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NDTV
17 hours ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Explained: Why Peace Deal Before Ceasefire Won't End Russia-Ukraine Conflict
If you're confused about the aims, conduct and outcome of the summit meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin held in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025, you're probably not alone. As summits go, the meeting broke with many conventions of diplomacy: It was last-minute, it appeared to ignore longstanding protocol and accounts of what happened were conflicting in the days after the early termination of the event. The Conversation U.S.'s politics editor Naomi Schalit interviewed Donald Heflin, a veteran diplomat now teaching at Tufts University's Fletcher School, to help untangle what happened and what could happen next. It was a hastily planned summit. Trump said they'd accomplish things that they didn't seem to accomplish. Where do things stand now? It didn't surprise me or any experienced diplomat that there wasn't a concrete result from the summit. First, the two parties, Russia and Ukraine, weren't asking to come to the peace table. Neither one of them is ready yet, apparently. Second, the process was flawed. It wasn't prepared well enough in advance, at the secretary of state and foreign minister level. It wasn't prepared at the staff level. What was a bit of a surprise was the last couple days before the summit, the White House started sending out what I thought were kind of realistic signals. They said, "Hopefully we'll get a ceasefire and then a second set of talks a few weeks in the future, and that'll be the real set of talks." Now, that's kind of reasonable. That could have happened. That was not a terrible plan. The problem was it didn't happen. And we don't know exactly why it didn't happen. Reading between the lines, there were a couple problems. The first is the Russians, again, just weren't ready to do this, and they said, " No ceasefire. We want to go straight to permanent peace talks." Ukraine doesn't want that, and neither do its European allies. Why? When you do a ceasefire, what normally happens is you leave the warring parties in possession of whatever land their military holds right now. That's just part of the deal. You don't go into a 60- or 90-day ceasefire and say everybody's got to pull back to where they were four years ago. But if you go to a permanent peace plan, which Putin wants, you've got to decide that people are going to pull back, right? So that's problem number one. Problem number two is it's clear that Putin is insisting on keeping some of the territory that his troops seized in 2014 and 2022. That's just a non-starter for the Ukrainians. Is Putin doing that because that really is his bottom line demand, or did he want to blow up these peace talks, and that was a good way to blow them up? It could be either or both. Russia has made it clear that it wants to keep parts of Ukraine, based on history and ethnic makeup. The problem is, the world community has made it clear for decades and decades and decades, you don't get what you want by invading the country next door. Remember in Gulf War I, when Saddam Hussein invaded and swallowed Kuwait and made it the 19th province of Iraq? The U.S. and Europe went in there and kicked him out. Then there are also examples where the U.S. and Europe have told countries, "Don't do this. You do this, it's going to be bad for you." So if Russia learns that it can invade Ukraine and seize territory and be allowed to keep it, what's to keep them from doing it to some other country? What's to keep some other country from doing it? You mean the whole world is watching. Yes. And the other thing the world is watching is the U.S. gave security guarantees to Ukraine in 1994 when they gave up the nuclear weapons they held, as did Europe. The U.S. has, both diplomatically and in terms of arms, supported Ukraine during this war. If the U.S. lets them down, what kind of message does that send about how reliable a partner the U.S. is? The U.S. has this whole other thing going on the other side of the world where the country is confronting China on various levels. What if the U.S. sends a signal to the Taiwanese, "Hey, you better make the best deal you can with China, because we're not going to back your play." At least six European leaders are coming to Washington along with Zelenskyy. What does that tell you? They're presenting a united front to Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to say, "Look, we can't have this. Europe's composed of a bunch of countries. If we get in the situation where one country invades the other and gets to keep the land they took, we can't have it." President Trump had talked to all of them before the summit, and they probably came away with a strong impression that the U.S. was going for a ceasefire. And then, that didn't happen. Instead, Trump took Putin's position of going straight to peace talks, no ceasefire. I don't think they liked it. I think they're coming in to say to him, "No, we have to go to ceasefire first. Then talks and, PS, taking territory and keeping it is terrible precedent. What's to keep Russia from just storming into the three Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania - next? The maps of Europe that were drawn 100 years ago have held. If we're going to let Russia erase a bunch of the borders on the map and incorporate parts, it could really be chaotic." Where do you see things going? Until and unless you hear there's a ceasefire, nothing's really happened and the parties are