The Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile protection system may price taxpayers as a lot as $3.6 trillion over the following 20 years — far exceeding the White Home’s $175 billion estimate — and nonetheless fail to ship on its central promise to guard america from nuclear threats.
In a brand new report, Taxpayers for Frequent Sense, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group, argues that a number of the technological challenges for the mission are possible “insurmountable.”
“If Golden Dome could guarantee our security for nuclear weapons, one could argue that these astronomical costs would be worth it, but from all these viability problems and the history of failed attempts, it’s very clear that it won’t,” Gabe Murphy, a coverage analyst at Taxpayers for Frequent Sense, advised Federal Information Community.
A long time of funding in missile protection have but to provide a system able to reliably intercepting an intercontinental ballistic missile — america has spent greater than $450 billion pursuing that objective and but no system has demonstrated the flexibility to cease even a single ICBM.
Nuclear warheads are comparatively small targets — about three meters lengthy — they usually can attain speeds of as much as 15,000 miles per hour. Defending the whole nation may require lots of and even hundreds of interceptors for every missile launched by an adversary.
“That creates a cost effectiveness problem right out of the gate,” Murphy mentioned.
Adversaries can additional undermine missile protection programs via numerous countermeasures, together with radar jamming, decoys that mimic the looks of warheads, or balloon-like objects that conceal warheads. “Those are really complex problems to overcome,” Murphy mentioned.
Including to the technical hurdles is the potential of a nuclear detonation in area that may make detection and interception of extra incoming missiles virtually unimaginable.
“As a budget watchdog, one of our guiding principles at Taxpayers for Common Sense is, “if it doesn’t work, don’t fund it.” The proof introduced on this report strongly means that Golden Dome is not going to work,” the report says.
Plus, the initiative may speed up the nuclear arms race and complicate efforts to safe arms management agreements that cut back the nuclear risk.
“People in the national security community are already deeply concerned about the cost of this program, about the insurmountable viability issues facing it, about the strategic risks of pursuing it, let alone deploying it,” Murphy mentioned.
Golden Dome prices
In Might, President Donald Trump mentioned the Golden Dome can be almost one hundred pc efficient, accomplished in about three years, and price roughly $175 billion.
Pentagon officers have since described this system as a “top priority for the nation.”
However it’s unclear the place the $175 billion determine got here from or what precisely it included.
“I think the initial figure was likely just pulled out of thin air. $175 billion was supposed to be presumably for acquisition costs for the program, the initial cost of buying the systems and deploying them,” Murphy mentioned.
An evaluation by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative assume tank, estimated {that a} sturdy Golden Dome structure may price about $3.6 trillion over 20 years. That determine consists of operations, upkeep and replenishment prices.
AEI additionally discovered a system primarily based on $175 billion acquisition price would, at greatest, be able to intercepting solely a handful of incoming missiles.
“It doesn’t get you anywhere near to just the theoretical capability to be able to cover an area the size of the United States. I think the $175 billion number is not realistic for a program that is designed to counter nuclear weapons,” Murphy mentioned.
Congress allotted a $23 billion down cost for the Golden Dome initiative via the finances reconciliation invoice enacted final summer season, however Congressional appropriators say the Pentagon has but to elucidate the way it plans to spend that cash — lawmakers are nonetheless ready for the Pentagon to offer “complete budgetary details and justification of the $23,000,000,000 in mandatory funding.”
“The fact that they’re already throwing money at it without having seen a plan is pretty wild to me, and the cost of this thing is potentially astronomical,” Murphy mentioned.
“There’s nothing unusual about Congress asking for information. There is something unusual about throwing $25 billion at a program before you have any sense of how that program is supposed to be constructed and built, and what programs are going to fall under it. I do think it’s indicative of the fact that Congress, at least until recently, if they have received this architecture — it’s not entirely clear — does not have a clear sense of how this program is envisioned. It’s a very serious problem, and the sort of “fun first, ask questions later” method is a extremely cavalier method to finances for nationwide safety,” he added.
Conflicts of curiosity
The Missile Protection Company has already tapped greater than 2,000 corporations to assist the Golden Dome initiative — these pre-approved distributors at the moment are eligible to compete for future job orders.
However a number of the greater corporations in search of work on Golden Dome which have emerged for the reason that announcement of the initiative embody SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, who has served as a detailed adviser to the president and the top of DOGE.
“That’s an obvious potential conflict of interest that Congress has already been raising questions about, and should continue to,” Murphy mentioned.
Palantir Applied sciences — run by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, each main contributors to Trump’s campaigns — can also be in search of a task in Golden Dome.
1789 Capital, a enterprise capital agency Donald Trump Jr. joined proper after Trump started his second time period, holds important investments in SpaceX and Anduril Industries, that are each competing for Golden Dome contracts.
“Conflicts of interest aren’t a new problem in Pentagon acquisition. In fact, they’re pervasive. Congress should be looking at systemic solutions to address that problem, but in the meantime, it should also dig into the potential conflicts of interest for a program this large,” Murphy mentioned.
If you need to contact this reporter about current adjustments within the federal authorities, please e-mail anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or attain out on Sign at (301) 830-2747.
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