Golden Dome: Loosen the gag order, and start talking

The Trump administration’s signature defense initiative, a next-generation missile defense capability for the US homeland, is both strategically necessary and long overdue. It is also already in jeopardy of failure.

The reason? A lack of dialogue and persuasion. If the Pentagon does not start explaining Golden Dome, it will never be built.

Almost 10 months have passed since the Jan. 27 executive order calling for an “Iron Dome for America.” Following President Donald Trump’s approval of an initial reference architecture, a May 20 Oval Office event provided scarce detail beyond noting the new “Golden Dome” moniker. On May 27, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed a memo establishing a Golden Dome office with robust acquisition authorities. In mid-September, a more detailed architecture was delivered to Pentagon leadership. Its implementation plan is expected this week.

Significant missile threats make the need for air and missile defense of the homeland nearly self-evident. It is not hard to imagine Operation Spiderweb-type attacks on airfields, massive ballistic attacks on US homeland military bases similar to Iran’s attack on Al Udeid, or waves of cruise missile strikes on Washington, DC, as has been seen in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, work is needed to connect those threats to whatever solutions are in mind. Unfortunately, outside of a narrow scope of the executive branch, there has been precious little conversation about the strategic concept behind Golden Dome. Uncertainty abounds even within the Pentagon, including around how Golden Dome fits into broader defense strategy and policies.

The main problem is that a gag order precludes virtually any discussion of the initiative, even to Congress. A security and classification guide has still not been finalized. Despite its presidential mandate, “Golden Dome” are words that must not be spoken.

Executive orders are directives that can mobilize the executive branch and the military. But directives and orders alone are insufficient to build and field new capabilities, let alone to build consensus. Executive actions alone cannot legislate, appropriate, or persuade.

In the absence of information, public and congressional debate has swirled around uninformed and often misleading speculation. Better communication is needed for three critical audiences: Congress, industry, and everyone else.

Capitol Hill

The biggest impediment to Golden Dome’s long-term durability has been the gag order’s limitation on sharing information with Congress. The Direct Reporting Program Manager for Golden Dome, Gen. Michael Guetlein, was not allowed to give any briefings to congressional staff until Sept. 30 — some 76 days after his confirmation.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., is right to say that “We need a lot more information before we make decisions to spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.” Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Ak. made a similar point when criticizing the Pentagon for not communicating with the Hill about the forthcoming National Defense Strategy. For Golden Dome to garner broad, ongoing legislative support, members and professional staff need to understand at least some basic threat metrics, strategic concepts, cost estimates, and tradeoffs — even if they are not yet set in stone.

Industry

The second critical audience is the defense industry. Private companies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to prepare for building Golden Dome despite precious little insight about what the government wants them to do.

We’ve heard the Pentagon say companies should be spending more on internal investments, but boards, corporate officers, and business unit leaders must deliberate about financial risks and tradeoffs before making such commitments. Without knowing more about what their customer wants, it is difficult for many firms to spend meaningful sums on efforts of uncertain scope and purpose. It is challenging for publicly traded companies to justify such investment risk to shareholders.

Companies put on a good face publicly, but behind the scenes, the corrosive level of uncertainty is palpable. Especially given acquisition strategies that put a greater onus of risk on industry, the Pentagon needs its industrial base to have sufficient insight to believe the plan worthy of putting capital on the line. The reconciliation bill allocated $25 billion for Golden Dome; so far, none has yet been put on contract.

Golden Dome is shaping up to be a case study of what Hegseth recently warned against — that a lack of clarity from the Pentagon means that “contractors waste time guessing instead of building.”

To be sure, DoD has released some broad contracting vehicles, issued a few requests for information, and provided a broad overview at an unclassified industry summit in August. It is not nearly enough. The space-based interceptor request for prototype proposals is in some respects the only one moving forward, with prizes expected to be awarded soon. After spending nine months staffing up and preparing to implement the Pentagon’s wishes, defense industry executives are already calculating exit plans, should the broader initiative fizzle.

Everyone Else

Then there is everyone else: the American public, allies and partners, and adversaries. A lack of strategic messaging has resulted in misinformation and ill-informed speculation about what the initiative is.

Commentators are understandably trying to estimate the cost of what the architecture might involve. In the absence of information, many estimates are likely off by an order of magnitude. For an undertaking of this size, in a democratic republic, some level of public understanding is important to enable Congress and the executive branch to move forward.

Allies are also largely in the dark. The January executive order required an Allied and Theater Missile Defense Review to be completed by May 15. Many key allies and partners seem to have not yet been consulted. Canadian participation was mentioned in the Oval Office announcement, but this is likely a reference to sensor modernization efforts already underway. Should the US wish to leverage the defense industrial bases of its closest allies, it would be helpful to give them a heads up.