continuing to fight and kill. What I would look for after the Monday meetings is, does Trump stick to his guns post-Alaska and say, "No, we're gonna have a big, comprehensive peace agreement, and land for peace is on the table." Or does he kind of swing back towards the European point of view and say, "I really think the first thing we got to have is a ceasefire"? Even critics of Trump need to acknowledge that he's never been a warmonger. He doesn't like war. He thinks it's too chaotic. He can't control it. No telling what will happen at the other end of war. I think he sincerely wants for the shooting and the killing to stop above all else. The way you do that is a ceasefire. You have two parties say, "Look, we still hate each other. We still have this really important issue of who controls these territories, but we both agree it's in our best interest to stop the fighting for 60, 90 days while we work on this." If you don't hear that coming out of the White House into the Monday meetings, this isn't going anywhere. There are thousands of Ukrainian children who have been taken by Russia - essentially kidnapped. Does that enter into any of these negotiations? It should. It was a terror tactic. This could be a place where you can make progress. If Putin said, well, "We still don't want to give you any land, but, yeah, these kids here, you can have them back," it's the kind of thing you throw on the table to show that you're not a bad guy and you are kind of serious about these talks. Whether they'll do that or not, I don't know. It's really a tragic story. (Author: Donald Heflin, Executive Director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice, The Fletcher School, Tufts University) (Disclaimer Statement: Donald Heflin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.)
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
RFK Jr's shakeup of vaccine advisory committee raises worries about scientific integrity of health recommendations
On June 11, 2025, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a slate of eight new members to serve on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on national vaccine policy. The announcement, made on the social media platform X, comes two days after Kennedy removed all 17 of the serving committee members. Kennedy called their replacements 'a bold step in restoring public trust' rooted in 'radical transparency and gold standard science.' However, public health experts decried the removals, pointing to Kennedy's promise not to change the committee and warning that the move politicizes its work and undermines its scientific integrity. Health experts have also noted that multiple new committee members appointed on June 11 have voiced anti-vaccine views that are not evidence-based. The Conversation U.S. asked Santosh Kumar Gautam, an expert in global health policy at the University of Notre Dame, to explain how the vaccine committee's guidance has shaped vaccine recommendations for the public, and what the changes might mean for peoples' ability to access vaccines in the future. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, is a panel of experts appointed to advise the CDC on how to use vaccines to protect the health of people in the U.S. The committee's job is to review multiple strands of scientific evidence to recommend which vaccines should be used, who should get them and when they should be given. Its guidance affects vaccine schedules for both children and adults, insurance coverage and public health policy across the country. The committee was formed in 1964 to establish national vaccine policy as federal immunization programs began to expand. It can have up to 19 voting members, who are appointed by the secretary of Health and Human Services. Members are experts in areas such as medicine, public health and immunology. Member usually serve overlapping four-year terms to ensure continuity. All 17 previous members were appointed at different times during the Biden administration. Removing all members of the committee at once is unprecedented. The group also includes nonvoting members from government health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. There are also representatives from more than 30 medical and public health organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Physicians. These nonvoting members share useful information and real-world experience such as practical issues in administering vaccines in hospitals, management of vaccine side effects and insights into adverse events. Their input helps the committee make recommendations that reflect both science and practical needs. The committee meets three times a year to review new data on vaccine safety and effectiveness. Its next meeting is scheduled for June 25-27 and is expected to include discussions on COVID-19 and HPV vaccines, with recommendation votes planned for COVID-19 boosters, human papilloma virus and influenza vaccines. The meeting is open to the public and will be telecast live online. The committee makes its recommendations to the CDC by reviewing scientific evidence about a vaccine's safety and efficacy, as well as practical issues, such as how easy a vaccine is to use, how it affects different groups, its side-effects and how it fits into the health system. The recommendations don't just consider whether a vaccine works, but how it can be most effectively deployed to protect the American public from disease outbreaks. The committee looks at data from clinical trials and other research to examine the most recent data on a vaccine's safety, efficacy and use in everyday settings. When new