Golden Dome defense system may take 10-20 years, $1-4 trillion to build — Washington Post

The deployment of the American Golden Dome missile defense system can take about 10-20 years and $1-4 trillion, and may not provide the comprehensive protection that US President Donald Trump promised, The Washington Post noted, Report informs.

Golden Dome would radically reshape military doctrine and further militarize space, an effort that's been compared to the rush to build the atomic bomb during World War II and the Apollo moon landings. Yet it still may not come close to providing the kind of comprehensive protection Trump says it will, the paper says.

"Golden Dome could be the single most dangerous idea Trump has ever proposed, and that's saying something," Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Massachusetts), a member of the Armed Services Committee, said.

The newspaper quoted defense and budget analysts as saying that the creation of the Golden Dome system will "take at least a decade to complete and cost a trillion dollars or more." Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has calculated that a robust defensive architecture for Golden Dome could cost as much as $3.6 trillion over 20 years. Harrison is engaged in research related primarily to military space. The Congressional Budget Office puts the cost of the deployment of space-based interceptors alone at $542 billion over 20 years.

The Washington Post says that plans to deploy the Golden Dome system threaten "to ignite an arms race in orbit that could last a generation or more."

Trump said on May 20 that the United States has defined the architecture of the Golden Dome system, which will include the launch of interceptors into space. The construction of the system will take about three years and $175 billion, he said. Pentagon head Pete Hegseth confirmed that the system will be designed to intercept nuclear weapons.