A Response to the Opponents of Space-Based Interceptors in Golden Dome

For nearly four decades, opponents of space-based missile defense have recycled the same three arguments whenever the United States explores deploying meaningful defenses in space: it will not work, it will cost too much, and it will destabilize deterrence with adversaries like China and Russia. Today’s debate over the “Golden Dome for America” initiative and space-based interceptors is no different.

But that argument fundamentally misrepresents both what the CBO actually analyzed and what Golden Dome is actually pursuing.

The CBO report explicitly states that it is not an estimate of the currently funded Golden Dome architecture. Instead, the report explains that it estimated the cost of a “notional” national missile defense architecture based broadly on capabilities envisioned in the President’s initial executive order.

Even senior leaders directly overseeing the effort have publicly rejected that interpretation. General Michael Guetlein, the Space Force officer leading Golden Dome, stated plainly that “They [CBO] did not estimate the architecture that we’re building.” Guetlein further explained that the CBO relied heavily on legacy acquisition assumptions and historical cost models that fail to reflect the rapidly changing economics of space launch and satellite deployment required to make space-based interceptors realistic in the near term: “You can't just take what we've done in the past and multiply it forward or you're gonna get large numbers like CBO.” The real FY27 request for Golden Dome reportedly seeks approximately $17.5 billion through reconciliation, with roughly $400 million appearing in the base budget request. That is nowhere close to the trillion-dollar fully mature architecture modeled in the CBO report.

Among the most vocal critics is Todd Harrison, who argues that space-based interceptors “do not scale” and that the United States is “throwing away billions of dollars on a system with no future.” Harrison contends that orbital mechanics make scaling of SBIs are impossible and that the money would be better spent on terrestrial missile interceptors and drone countermeasures. But this argument ignores the reality that “scaling” in 2026 is fundamentally different from scaling during the Cold War or even the early 2000s.

Launch costs have collapsed due to the proliferation of reusable rockets and commercial competition. Also, satellite miniaturization has transformed constellation design and deployment procedures. Current Starlink and Starshield type constellations are being deployed by the thousands in large batches, not the one at a time, “battlestar” models of the Strategic Defense Initiative.  In addition, advances in artificial intelligence, autonomous networking, proliferated architectures, and advanced sensors have dramatically reduced the barriers that once made large-scale missile defense constellations economically unrealistic.

The technological and industrial environment underpinning Golden Dome simply does not resemble the environment critics in Congress and think tanks continue referencing.

More importantly, critics often mischaracterize the purpose of space-based interceptors altogether. No serious advocate claims Golden Dome will create an impenetrable shield against a massive Russian or Chinese nuclear exchange. Even the CBO report itself acknowledges that their notional system as envisioned “would not be an impenetrable shield.”  But missile defense has never required perfection to be strategically valuable. Other vital defense systems serve as good analogies of this.

Aircraft carriers do not stop every attack on American interests, yet each carrier strike group infrastructure invested by our nation runs over $1T over twenty years of service. Cyber defenses do not prevent every intrusion. Yet, the infrastructure needed are not cheap as the demand for data storage and processing expands and the United States still invests heavily in those capabilities. Why? Because reducing vulnerability, complicating enemy planning, and increasing deterrence credibility in space and on earth, remain strategically worthwhile objectives even absent total protection.  The same principle applies to Golden Dome’s space-based interceptor layer.

Critics of space-based interceptors frequently discuss the issue as though the United States is merely revisiting old Strategic Defense Initiative concepts from the 1980s. But the strategic environment of 2026 is fundamentally different because adversaries are now actively deploying and demonstrating space-to-ground and orbital strike systems—including nuclear anti-satellite missiles—specifically designed to bypass terrestrial missile defenses and conventional forces.

In 2021, China demonstrated a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) capability paired with a hypersonic glide vehicle that reportedly orbited the Earth before reentering toward its target. Such systems complicate traditional missile warning architectures because they can approach from lower, unconventional trajectories, potentially bypassing northern-oriented early warning systems designed during the Cold War for Soviet ballistic missile attacks. Likewise, Russia continues advancing the RS-28 Sarmat heavy missile system, which Russian officials have repeatedly associated with FOBS-style delivery options and unpredictable attack vectors. Moscow has indicated the system could become operational at larger scale as early as this year.

These developments are not theoretical. They represent an evolving strategic challenge specifically designed to exploit gaps in existing terrestrial based homeland defense architectures.

Ground-based interceptors remain essential, but they are constrained by geography, interceptor placement, engagement windows, and trajectory limitations. Space-based interceptors, by contrast, offer persistence, wider-area coverage and earlier boost-phase engagement opportunities against maneuvering hypersonic and orbital threats. In other words, they are being developed precisely because the threat itself has increasingly become a space-based and space-to-ground threat.

This is why the argument that America should abandon space-based interceptors because they are not “perfect” misses the point entirely. The relevant question is not whether Golden Dome can stop every possible attack. The relevant question is whether the United States can afford to remain dependent on false assumptions such as “mutual vulnerability” while adversaries actively field systems intended to bypass our extremely limited, post-Cold War legacy missile warning and defense systems.

The destabilization argument against missile defense is equally outdated. Critics warned the Strategic Defense Initiative would trigger an arms race. Today they argue Golden Dome will incentivize adversaries to expand missile inventories or develop countermeasures. But China and Russia are already doing exactly that despite decades of minimal American missile defense deployments and a lack of space-based defenses due to policy restrictions. China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal, developing hypersonic weapons, and building sophisticated counterspace systems. Russia continues modernizing its nuclear triad and anti-satellite capabilities regardless of U.S. restraint. In fact, Chinese leaders have expressed that the very reason space forces are key to their own military strategy is because our lack of space-based weapons systems for defense creates a “soft ribs” by which they can gain advantage rapidly in a conflict.  The notion that limiting American homeland defense programs will somehow moderate Chinese or Russian strategic ambitions has little empirical support.

Congress and policymakers should recognize what the CBO report actually is—and what it is not. It is not an assessment of the Golden Dome architecture currently being developed. It is not proof that space-based interceptors are technologically impossible. And it is not evidence that America should abandon homeland missile defense against emerging orbital, space-to-ground, and hypersonic missile threats.

Rather, the report has become the latest vehicle for repeating familiar arguments that have delayed meaningful space-based missile defense for decades. The difference now is that the threat is no longer hypothetical—and America may finally have both the technology and political will to address it. We must address it and the Space Force must lead the way!

Christopher Stone previously served as Special Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy (2018–2019). His insights and opinions reflect independent analysis of space deterrence challenges and do not reflect the opinions of the Department of War or United States Government.