vaccines come out or a change occurs in the way a disease spreads or behaves, the committee often revises its advice. It also responds to public health emergencies such as recent measles outbreaks in the U.S. The committee has made many updates over time. It changed flu shot guidance when new strains appeared. It lowered the recommended age for the HPV vaccine based on new research. And it adjusted vaccine plans for meningitis to better protect people at higher risk. The committee played a vital role in evaluating vaccine safety and effectiveness and authorizing the use of vaccines for different age groups by reviewing clinical trial data, from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and other vaccine manufacturers. The committee also developed step-by-step guidelines for who should get vaccinated first, based on how likely people were to catch the virus, their risk of serious disease, the type of work they did and whether they came from a population that was historically underserved or at higher risk. It also issued tailored guidance for pregnant and breastfeeding women, immunocompromised people and children and adolescents as more trial data became available. These recommendations shaped vaccine rollout strategies at both national and state levels, guided insurance coverage and influenced COVID-19 vaccination policies in other countries around the world. Although Kennedy promised more transparency, he handpicked the advisory committee's new members without revealing how they were selected. Historically, the body's members are selected after an extensive vetting process that can take two years. The newly appointed members have expertise in psychiatry, neuroscience, epidemiology, biostatistics and operations management. However, several have been linked to vaccine-related misinformation, particularly relating to COVID-19 vaccines, raising concerns about the scientific neutrality of the committee moving forward. For example, Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at MIT Sloan School of Management, has publicly called for suspension of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, claiming they cause serious harm and death in young people – a statement not supported by evidence. Another member, physician and biochemist Robert Malone, made scientifically inaccurate statements about the dangers of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. A third member, epidemiologist and biostatistician Martin Kulldorff helped write the Great Barrington Declaration, which opposed lockdowns and argued that people at low risk of severe illness or death should be allowed to contract COVID-19 to build natural immunity – a stance that was heavily debated among health experts. The committee's new makeup and Kennedy's decades-long anti-vaccine stance threaten to erode the integrity of scientific decision-making and commitment to ethical standards in vaccine recommendations. Kennedy's overhaul of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will likely affect how insurers, doctors and the public make decisions about vaccines – and vaccine policy generally. For example, the advisory committee's decisions directly affect which vaccines are covered by health insurance. If a vaccine is not recommended by the committee, many insurance plans, including those under the Affordable Care Act, are not required to cover it. This means families could face out-of-pocket costs, making it harder for children to access routine immunizations. The advisory committee also plays a key role in shaping the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule. Given Kennedy's long-held skepticism about childhood vaccines — including those for measles and polio — some public health experts worry that the newly appointed members could push to revisit or revise vaccine recommendations, especially for newer and more debated vaccines like those for COVID-19 or HPV. States usually base their school entry vaccine requirements on the committee's guidelines, and insurers often use them to determine which vaccines are covered. As a result, shifts in policy to childhood vaccinations could influence both school vaccination mandates and access to vaccines for millions of children. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Santosh Kumar Gautam, University of Notre Dame Read more: RFK Jr. says annual COVID-19 shots no longer advised for healthy children and pregnant women – a public health expert explains the new guidance Unverified reports of vaccine side effects in VAERS aren't the smoking guns portrayed by right-wing media outlets – they can offer insight into vaccine hesitancy Vaccine misinformation distorts science – a biochemist explains how RFK Jr. and his lawyer's claims threaten public health Santosh Kumar Gautam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Trump's West Point speech brought partisanship to the home of the US military − 3 essential reads
