Shots to the Dome—Why We Can’t Model US Missile Defense on Israel’s "Iron Dome"
Trusty Defense and Foreign Policy Research Associate Ben Giltner and I have a piece in The Spectator pointing to some problems with the Trump administration’s vision of an “Iron Dome for America.”
The first problem we point to is geography. The State of Israel is around 8,500 square miles. The United States is much bigger, 3.8 million square miles. In Israel, each Iron Dome system protects around 150 square miles, making the math … tough, if we’re to extrapolate to the United States. Further, the hypersonic missiles the US Golden Dome system would be tasked with intercepting travel many times faster than the short-range missiles and rockets Israel’s Iron Dome has to deal with. And even in the case of Iron Dome, the recent fusillade from Iran included some medium-range ballistic missiles, which got past Iron Dome.
Second, President Trump has promised that the Golden Dome will cost $175 billion and be “fully operational” in three years. But there is no way the thing can cost $175 billion, and no way it can be fully operational in three years. Former Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim played with the numbers, estimating it could ultimately cost somewhere between $620 billion and $2.5 trillion.
Finally, Ben and I get into the somewhat witchy question of the effects the Golden Dome would have on nuclear deterrence. There is a danger that if it does not work perfectly (likely), but the heads of state of other nuclear countries believe we believe it does work perfectly (possible), they would have a powerful incentive to shoot first in a crisis, for fear that the United States may preemptively strike in the false belief that it is secure from retaliation. Also, spinning up Golden Dome will incentivize other countries to develop their missile capabilities to avoid detection, something that is much cheaper than keeping up with missile tech to ensure our defenses can detect them.
Starting an arms race where the costs are stacked against you at a time when debt-to-GDP is approaching an all-time high seems reckless.
All in all, we conclude that the idea is still quite undercooked. And if you need a reason to be more cynical about it, the Beltway Bandits at the defense primes are positively salivating over it. That’s rarely a good sign for the US taxpayer. Anyway, please read the piece.