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US military officials have elaborated on plans to develop the country’s next-generation missile defence shield, the Golden Dome.
The system was originally announced by US President Donald Trump and followed up with a presidential order calling for the missile defence shield that will defend citizens and infrastructure from any foreign aerial attack, as well as guarantee second-strike capability.
A panel of senior US Department of Defense officials testified regarding organisational progress on developing the system at a House armed services committee in Washington on 30 April.
“Golden Dome is a top priority for the nation, and [it] will include the development of cutting-edge domain awareness systems, kinetic and non-kinetic missile defeat capabilities and advanced command, control and battle management systems to integrate and augment existing US missile defence capabilities,” said Andrea Yaffe, who is performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for space policy.
“The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.
“The direction (of) the Golden Dome executive order is to focus on the whole range of missile threats … from all nations, and that’s a significant shift in both policy and direction.”
The Golden Dome is reportedly designed to be a new approach to missile defence, as opposed to the traditional US missile defence focused on intercontinental ballistic missile threats posed by rogue states such as North Korea.
Air Force General Gregory M Guillot, Commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, said that both his commands have provided three separate layers of input to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff – all related to the detection and destruction of various incoming missile threats.
“Establishing a layered domain awareness network to detect and track threats approaching North America, from the seabed to space, remains our top priority because you can’t defeat what you can’t see,” Guillot said, adding that such a network is central to both the North American Aerospace Defense Command and Northern Command’s current and future requirements, including the future Golden Dome project.
“I think the big difference (from the current missile defence architecture) is Golden Dome takes all of the existing requirements that we had (and) – for the first time – integrates multiple layers into one system.”
Air Force Lieutenant General Heath A Collins, director of the Missile Defense Agency, said the MDA has been working on a national defence architecture for 42 years and plays a key role in supporting the assembly and integration of missile defence systems like the future Golden Dome.
“We’re at the core of helping support and inform (DOD) in putting together an architecture that’s comprehensive, that covers all pieces and parts, and (that can) be executed,” Collins said.
