{"id":43543,"date":"2025-12-09T18:46:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T10:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/asked-why-we-need-golden-dome-the-man-in-charge-points-to-a-hollywood-film\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T18:46:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T10:46:18","slug":"asked-why-we-need-golden-dome-the-man-in-charge-points-to-a-hollywood-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/asked-why-we-need-golden-dome-the-man-in-charge-points-to-a-hollywood-film\/","title":{"rendered":"Asked why we need Golden Dome, the man in charge points to a Hollywood film"},"content":{"rendered":"

Near the end of the film A House of Dynamite<\/em>, a fictional American president portrayed by Idris Elba sums up the theory of nuclear deterrence.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust being ready is the point, right?\u201d Elba says. \u201cIt keeps people in check. Keeps the world straight. If they see how prepared we are, no one starts a nuclear war.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot that goes wrong in the film, namely the collapse of deterrence itself. For more than 60 years, the US military has used its vast arsenal of nuclear weapons, constantly deployed on Navy submarines, at Air Force bomber bases, and in Minuteman missile fields, as a way of saying, \u201cDon\u2019t mess with us.\u201d In the event of a first strike against the United States, an adversary would be assured of an overwhelming nuclear response, giving rise to the concept of mutual assured destruction.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon\u2019s Golden Dome missile defense shield, still in its nascent phase, could fundamentally transform nuclear strategy. One might argue that Golden Dome, if demonstrated as successful, could reshape deterrence in ways not seen since the United States and the Soviet Union first escalated their nuclear arms race in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

Theory of deterrence<\/h2>\n

Production of A House of Dynamite<\/em>, released in October, began well before President Donald Trump retook the White House and started issuing a bevy of executive orders, one of which directed the Pentagon to start work on a defense shield to protect the US homeland from missile and drone attacks. This initiative was later named Golden Dome, a twist on Israel\u2019s Iron Dome missile defense system.<\/p>\n

Proponents of the Golden Dome program say it\u2019s necessary to defend the United States against evolving threats, especially in a time of \u201cgreat power competition\u201d with nuclear-armed China. Golden Dome is supposed to defend against traditional ballistic missiles, maneuverable hypersonic missiles, cruise missiles, and slower-moving drones. All of these types of weapons have seen use on battlefields in the Middle East, Ukraine, and Russia in the last several years.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Opponents argue that Golden Dome will cost untold hundreds of billions of dollars, destabilize the global order, and increase the risk of a nuclear attack. Their thinking goes that if an adversary\u2019s leaders believe the United States can protect itself from widespread destruction\u2014and therefore remove the motivation for a massive US response\u2014that might be enough for an adversary to pull the trigger on a nuclear attack.<\/p>\n

Inevitably, at least a handful of nuclear-tipped missiles would make it through the Golden Dome shield in such a scenario, and countless Americans would die, critics say. People made similar arguments against former President Ronald Reagan\u2019s Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly known as Star Wars, before its cancellation. Ars interviewed Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) earlier this year about why he\u2019s against Golden Dome.<\/p>\n

Getting boxed in<\/h2>\n

Following orders from the Trump administration, military officials have said little about Golden Dome after a flurry of White House announcements and Oval Office photo ops earlier this year. The shield will consist of hundreds or thousands of Space-Based Interceptors on satellites prepositioned in low-Earth orbit, ready to fire small rockets to strike any ballistic missile that threatens the United States. No one is prepared to say how many interceptors or how long it will take to deploy a comprehensive space-based defense system.<\/p>\n

In order to work, Golden Dome also needs ground-based interceptors, radar arrays, missile tracking and data relay satellites, and a sophisticated computer network to tie it all together. Some of these capabilities exist today, but space-based interceptors (SBIs) do not. The Trump administration claims an initial homeland defense system could be ready by mid-2028 at a cost of $175 billion. But that won\u2019t be the final product, and Pentagon officials haven\u2019t said how long or how much it will cost to build out the entire network.<\/p>\n

The four-star general in charge of developing Golden Dome, Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, defended the military\u2019s reluctance to release more information to taxpayers. He said the military is sharing more about the Golden Dome architecture in \u201cone-on-one\u201d meetings with 200 to 300 companies vying for a lucrative slice of the program.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Gen. Michael Guetlein testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee about joint force readiness in Washington, DC, on March 12, 2025.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Eric Dietrich\/US Air Force<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cThat transparency may not come in an industry symposium, but it is coming in one-on-ones,\u201d Guetlein said in a discussion Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum. \u201cIt\u2019s not coming in an industry symposium because you guys are not the only ones in the audience, and there are people in that audience that I don\u2019t want to know what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I do know that\u2026 our industrial partners are all in on it and are supported, so they are pretty well-informed to the max amount I can inform them today,\u201d Guetlein said. \u201cWe\u2019ll continue to do more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some public discourse is necessary to establish deterrence. Guetlein said he \u201chopes\u201d to release more information to the public next year. For now, nearly 11 months after Trump\u2019s order kick-started Golden Dome, nearly all of it remains under a veil of secrecy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will have some things in place that allow us to start having those kind of conversations,\u201d Guetlein said. \u201cI think A House of Dynamite<\/em> was a good place to start the dialogue. It opens up the dialogue to the American public that we have to change the defense equation. We have to provide decision space to the United States president so that we don\u2019t get ourselves boxed in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spoiler alert<\/h2>\n