President Donald Trump's speech at the graduation of the class of 2025 from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point included segments that were clearly scripted and portions that were obviously not. During the unscripted portions, Trump, who wore a bright red 'Make America Great Again' campaign hat during his entire appearance on May 24, 2025, delivered remarks that hit many of his frequent partisan political talking points. That included attacking presidential predecessors Barack Obama and Joe Biden, describing immigrants to the U.S. as 'criminals' and trumpeting other policy accomplishments in his first and second terms. That level of partisanship in a military setting – on the campus of the nation's first military academy, and before an audience of cadets and their families, many of whom are veterans – is unusual in the United States. The Conversation U.S. has published several articles discussing the importance to democracy of keeping the military and partisan politics separate. Here are three highlights from that coverage. During the West Point ceremony, the graduates themselves took an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.' And all of them had studied the significance of that oath, including in classes like those taught by Joseph G. Amoroso and Lee Robinson, active-duty Army officers who graduated from West Point and later served as professors there. As Amoroso and Robinson wrote, those classes teach cadets that, like all military personnel, they serve the Constitution and the American people, not a particular person or political party: '(O)ur oath forms the basis of a nonpartisan ethic. In the U.S., unlike in many other countries, the oath implies military leaders should be trusted for their expertise and judgment, not for their loyalty to an individual or political party. We emphasize to cadets the rules and professional expectations associated with this profound responsibility.' Read more: Retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Samuel C. Mahaney, who teaches history, national security and constitutional law at Missouri University of Science and Technology, observed: '(S)ince the days of George Washington, the military has been dedicated to serving the nation, not a specific person or political agenda. … (N)onpartisanship is central to the military's primary mission of defending the country.' Mahaney wrote that if Trump's actions during his second term meant a change from the centuries of precedent, 'military personnel at all levels would face a crucial question: Would they stand up for the military's independent role in maintaining the integrity and stability of American democracy or follow the president's orders – even if those orders crossed a line that made them illegal or unconstitutional?' Read more: Marcus Hedahl and Bradley Jay Strawser, professors of philosophy who teach military ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School, respectively, explain the reason for this long-standing focus on keeping politicians and politics separate from military action. 'To minimize the chance of the kind of military occupation they suffered during the Revolutionary War, the country's founders wrote the Constitution requiring that the president, an elected civilian, would be the commander in chief of the military. In the wake of World War II, Congress went even further, restructuring the military and requiring that the secretary of defense be a civilian as well.' As they observed, '… the framers always intended it to be the people's military – not the president's.' Read more: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation's archives.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
MAHA report on children's health highlights harms of ultraprocessed foods – a food scientist explains the research
On May 22, 2025, the White House released a new report highlighting what it claims are the causes of chronic disease in children. The report fleshes out many of the themes that have emerged as priorities for the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement promoted by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. One major area of focus is the negative health effects of ultraprocessed foods. The report points to the prevalence of ultraprocessed foods in the American diet as a key contributor to chronic illness in children and cites research that finds that nearly 70% of children's diets and 50% of pregnant and postpartum women's diets in the U.S. consist of ultraprocessed foods. The Conversation U.S. asked Paul Dawson, a food scientist at Clemson University, to explain how the government's stance on the harms of ultraprocessed foods squares with the science. Concerns that ingredients used by food manufacturers can contribute to chronic illness first emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, when research began linking processed food consumption to increasing rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The term 'ultraprocessed food' dates back to the 1980s and was used to describe convenience foods and snacks that contained high amounts of additives and had low nutritional value. As research on the health effects of ultraprocessed foods began to build, experts in public health and the food industry have debated the meaning of the term. Increasingly, researchers are settling on defining ultraprocessed foods based on a framework called the Nova Food Classification System, created in 2009 by nutrition researchers in Brazil. The framework assigns foods to one of four groups based on the level of processing they undergo: Group 1 - Unprocessed or minimally processed foods: This category includes raw fruits, vegetables and meats that may be cleaned, frozen or fermented but remain close to their natural state. Group 2 - Processed culinary ingredients: Think salt, sugar, oils and other ingredients extracted from nature and used to cook and flavor foods. Group 3 - Processed foods: Foods in this category are made by adding ingredients like salt or sugar to Group 1 items — for example, canned vegetables or cheese. Group 4 - Ultraprocessed foods: These are mostly foods that contain ingredients not found in a typical kitchen, such as hydrogenated oils, modified starches, flavor enhancers, color additives and