Washington, D.C. — U.S. President Donald Trump wants a Golden Dome of missile defence over the United States, and if you’re thinking this sounds familiar, you’d be right. Back in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, aka Star Wars, also aimed to develop a space-based and layered defence system to knock out any incoming strikes.
It didn’t work out.
The space-based part proved elusive, but technology has now advanced enough to make more of it feasible, at least in theory. Trump envisions a system that includes space-based weaponry that can take out missiles — ballistic and hypersonic — and he wants Canada to help pay for building this defensive wall over North America.
“I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State,” the president
posted on social
in May. Since then, the quoted price has gone up to US$71 billion.
Ottawa has acknowledged that discussions with the U.S. are underway, but they’re happening against a backdrop of strained U.S.-Canada relations over defence spending and a trade war. With pressure on Prime Minister Mark Carney to cool Washington’s belligerence, the Golden Dome’s feasibility as a technology may matter less than the symbolism of Canada’s willingness to collaborate with the White House. And none of the options for Canada, whether it’s spending tens of billions of dollars to buy into a risky initiative or spurning a testy and vindictive president, are painless.
The approaching missile menace
U.S. missile defense currently includes the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) in Alaska and California, which is designed to intercept ICBMs in space and has a 55 per cent test success rate. The Patriot system defends battlefield and critical sites against shorter-range missiles closer to their targets, and the mobile THAAD system (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) provides regional defence against various missile threats, also closer to their targets. The naval Aegis system, meanwhile, offers effective naval-based missile interception – and the Patriot, THAAD and Aegis all generally outperform GMD.
Golden Dome aims to integrate all of the above — the ground and sea-based technologies — while adding a new space-based layer of satellites equipped with sensors and interceptors to detect incoming threats and take them out at various stages of their trajectories.
This would improve U.S. missile defence beyond just dealing with potential ballistic missiles coming from rogue nations such as North Korea or Iran, said Patrycja Bazylczyk, a research associate with the Missile Defense Project at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies CSIS.
“Now we’re thinking about our great power competitors, such as Russia and China, and they don’t have just ballistic (missiles),” she says. “They have hypersonic weapons, cruise missiles, etc., a whole host of different weapons that have unique trajectories and characteristics that create challenges for sensing and interception.”
A potential arms race
While much of the technology for the sea- and land-based systems is sound, some of the space-based components remain theoretical.
Space-based interceptors or lasers have improved through proliferation and become more resilient, said Michael O’Hanlon, director of foreign policy research at the Brookings Institution think tank. But “the space-based weapons have not gotten much better … and are nowhere near a really practical deployment.”
“It’s very difficult to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles,” said Benjamin Giltner, a researcher at the think tank CATO Institute’s Defense and Foreign Policy Department. He explains that the warheads are travelling at speeds north of 1,900 mph during the terminal phase, when they’ve detached from the missile and reentered the atmosphere.
On top of that, the system would have to deal with multiple warheads at once, decoys, and efforts by the enemy to jam its frequencies. It’s essentially trying to use a bullet to hit a bullet — amid a maelstrom of chaos.
Managing a battlefield with data inputs in a rapidly changing environment, potentially with thousands of objects in the sky, also requires a lot of computing power. “That would be a piece where artificial intelligence is now making certain things more possible than before,” O’Hanlon said.
Bids are being prepared now by several defence contractors, and costs could go sky high. The Trump administration has estimated a cost of US$175 billion, but the Congressional Budget Office says it could cost between US$161 billion and as much as US$542 billion over the next two decades for the whole system.
Much of that will depend on the depth of system and the space-based weaponry. Giltner said he’s seen “estimates of (needing) up to tens of thousands of missile defence systems to have a chance at defending most U.S. territory.”
It will also depend upon retaining the support of subsequent White House administrations from either party.
Beyond cost and efficacy, building a shield over North America is likely to upset the enemy.
The secured second-strike capability of nuclear nations — meaning a country can hit back hard even after it’s been hit by a nuclear attack — “has so far proven to be the most stable and best form of nuclear deterrent we have,” said Giltner. A missile defence system like Golden Dome would upend that, creating a more “vulnerable strategic environment” and “invite an arms race,” he added.
Bazylczyk sees that another way. “If we look at Chinese and Russian investment in hypersonic and cruise missiles, I think that not having defences to adequately intercept those next-generation threats is kind of concerning for deterrence.”
“If they don’t believe that we are able to counter those threats, then they’ll be more emboldened to embark on escalatory actions.”
Robert Peters, senior research fellow for strategic deterrence at the Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security, agrees. He says he’s “increasingly concerned” that U.S. adversaries “could pursue a low escalation pathway attack or limited coercive attack … because they keep building systems that could execute such an attack.”
He means that China and Russia keep discussing development of systems for limited escalation scenarios in which they might launch an attack with just one or a couple of advanced or nuclear missiles, to hit the U.S. without triggering an all-out nuclear war.
So, for Giltner and many other critics, Golden Dome is likely to start a new arms race. Others, like Peters, say that a race is already underway, and that Golden Dome, “at a minimum, gives us a fighting chance to give the adversaries pause before they decide to go down a limited coercive pathway attack.”
In short, both sides are toying with developments that could undermine the nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine that prevents nuclear powers from pressing the button on a nuclear war.
Canada’s dilemma
Today, Canada helps support GMD and NORAD operations by hosting sensors for early warning and tracking of missiles, and Trump has suggested that Canada join Golden Dome, a project he very optimistically says will take three years, with an entry price of US$71 billion. That’s well over this year’s Canadian defence budget of approximately $62.7 billion, but it’s unclear how long Ottawa would have to pay the ticket price.
Washington and Ottawa have been involved in volatile trade talks in recent weeks, with Trump stating on Friday that there is no deal likely with Canada and that more tariffs are likely coming on Aug. 1. So how is Carney likely to respond to the Golden Dome invite?
Giltner doesn’t see how participating in Golden Dome would strategically benefit Canada, because, in addition to the high cost, it would mean being party to a “more fraught strategic environment.”
But Peters said it is in Canada’s national interest because inbound threats would likely fly over Canadian territory and may not only be directed at the U.S. He believes most Canadians would feel better knowing a defence system could thwart any such attack.
O’Hanlon, however, sees the need for a balancing act. “It would make sense to be involved in this enough that we can do joint planning and that Canada would get some enhanced consideration as we think about options for protection,” he said. At the same time, the high cost, given Canada’s military budget, means Ottawa “wouldn’t want to get so caught up in this that (they) missed out on the opportunities to improve (their) ground forces.”
Canada, he says, should aim to be “a substantial partner in this within reason.”
National Post
tmoran@postmedia.com
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