While it is useful to keep one’s enemies guessing, articulating some goals and parameters of Golden Dome can impose costs and communicate credible capabilities. Russia and China have been aggressively messaging that Golden Dome will be destabilizing and cause an arms race, or that the US is incapable of the effort. Public diplomacy to refute those allegations can begin with communicating that Golden Dome’s intent and capabilities will meaningfully raise the threshold for their adventurism.

What To Say

The good news is that the reasons America needs Golden Dome are easy to articulate. A glance at headlines from Ukraine, Israel, and the Red Sea confirms that while missiles have become weapons of choice, missile defenses have been remarkably effective.

The better news is that the effort is doable. The architecture is likely to be far more modest, more connected to current capabilities and ongoing work, and altogether more achievable than many commentators suggest. Hints for this are found in past industry day slides and a handful of requests for information. The industry day slides referenced “Limited Area Defense” for a select number of areas, as well as “Wide Area Surveillance.” Both have been terms of art within NORAD/NORTHCOM for their longtime pursuit of continental air defense of the US and Canadian homelands.

Slightly different missile launchers and some new radars for deployment in the Southeast United States — a few recent RFIs — are not exactly bleeding edge developmental efforts. This is good: While next generation capability is certainly in need of development, it would be imprudent to neglect the near-term low hanging fruit that is available to field real capability to contend with today’s threats.

The executive order emphasized attention to the full spectrum of threats: not just ICBMs and hypersonic gliders, but also air defense threats like cruise missiles and advanced drones. A significant amount of capability already exists to stitch together effective counters to cruise missiles, UAVs, and ballistic missiles.

That so much capability exists today should come as no surprise. Forty years of research and development have yielded eye watering capabilities. Every single missile defense system fielded today, save one (the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System, for intercepting ICBMs), has successfully intercepted missiles fired in anger over the last few years in real world operational engagements. Hit-to-kill has become so routine that the major complaint is that bullets are not hitting bullets more cheaply. With the exception of space-based interceptor development, much of the Golden Dome architecture will have an easier ramp to success.

The biggest near-term challenge will be the integration of these capabilities with a battle management system to make it real. As Gen. Guetlein himself has said, “Golden Dome isn’t a technology problem. It is an organizational behavior and social engineering challenge.” Successfully integrating systems across different domains, services, and agencies that were never designed to work together will, above all, require dialogue.

Another beneficial factor is the operating environment. Operating at home is different than in a contested environment overseas, with eased manning and power requirements. A Patriot battery operating at home can have a lighter footprint than one alone in the middle of a desert surrounded by enemies.

At least in terms of lower-tier threats, additional details from industry day suggest that Golden Dome will field a limited but meaningful measure of protection of certain number of sites. This capability would counter fait accompli, cheap shots, or decapitation attacks designed to degrade military means or political will.

No missile defense initiative will produce an impenetrable missile shield defending every acre of US territory from any possible drone or missile strikes. Golden Dome need not make nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete, but rather raise the threshold for limited, coercive attacks on the homeland. Should boost-phase ICBM engagement be demonstrated in 2028, a space-based interceptor layer could further complicate adversary planning.

The logic is hardly new that active defenses contribute to deterrence by raising the prospect of deterrence by denial. If that is Golden Dome’s aim, it needs to be said.

Just Start Talking

The Golden Dome initiative will be real and durable when its logic is understood on a broad, bipartisan, public basis. Such understanding can be achieved, but it will require a communication campaign. Without it, Golden Dome may remain a thick binder of great ideas locked in a Pentagon vault, filed alongside other admirable ambitions which never materialized.

To be sure, the Pentagon is prudent to keep some details quiet. Exact numbers of interceptors, notional salvo sizes, and sensitive operational details should be closely held. The need for operational security should not get in the way, however, of sharing a few big ideas about what Golden Dome is, how it will enhance US security, and why it is doable.

The sound of silence plays into the hands of those, at home and abroad, who caricature the effort as foolhardy, or reduce it to a meme. A failure to communicate invites Russian and Chinese propaganda to define the narrative.

Hegseth has called for aggressive, fast approaches to defense acquisition. His Nov. 7 memo states that “speed to capability delivery” is “the decisive factor in maintaining deterrence and warfighting advantage.” That acquisition approach must be applied to Golden Dome. Implementation speed, however, first requires understanding and persuasion.

Because the missile threats of today are profound, persuasion should not be that hard. There is a compelling story to be told. Those who can tell the story must be allowed to do so.

It’s time to loosen the gag order and start talking.

Tom Karako is the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.