During the campaign and since his inauguration, President Trump has promised the construction of a Golden Dome missile and drone defense system to cover the continental United States. On Tuesday, the president, flanked by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Space Force General Michael Guetlein, announced details of what will comprise the Golden Dome as well as the implementation plan. The president stated at one point that he had promised the American people a cutting-edge missile shield, and said, "That's what we're doing."
🔥PROMISES MADE, PROMISES KEPT!
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 20, 2025
President Trump: "I promised the American people that I would build a cutting edge missile defense shield...That's what we're doing!" pic.twitter.com/CjcxRXKYUp
An earlier Fox News piece gave some details of the system and its cost:
A total of $25 billion has been carved out of next year's defense budget for this system, but the Congressional Budget office estimates it could cost as much as $500 billion over the next 20 years.
The system is expected to cost up to $500 billion over the next decade, although the president, during the press conference, mentioned a total tab of $125 billion. Although we should note that the final costs of massive projects of this kind are routinely underestimated.
President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth both credited President Reagan for the concept, in the form of the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative, the "Star Wars" project; the technology at the time precluded what the Golden Dome is projected to be capable of, namely, intercepting and destroying threats including hypersonic missiles, submarine-launched missiles, cruise missiles and drones.
See Also: Hegseth's First 100 Days: How DOD Turned Around One of Biden's Worst and Most Dangerous Problems
When asked about who would be building the system, the president named Indiana's Senator Jim Banks to name one possible vendor:
In Ft. Wayne Indiana where I live, we make all the space satellites, L3Harris, across the board we're the top manufacturing company state in the country, by the way the tariffs have been very good, our auto manufacturers, but this is going to be very good for our defense industry in my state.
No additional vendors have been named as of this writing.
In the press conference, the president indicated that the system would be completed and online in three years, which seems a remarkably compressed timeline for a project of this size. But consider that, should the Republicans lose control of the White House and Congress in 2028, this project would almost certainly be canceled, whereas if it were finished and operational, it's far more likely to remain in place. There are other countries involved who, at that point, would have a say in any cancellation; The president also noted that Canada has reached out, indicating a desire to be part of the project and to be under its defensive envelope.
There's another important point to consider here: Defense is crucial to our national security, but if there is to be a future war, offensive capacity will need to be developed as well; wars are not won by standing on the defensive. Some time ago, the president and Secretary Hegseth announced the development of the new F-47 fighter, but there's a lot more to be done.
Rebuilding America's military is a daunting task, but it has to be done. George Santayana's caution still applies: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."
Thanks to President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership, the warrior ethos is coming back to America's military.
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