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Axios
7 days ago
- Business
- Axios
Beltway bloat could doom Trump's Golden Dome
Intercepting missiles — hitting a bullet with a bullet — is difficult. Overcoming bureaucracy may be even harder. The big picture: President Trump's Golden Dome, a continent's worth of 24/7 overhead defense, will be a jigsaw puzzle of ideas, authorities, personalities, contractors, procurements, production lines, users, fixers, technological leaps and diplomacy. Realizing even the most basic form in three years, as the president and Pentagon promised, will require intense coordination. Getting it done fast means resisting Washington's greatest vice: new offices, task forces, branches, blue-chip studies and advisers. Driving the news: Axios consulted a half-dozen analysts, businesspeople and former defense officials and tuned into some timely think-tank discussions to get a temperature check. Simply put, Golden Dome is polarizing. (And that's without asking what the Chinese or Russians think of it.) The latest: "I think there's been a lot of discussion about the capability ... and there's been little discussion about the organization and the authorities to get stuff done," Tom Karako, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview. "We don't need to re-create the wheel." State of play: Trump this month gave the world its best look yet at Golden (née Iron) Dome during an Oval Office address. He was accompanied by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a handful of lawmakers. The president tapped Gen. Michael Guetlein, the vice chief of space operations, as his lead. Folks Axios spoke with applauded that choice. Trump, who mentioned "super technology," also slapped on a $175 billion price tag. That's low, considering the costs of space-based interceptors at the heart of the concept. He also described Alaska as a key contributor to the vision. A Boeing-led team recently finished building 20 new silos for the homeland missile defense system at Fort Greely, Defense News reported. What they're saying: "There was a rollout, but there was almost no information," Laura Grego, a senior research director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Axios. "I think the way most people are starting to use 'Golden Dome' is synonymous with space-based missile defense. But the executive order covered every missile from every adverse area every time," she said. "I can hardly imagine potential adversaries just sitting still, not developing the ways to counter such a system." Yes, but: The defense industry is raring to go. Jordan Blashek, a managing partner at America's Frontier Fund, told Axios "breakthrough technologies have now made something like Golden Dome possible, fulfilling the Reagan administration's vision" for the Strategic Defense Initiative. Trump cited Reagan several times in his Oval Office remarks. Case in point: Apex, a satellite bus maker, is "heavily investing in internal research and development funding for this, as are our partners," CEO Ian Cinnamon said in an inteview. (The company recently announced a $200 million Series C.) Cinnamon foresees different methods for different threats: intercontinental ballistic missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles, fractional orbital bombardment systems. "There are so many pieces ... and they all need to talk," he said. "They all need to listen. They all need to be able to do that within milliseconds."
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Boeing grows Alaska-based homeland missile defense silo count by 20
A Boeing-led team has finished building 20 new silos for the homeland missile defense system at Fort Greely, Alaska, growing the number of interceptors that can be emplaced there from 40 to 60. Boeing recently announced it had officially installed 'the first of 20 additional' silos for the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system — now over 20 years old — designed to counter intercontinental ballistic missile threats from North Korea and Iran. This also included silo interface vaults, which are 'adjacent underground electronics rooms that maintain the readiness and effectiveness of interceptors,' according to a company statement. The silos are located at the fourth missile field at Fort Greely. There are 40 Ground-Based Interceptors, or GBIs, in place there, with another four in the ground at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. The expansion effort initially began under President Donald Trump's first term and work continued through the Biden administration. The Pentagon and the Missile Defense Agency initiated reprogramming funding in fiscal 2017 to increase the number of ground-based interceptors in a new missile field at the Alaskan fort from 44 to 64. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, recently proposed a bill to expand the GMD system from 64 to 80 silos and consider a similar site on the East Coast of the continental U.S. as part of possible elements of President Trump's 'Golden Dome' missile defense architecture for the homeland. The president signed an executive order to establish the missile defense shield during his first few weeks in office. Boeing won a contract from the MDA to integrate, test and ensure the readiness of the GMD system in the summer of 2022. Boeing originally held the development and sustainment contract for the GMD system, which was set to expire in 2023, but MDA split the contract to encourage competition and thus drive innovation amid system modernization efforts. Subsequently, the MDA awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to integrate and manage weapon systems with the GMD system and a contract to Lockheed Martin to field, maintain and upgrade its battle command system. MDA will determine whether the silos will house additional GBIs, the Next-Generation Interceptor — which is currently in development to replace GBI — or a combination of both, a Boeing spokesperson said. The MDA awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin and its L3Harris-owned Aerojet Rocketdyne partner to build the Next-Generation Interceptor nearly a year prior to its deadline for choosing between it and a Northrop and RTX team.