preservatives. Examples include chips, sodas, candy bars and many frozen meals, which are designed to be hyper-palatable and often nutrient-poor. A growing body of research links ultraprocessed foods with many negative health outcomes, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and cognitive decline. One issue is that these products are typically high in added sugar, sodium, saturated fats and chemical additives, and low in fiber, vitamins and essential micronutrients. But some studies also suggest that what makes these foods harmful isn't just the ingredients but also how they're made. That's because the industrial processing of fats and starches can produce harmful compounds. For example, a substance called acrolein, formed when oils are heated at high temperatures, has been linked to DNA damage. Studies are also finding that microparticles from packaging and plastics, now found in air, water and food, may disrupt the gut microbiome, a key player in immune and metabolic health. One drawback of nutrition studies is that they often rely on self-reported dietary data, which can be inaccurate. They can also have confounding factors that are difficult to account for, such as lifestyle patterns. However, the consistency of the findings across diverse populations gives credence to the growing concerns about ultraprocessed foods. An important caveat, however, is that not all ultraprocessed foods are created equal. They vary in how nutritious they are, and some ultraprocessed foods play an important role for vulnerable populations. For example, foods containing the slow-release carbohydrate sweetener sucromalt help people with diabetes prevent blood sugar spikes, and hypoallergenic infant formula can be lifesaving for infants that cannot digest milk at a young age. The report echoes key themes of the 2020–2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a document jointly published by the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services every five years. Both the MAHA report and the federal guidelines encourage the consumption of nutrient-dense, whole foods. One critical difference between them is that the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines make no mention of ultraprocessed foods. Some public health experts have noted that this omission may reflect food industry influence. Kennedy has stated that a follow-up report outlining a strategy and potential policy reforms for addressing childhood chronic illness will be released in mid-August 2025. However, change is unlikely to be straightforward. Ultraprocessed foods represent a significant industry, and policies that challenge their prominence may encounter resistance from influential commercial interests. For decades, U.S. agricultural subsidies, food policy and consumers have supported the mass production and consumption of ultraprocessed foods. Reversing their overconsumption will require structural shifts in how food is produced, distributed and consumed in the U.S. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Paul Dawson, Clemson University Read more: Ultraprocessed foods – like cookies, chips, frozen meals and fast food – may contribute to cognitive decline Foods high in added fats and refined carbs are like cigarettes – addictive and unhealthy Nutrition Facts labels have a complicated legacy – a historian explains the science and politics of translating food into information Paul Dawson receives funding from the USDA.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Golden Dome: Everything to know about Trump's $25 billion missile defense plan
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. President Donald Trump announced a plan to build a missile defense system, called the Golden Dome, on May 20, 2025. The system is intended to protect the United States from ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, and missiles launched from space. Trump is calling for the current budget to allocate US$25 billion to launch the initiative, which the government projected will cost $175 billion. He said Golden Dome will be fully operational before the end of his term in three years and will provide close to 100% protection. The Conversation U.S. asked Iain Boyd, an aerospace engineer and director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado Boulder, about the Golden Dome plan and the feasibility of Trump's claims. Boyd receives funding for research unrelated to Golden Dome from defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Several countries, including China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, have been developing missiles over the past few years that challenge the United States' current missile defense systems. These weapons include updated ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, and new hypersonic missiles. They have been specifically developed to counter America's highly advanced missile defense systems such as the Patriot and the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System. For example, the new hypersonic missiles are very high speed, operate in a region of the atmosphere where nothing else flies and are maneuverable. All of these aspects combined create a new challenge that requires a new, updated defensive approach. Russia has fired hypersonic missiles against Ukraine in the ongoing conflict. China parades its new hypersonic missiles in Tiananmen Square. So it's reasonable to think that, to ensure the protection of its homeland and to aid its allies, the U.S. may need a new missile defense capability. Related: How do intercontinental ballistic missiles work? Such a defense system