Shielding the population of a nation from the devastation of an adversary nuclear attack is unquestionably a laudable goal for a national leader. Former President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and now President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome Program were created to achieve that vision. The costs associated with these national missile defense initiatives are gargantuan, and it is imperative that the public consider the ethical and practical implications of such. The SDI failed to live up to its promises, and Golden Dome is unlikely to do so either. In fact, the pursuit of such technologies and systems may not only fail to make the population safer, they could have the opposite effect: increasing conflict.
The SDI program was terminated in 1990, having spent $40 billion of a projected $150 billion, and achieving little. Missile defense goals were subsequently dramatically reduced, with efforts only to defend against limited nuclear attacks from “rogue” nations, such as North Korea. In the approximately four decades since SDI, the nation has spent between $200 and $300 billion dollars on missile defenses and now has on alert a limited number of ground-based interceptors. These interceptors have been shown in controlled tests to be able to intercept their incoming targets slightly more than 50 percent of the time.
President Trump’s planned Golden Dome system is essentially a resurrection of President Reagan’s SDI system with updated warning satellites. Like SDI’s “Brilliant Pebbles,” it envisions the use of space-based interceptors. Advocates argue that while SDI was not successful, technology has improved in the intervening decades. However, the ability to engineer and command and control such a massive system, with literally thousands of components, is questionable. To make such a system effective against large numbers of adversary missiles and decoys, the space-based interceptors alone would have to number in the thousands.
The Administration has proposed that the Golden Dome would be operational in three years at a cost of $175 billion. More likely, it will take at least an additional decade and cost three to four times as much. That is a major investment that will need to be weighed against other national security and economic priorities. And even then, there is good reason to doubt that it would ultimately be a functioning system.
History shows that contrary to what we might think, pursuing these systems may actually risk fueling more arms races and escalation. In 2001, President George W. Bush decided to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which had limited missile defense systems, and build the current ground-based interceptor system. The U.S. departure from the treaty ushered in a new era where U.S. adversaries pursued even more capable intercontinental ballistic missiles and now hypersonic missiles.
In his 1953 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, General George C. Marshall, former General of the Army, former Secretary of Defense, and former Secretary of State, addressing the prospects for a long-term peace, said, “A very strong military posture is vitally necessary today. How long it must continue I am not prepared to estimate, but I am sure that it is too narrow a basis on which to build a dependable, long-enduring peace.” General Marshall went on to say that, “Agreements to secure a balance of power, however disagreeable they may seem, must likewise be considered.” Heeding his message, our nation should be cautious about devoting so much of its shared wealth to strengthening military defense systems that could move us away from a “balance of power” – and at the same time, not investing in other capacities that help manage and de-escalate international conflicts.
President Trump has made no secret of his desire to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He has, arguably, played a critical role in ceasefires and peace negotiations around the globe. He might consider, however, also working to advance what is possibly the greatest cause for future world peace: constraining nuclear weapons. Pursuing dangerous and expensive strategic missile defense systems will not further that cause. Instead, what is needed are bold steps toward meaningful arms control agreements, reducing dependence on nuclear weapons, and seeking General Marshall’s “balance of power” to lower the incentives for an arms race and reducing the chances of war.
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Major General (ret.) Robert H. Latiff is an adjunct professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Reilly Center and is also a private consultant, providing advice on advanced technology matters to corporate and government clients, and to universities.
