Why $1.5 Trillion? 

The number $1.5 trillion was first thrown out by Trump on Truth Social. Trump, who never backs down from a lie and always doubles down once he spouts one, has now given the number wings, with the Pentagon figuring out new ways to spend Americans’ money.

Does the war in Iran justify the $1.5 trillion? Certainly not, although it is adding several billion dollars a day to war spending, and War Secretary Pete Hegseth has recently requested that Congress authorize a $200 billion supplement to the existing nearly $1 trillion annual spending.

Enter The Golden Dome

If the $1.5 trillion is to be spent, much of it will go to the seriously under-budgeted Golden Dome. This proposed U.S. defence shield to protect domestic land, air and space assets has been given an initial $175 billion price tag. That number appears to be another pulled out of a hat.

Why? Because many of the proposed technologies have yet to be invented, and because the scale of coverage will likely be well beyond the country’s capacity to implement.

To stop incoming drones, missiles, and bombs, current interceptor technologies won’t cut it. No defence research or science laboratory has yet to create Star Trekkian shields.

Shielding all of American airspace isn’t the same as putting an Iron Dome over a tiny country like Israel. Iron Dome, despite press accolades, has had limited success protecting a land mass of 20,770 square kilometres (a little over 8,000 sq. miles). It consists of 10 Iron Dome batteries designed to protect populated areas covering 155 square kilometres (60 sq. miles) each. That’s why we see newspaper reports that Iranian and Hezbollah missiles are killing Israeli civilians. The reason is simple. Iron Dome has too many holes.

U.S. defence experts, when considering an equivalent to Israel’s limited Iron Dome, describe a system with a minimum of 10 to 20 times the density of coverage to cover America’s urban areas. That leaves most of the rest of the country, amounting to more than 5 million square kilometres (3 million sq. miles), without a defensive shield.

What $1.5 Trillion Annually Will Not Buy

There is no chance that the proposed $1.5 trillion will cut it in implementing the Golden Dome. The last time the U.S. government considered something like it was back in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan.

Reagan called it Star Wars. Its real name was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). In 1980’s dollars, the never-built SDI budget estimates varied between $170 and $540+ billion.

The current U.S. defence budget sits at around $895 billion without the $200 billion Hegseth funding request. That puts the number over $1 trillion annually. Now add planned Golden Dome expenditures.

A Breakdown of Golden Dome Projected Costs By 2035

1. New technology development initiatives to create a comprehensive defence shield will gobble up a minimum of $170 billion annually for the next decade.
2. Ground-based systems equivalent to Patriot or THAAD, the current technologies being used by Israel and Ukraine, if scaled nationwide, will add at least another $200+ billion over ten years.
3. Sea-based systems such as Aegis-class destroyers and cruisers will each cost at least $2.7 billion to meet America’s maritime needs. Projected ship numbers come in at between 77 and 90 to meet Golden Dome requirements. Costs in current dollars range from $208 to $243 billion.
4. Space protection will dramatically inflate the current Space Force budget of $40 billion annually. The Golden Dome calls for a constellation of tracking satellites, interceptors and anti-satellite defence systems, likely adding between $500 billion and $1 trillion annually to the Pentagon budget.

The proposed war budget of $1.5 trillion is hard enough to contemplate. But the numbers described above add trillions more, costs that will fall on an America with an increasingly ageing population and many other priorities.

Is this a price worth paying to feed the ego of a malignant narcissist President?

The Current Nuclear Deterrence Reality

What sane and rational American would see the Golden Dome as a good investment? What does it say about the current nuclear deterrent, supposedly the shield built to protect the country from enemies?

Annual maintenance expenditures for America’s nuclear deterrent today amount to $40 billion annually. With modernization underway, the nuclear deterrent budget is being topped up annually by $60 billion until the mid-2030s.

Consider the Pentagon’s own assessment of 1% likelihood of using the nuclear deterrent in a future war. That’s $100 billion spent annually for a defence that would only be used after an enemy’s first strike because its deployment is guided by the principle of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).

Some at the Pentagon argue that the Golden Dome would be a substitute for the current nuclear deterrence strategy. Build a protective shield over the country, and nuclear weapons will no longer be a threat.

Reality suggests a very different scenario. Building the Golden Dome could be the invitation for an enemy first strike before its full deployment. If that were the case, then the Golden Dome would make Americans less safe, and for the rest of us, make life as we know it even more precarious.

The post U.S. Defense Spending (I Mean War Spending) Rises to $1.5 Trillion appeared first on Techso Mogro.

Donald Trump has admired Israel’s Iron Dome, a defensive shield designed to intercept rockets, artillery shells and mortars fired from 4 to 70 kilometres away by enemies like Hamas and Hezbollah. It uses advanced radar that detects objects immediately after launch and is designed to protect Israel’s populated areas. The principal interceptors are batteries holding up to 20 Tamir missiles. It is supplemented by two longer-range defensive systems called David’s Sling and Arrow. During the latest hostilities involving Hamas and Hezbollah, the defensive shield stopped 90% of incoming missiles, shells and bombs. Much of the Iron Dome technology has been developed with funding support from the United States by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, an Israeli defence technology company.

Iron Dome is the inspiration behind the Golden Dome. As described, it would involve deploying hundreds of satellites equipped with sensors and systems capable of detecting and then intercepting enemy missiles at the boost phase, in space, or even after re-entry. To do this over Israel, a tiny geography, is one thing. To do this over a continent-wide nation with non-contiguous states in Hawai’i and Alaska is far more complicated.

What would be involved?

• Development of technology and weapons that track and destroy a missile in space or intercept it through and after re-entry into the atmosphere.
• Creating a transcontinental command and control system for land, sea, air and space to oversee all defence operations capable of anticipating and responding to threats.

None of this exists, and inventing and constructing the technology would likely take decades. Trump’s advisors estimate it can be done for $175 billion. The reality is that it will likely cost trillions and be another Star Wars boondoggle that never sees the light of day, and at some point, a future president will do what Clinton did to Star Wars in 1993.

Recently, Trump asked Canada if it wanted the U.S. to extend the Golden Dome to cover all of Anglo North America, offering it for free if the country became America’s 51st state, or for $61 billion if it chose to stay independent. What surprises me is that Canadian government officials would even consider it, particularly with this either-or offer.

Currently, the U.S. and Canada share a joint continental defence through NORAD. Canada, recently, has entered a partnership with Australia to develop the Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar (A-OTHR), for long-range surveillance up to 3,000 kilometres (1,800 plus miles) across Canada’s North and detect airborne threats. The cost is considerably less than the Golden Dome, coming in at CDN $6 billion (US $4.3 billion). Initial deployment is scheduled for 2029.

A-OTHR will be based on Australia’s Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) that uses high-frequency radio waves bounced off the ionosphere for over-the-horizon object detection. JORN consists of three radar tracking sites and became operational in the 1980s. It remains a cutting-edge radar detection system that is continuously undergoing hardware and software upgrades, including the latest that will introduce artificial intelligence. Called AIR 2025 Phase 6, it is costing AUS $1.2 billion (US $780 million).

Although a radar-based defence is not as comprehensive as what is proposed in the Golden Dome, it remains a very effective tool for long-range surveillance and early detection of missiles and aircraft. Currently, America’s existing defence infrastructure already includes space-based sensors, ground-level radar and regional missile defence systems. The problem is that these technologies are not integrated. It would be far easier to fund integration than build Trump’s fantasy project based on his inability to understand the difference between defending a patch of land the size of Israel versus all of North America or the United States.

The post Donald Trump’s Golden Dome Is As Crazy As Was Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars appeared first on Techso Mogro.