond a name, the sources said.
“Right now, Golden Dome is, it’s really an idea,” one source familiar with internal discussions about the project said, adding there may be technology in the pipeline that, if ever scaled up, could apply to it, but as of now discussions are purely conceptual.
That makes projecting future costs nearly impossible, the source added, though it would likely cost billions of dollars to construct and maintain.
Trump has repeatedly insisted the US needs a missile defense program similar to Israel’s Iron Dome, but the systems are orders of magnitude apart. In practical terms, the comparison is less apples to oranges, and more apples to aircraft carriers.
Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system selectively protects populated areas from short-range threats in a country the size of New Jersey; Trump wants a space-based missile defense system capable of defending the entire United States from advanced ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
For one thing, “Israel is tiny,” the source familiar with ongoing internal discussions about the Golden Dome project said. “So, it is 100% feasible to blanket Israel in things like radars and a combination of mobile and fixed interceptors.”
“How are you going to do that in the United States? You can’t do it just at the borders and the shoreline, because intercontinental ballistic missiles, they can re-enter the atmosphere over Kansas.”
Still, Trump issued an executive order during his first week in office ordering Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to submit a plan for developing and implementing the next-generation missile defense shield by March 28.
And a senior Pentagon official insisted earlier this week that work is underway.
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