Golden Dome for America: Balancing Defense Needs with Affordability in a Multi-Domain Threat Landscape

The Golden Dome for America initiative, proposed by President Trump as a nationwide missile defense system, faces significant challenges related to cost, scalability and technical feasibility, according to testimony from military officials before Congress.

Space Command General Michael Guetlein, Program Manager for the Golden Dome project, testified before the House Armed Services Strategic Subcommittee that while the system aims to provide immediate defense using existing technologies, defeating sophisticated, low-cost threats with expensive interceptors is economically unsustainable in the long term.

Guetlein emphasized that affordability will be a determining factor in whether the system moves forward, stating that if components like space-based boost-phase intercept are not affordable and scalable, they will not be produced, and alternative options will be pursued instead.

During the hearing, Guetlein revealed that no U.S. Cities currently have protection from Patriot or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries, despite these systems being foundational to the envisioned layered defense.

A single Patriot battery costs approximately $1.1 billion, with $400 million for radar, control station, and launchers, and $690 million for interceptor missiles priced at around $4 million each. Operating such a battery requires 90 personnel and can defend an area with a 42-mile radius, tracking up to 50 targets and engaging five simultaneously.

The U.S. Army currently operates about 15-16 Patriot battalions, comprising roughly 60 active batteries, with over 30 stationed domestically and the rest deployed overseas in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific.

A single THAAD battery costs between $1 billion and $2.7 billion and includes six truck-mounted launchers, 48 or more interceptors, the AN/TPY-2 radar, and fire control units, also requiring about 90 personnel to operate. As of June 2025, the Army had eight THAAD batteries, with four located overseas in Guam, South Korea, Israel, and the Middle East, and four stationed on U.S. Army bases domestically.

The Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, currently the only operational U.S. System designed to defend the entire country against long-range ballistic missiles, consists of a global sensor and radar network, battle management systems, and just 44 Ground-Based Interceptors (GBI)—40 at Fort Greely, Alaska, and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The system has cost over $40 billion to date, with each GBI priced at approximately $90 million.

President Trump has requested funding for 20 additional GBI interceptors. The Missile Defense Agency awarded Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin contracts in 2021 to develop a Next Generation Interceptor (NGI), later selecting Lockheed Martin as the sole prime contractor in April 2024, with the NGI program expected to deliver initial operational capability by 2028 under a contract potentially worth $17 billion.

Guetlein described the Golden Dome as an integrated “system of systems” combining Patriot, THAAD, GMD, and the Navy’s AEGIS ship-based missile defense system, designed to be modular and upgradable as threats evolve. He projected that the system could deliver operational capability by summer 2028 to protect the homeland against a variety of threats.

The ultimate objective architecture for the Golden Dome is estimated at $185 billion—$175 billion as identified by the President and an additional $10 billion to accelerate certain space capabilities not originally included in the plan.

Lieutenant General Heath Collins, Director of the Missile Defense Agency, confirmed that directed energy weapons, particularly lasers mounted on unmanned aerial platforms, are being explored as part of the initiative to counter unmanned aerial vehicles and reduce reliance on costly kinetic interceptors.

Collins noted that while existing systems like Patriot and THAAD are highly capable, efforts are underway to reduce their costs through increased production volumes, and that directed energy and non-kinetic technologies are being pursued to alter the cost-effectiveness equation of missile defense.

In closing remarks, Guetlein summarized the strategic rationale for the Golden Dome, stating that adversaries are employing multi-domain attacks—from air, sea, space, and land—including low-cost threats designed to challenge defensive depth and overwhelm limited interceptor inventories.

He concluded that the initiative aims to increase magazine depth and develop lower-cost solutions through partnerships with industry, academia, and national laboratories to improve the overall defense equation.