requires a global array of geographically distributed sensors that cover all phases of all missile trajectories. First, it is essential for the system to detect the missile threats as early as possible after launch, so some of the sensors must be located close to regions where adversaries may fire them, such as by China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. Then, it has to track the missiles along their trajectories as they travel hundreds or thousands of miles. These requirements are met by deploying a variety of sensors on a number of different platforms on the ground, at sea, in the air and in space. Interceptors are placed in locations that protect vital U.S. assets and usually aim to engage threats during the middle portion of the trajectory between launch and the terminal dive. The U.S. already has a broad array of sensors and interceptors in place around the world and in space primarily to protect the U.S. and its allies from ballistic missiles. The sensors would need to be expanded, including with more space-based sensors, to detect new missiles such as hypersonic missiles. The interceptors would need to be enhanced to enable them to address hypersonic weapons and other missiles and warheads that can maneuver. Intercepting hypersonic missiles specifically involves several steps. First, as explained above, a hostile missile must be detected and identified as a threat. Second, the threat must be tracked along all of its trajectory due to the ability of hypersonic missiles to maneuver. Third, an interceptor missile must be able to follow the threat and get close enough to it to disable or destroy it. The main new challenge here is the ability to track the hypersonic missile continuously. This requires new types of sensors to detect hypersonic vehicles and new sensor platforms that are able to provide a complete picture of the hypersonic trajectory. As described, Golden Dome would use the sensors in a layered approach in which they are installed on a variety of platforms in multiple domains, including ground, sea, air and space. These various platforms would need to have different types of sensors that are specifically designed to track hypersonic threats in different phases of their flight paths. These defensive systems will also be designed to address weapons fired from space. Much of the infrastructure will be multipurpose and able to defend against a variety of missile types. In terms of time frame for deployment, it is important to note that Golden Dome will build from the long legacy of existing U.S. missile defense systems. Another important aspect of Golden Dome is that some of the new capabilities have been under active development for years. In some ways, Golden Dome represents the commitment to actually deploy systems for which considerable progress has already been made. Israel's Iron Dome air defense system has been described as the most effective system of its kind anywhere in the world. But even Iron Dome is not 100% effective, and it has also been overwhelmed on occasion by Hamas and others who fire very large numbers of inexpensive missiles and rockets at it. So it is unlikely that any missile defense system will ever provide 100% protection. The more important goal here is to achieve deterrence, similar to the stalemate in the Cold War with the Soviet Union that was based on nuclear weapons. All of the new weapons that Golden Dome will defend against are very expensive. The U.S. is trying to change the calculus in an opponent's thinking to the point where they will consider it not worth shooting their precious high-value missiles at the U.S. when they know there is a high probability of them not reaching their targets. That seems to me like a very aggressive timeline, but with multiple countries now operating hypersonic missiles, there is a real sense of urgency. Existing missile defense systems on the ground, at sea and in the air can be expanded to include new, more capable sensors. Satellite systems are beginning to be put in place for the space layer. Sensors have been developed to track the new missile threats. Putting all of this highly complex system together, however, is likely to take more than three years. At the same time, if the U.S. fully commits to Golden Dome, a significant amount of progress can be made in this time. President Trump is requesting a total budget for all defense spending of about $1 trillion in 2026. So, $25 billion to launch Golden Dome would represent only 2.5% of the total requested defense budget. Of course, that is still a lot of money, and a lot of other programs will need to be terminated to make it possible. But it is certainly financially achievable. RELATED STORIES —North Korea launches intercontinental ballistic missile to space, reaches record altitude —Stealth destroyer 1st to carry hypersonic missiles that travel 5 times the speed of sound — with testing imminent —Chinese scientists reveal plans for near-invisible stealth missiles that could 'redefine modern warfare' Similar to Iron Dome, Golden Dome will consist of sensors and interceptor missiles but will be deployed over a much wider geographical region and for defense against a broader variety of threats in comparison with Iron Dome. A second-generation Golden Dome system in the future would likely use directed energy weapons such as high-energy lasers and high-power microwaves to destroy missiles. This approach would significantly increase the number of shots that defenders can take against ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles. This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
