Trump’s Golden Dome Might Help China More Than America

Wang Xiangsui and Charriot Zhai, The China Academy, June 3, 2025 — 

Trump vows the Golden Dome will be an impenetrable shield, but in reality, it is merely a strategic delusion and technological black hole that could drag the United States down.

On May 20, Trump announced the “Golden Dome” project—a plan to build a nuclear missile defence shield made up of hundreds of weaponized satellites. Lockheed Martin praised the initiative on its official website, calling it a way to “further the goals of peace through strength” and “ensuring the security and resilience of our nation.” However, Chinese strategist and former Air Force colonel, Professor Wang Xiangsui, argues that the Golden Dome is economically and technically unrealistic—and will actually give China a strategic advantage.

In the economic front, Trump claims the system would cost just $175 billion and make the U.S. immune to nuclear attacks from China and Russia. However, a report from the U.S. Congressional Budget Office released on May 5 estimates that even a space-based system designed to defend against just one or two missiles from North Korea could cost as much as $542 billion. China and Russia, by contrast, possess over 700 ballistic missiles and have a combined landmass about 200 times larger than North Korea. Therefore, the number of required satellites, sensors, and interceptors would have to be scaled up hundreds of times—resulting in astronomical budget overruns that could devastate the U.S. economy even more thoroughly than a nuclear strike.

Jeffrey Lewis, an affiliate with the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation, noted that to detect launches early and maximize response time, satellites would need to operate in low Earth orbit—where they’re subject to atmospheric drag and require constant replacement. Take Starlink, currently the largest low-orbit satellite network: SpaceX has to replace about 20% to 30% of its satellites each year. Even if Trump managed to build the Golden Dome for $175 billion, annual maintenance alone could cost at least $35 billion—the price of two and a half Ford-class aircraft carriers.

The US Navy currently has only 1 operational Ford-class aircraft carrier: the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78)

On the technical side, a report by the American Physical Society concluded that it could take more than a thousand orbital weapons to intercept a single intercontinental ballistic missile during its boost phase in space. Defending against a dozen or more simultaneous launches would require hundreds of interceptors operating at once. Building such a system would be an enormous technical challenge—and it would be extremely vulnerable to anti-satellite weapons. Patrycja Bazylczyk, a missile defence expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told the BBC that the kind of command-and-control system needed for the Golden Dome does not currently exist.

There’s also the issue of interceptors themselves. The missiles currently used in U.S. defence systems—Patriot, THAAD, and Standard Missiles—travel at speeds of Mach 5, Mach 8.2, and Mach 3.5, respectively. Meanwhile, China and Russia have developed hypersonic weapons capable of reaching speeds to Mach 10. Traditional ballistic missiles can also hit hypersonic speeds during their descent, but they follow relatively predictable paths, allowing interceptors to target them at fixed points. In contrast, China and Russia’s latest hypersonic weapons can maneuver at Mach 10, making them nearly impossible to intercept with slower missiles. That’s why in Ukraine, Russia’s “Kinzhal” missile has repeatedly breached defences and even destroyed a Patriot system. China’s DF-17 is even more advanced—it uses a waverider design that allows it to glide along the edge of the atmosphere with extreme agility. This unpredictable flight path, sometimes called the “Qian Xuesen trajectory,” makes interception even harder.

In short, the Golden Dome is almost impossible to achieve with current technology, but it will still drain enormous financial resources. That kind of resource misallocation could give China a relative competitive edge. Over the past 70 years, the U.S. has already spent about $400 billion on ballistic missile defence systems—most of which have only achieved limited coverage and questionable effectiveness.

Professor Wang points out that the real reason so many U.S. administrations have gotten trapped in this doomed project is because of a fundamental strategic flaw: the belief that unilateral technology can solve multilateral security problems. The reason nuclear war hasn’t broken out is that major powers still maintain a balance of mutually assured destruction—and have historically reached binding arms-control agreements through serious diplomacy. Trump, however, is trying to pry open a Pandora’s box that no other leader has dared to touch. Having such a president is a tragedy for U.S. citizens—but the fact that the U.S. lacks the actual capability to follow through may be a blessing for the rest of the world.

Editor: Charriot Zhai