The military\u2019s Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, which would be used to destroy an incoming missile before it ever reaches US airspace, has a success rate of less than 60 percent in testing. There are just 44 ground-based midcourse interceptors in the Pentagon\u2019s inventory, enough to mount a defense against one or several missiles from a rogue state like North Korea, but not enough to put a dent in any large-scale nuclear attack.<\/p>\n

The next part of this story contains spoilers.<\/p>\n

In A House of Dynamite<\/em>, the military launches two GBIs to destroy a single ballistic missile of unknown origin heading for the United States. Both interceptors fail. What\u2019s more, for a nuclear-armed missile to actually reach a target in the United States, one assumes defense and deterrence have also failed. The president must decide what to do next. Respond with an attack? If so, attack where?<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Idris Elba portrays an unnamed president of the United States in A House of Dynamite<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Netflix<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

The film succeeds in creating suspense. It also gets a lot of technical details right, even if the ending left many viewers disappointed. According to at least two senior Pentagon leaders, the film helps illustrate why it\u2019s time for Golden Dome. It is worth noting that the filmmakers behind A House of Dynamite<\/em>\u2014director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim\u2014said one of their goals with the movie was to show that missile defense systems are not infallible.<\/p>\n

But Troy Meink, the secretary of the Air Force, said no president should ever wrestle with the decisions facing Elba\u2019s character in the final minutes of the film.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that A House of Dynamite<\/em> really highlighted is the fact that you can\u2019t let yourself be in a situation where you either have a very low chance of stopping it, or you go full nuke in return,\u201d Meink said. \u201cYou just can\u2019t let yourself get in that situation, and that\u2019s why we need this [Golden Dome].\u201d<\/p>\n

Non-disclosure<\/h2>\n

There was a bit of news that Guetlein briefly mentioned in Saturday\u2019s discussion at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Guetlein confirmed the Pentagon recently awarded 18 contracts to develop technology for SBIs capable of targeting enemy missiles during their boost phase, before they reach their top speeds and have an opportunity to deploy countermeasures.<\/p>\n

The Space Force awarded the prototype development deals in November, but officials didn\u2019t say how many or which companies received the contracts. Guetlein said the number was 18. The value of each contract falls below the $9 million public disclosure threshold for Pentagon programs.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Guetlein said the military is working with companies on command-and-control and fire-control software.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in discussions with the department on the need to acquire more transport capability, which is the ability to move data through space, more sensing capability, more missile warning, missile track capability,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are waiting on those contracts to come in and to move forward on those, but we have given our needs to the department.\u201d<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This illustration released by Apex depicts a Space-Based Interceptor fired from a satellite in low-Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Apex<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Next, the Space Force plans to award prototype contracts for midcourse SBIs, perhaps as soon as February, according to a procurement document released by Space Systems Command\u2019s program executive office for space combat power. Like their ground-based counterparts already on alert, these kinds of interceptors would be used to take out ballistic missiles as they coast through space.<\/p>\n

Several death knells doomed the Reagan-era Star Wars plan. One was political: the fall of the Soviet Union. The others were economic and technical. It was not possible to affordably build and launch numerous SBIs, but the cost of space access is coming down, largely thanks to reusable rockets. Many of the technologies that will underpin Golden Dome, like automation and AI, sensor sensitivity, and laser communications in space, were simply not available 40 years ago.<\/p>\n

It also helps that the Pentagon has a head-start on Golden Dome with GMD and an inventory of smaller interceptors for shorter-range missiles. Key elements of a space-based sensor network required for detecting, tracking, and targeting ballistic and hypersonic missiles started launching in 2024.<\/p>\n

But SBIs don\u2019t yet exist. They are among the most challenging, and most controversial, parts of Golden Dome. That\u2019s why the Space Force is focusing on awarding the first batches of SBI contracts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are meeting all of our\u2026 objectives to date,\u201d said Guetlein, who previously compared Golden Dome to the Manhattan Project. \u201cI think we\u2019re on a good trajectory. But I will tell you, it is not a gimme putt. It is an extremely complex thing that we\u2019re getting ready to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Near the end of the film A House of Dynamite, a fictional American president portrayed by Idris Elba sums up the theory of nuclear deterrence. \u201cJust being ready is the point, right?\u201d Elba says. \u201cIt keeps people in check. Keeps the world straight. If they see how prepared we are, no one starts a nuclear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}