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What to cognize astir Trump's "Golden Dome"
President Trump's rocket defence project, called the "Golden Dome for America," aims to support the U.S. from overseas threats. But it has been criticized by China arsenic threatening to summation the risks of militarizing abstraction and a planetary arms race.
The president connected Tuesday said his medication had "selected an architecture" for the "state-of-the-art system," which could outgo hundreds of billions of dollars and enactment U.S. weapons successful abstraction for the archetypal clip successful history.
What is the Golden Dome and however volition it work?
The Golden Dome is simply a multilayered defence strategy that the president, speaking successful the Oval Office alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, said volition deploy "next-generation technologies crossed the land, oversea and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors."
"The Golden Dome volition beryllium susceptible of intercepting missiles adjacent if they are launched from different sides of the satellite and adjacent if they are launched from space," the president said, adding that helium wants it to beryllium operational earlier his word ends.
The conception includes some ground- and space-based capabilities that would support against missiles by: detecting and destroying them up of launch, intercepting them aboriginal successful flight, halting them midcourse and stopping them successful the past fewer moments of approaching a target.
The inaugural would person aggregate layers that grow connected what the U.S. already has and physique caller programs to antagonistic the afloat scope of aerial threats, according to Gen. Gregory Guillot, the caput of U.S. Northern Command, who testified successful beforehand of Congress successful April.
He described a domain consciousness furniture to way threats and past 2 different layers, "the archetypal being an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) decision layer, which mostly exists contiguous with the GBIs (ground-based interceptors) that tin decision a North Korean menace and past an aerial furniture that would decision cruise missiles and aerial threats."
"This is not going to beryllium disconnected the cuff," Tom Karako, the manager of the Missile Defense Project astatine the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CBS News successful an interview.
"This is going to beryllium well-rooted successful the systems engineering and the knowing of the menace and successful the wide architecture plans that person been successful the works for a agelong time," Karako said.
The caller initiative, which volition encompass galore programs, volition beryllium built successful states including Florida, Georgia, Indiana and Alaska, according to Mr. Trump, and impact aggregate American defence and exertion companies that person not yet been selected.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated a outgo of $542 cardinal for the space-based components alone.
Aerospace and defence institution Lockheed Martin, which said connected X it is acceptable to enactment the dome mission, describes it arsenic a "revolutionary concept."
"This is simply a Manhattan Project-scale mission, 1 that is some urgent and important to America's security," the institution says.
Lockheed Martin COO Frank St. John said it would support against atomic missiles, arsenic good arsenic intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles, and different threats.
Mr. Trump said U.S. Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein would beryllium liable for overseeing the dome's progress.
However, determination is nary backing yet to lucifer the plan, which is "still successful the conceptual stage," Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told senators connected Tuesday astatine a hearing. The Pentagon is besides inactive processing the requirements that the dome volition person to meet, The Associated Press reported.
Israel's Iron Dome
The Golden Dome thought archetypal came to nationalist airy during Mr. Trump's joint address to Congress successful March, erstwhile helium asked for backing for it. He said, "Israel has it, different places person it, and the United States should person it, too."
The president was referring to Israel's Iron Dome, which astatine slightest partially inspired the Golden Dome concept. Israel's system, installed successful 2011 to support against incoming projectiles, mostly addresses shorter-range threats similar rockets, portion 2 different aerial defence systems enactment to support against missiles.
The Iron Dome, developed with U.S. backing, has intercepted thousands of rockets and has a occurrence complaint topping 90%, according to Israel.
China responds
Chinese overseas ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said her state urges the U.S. "to wantonness the improvement and deployment of a planetary rocket defence strategy arsenic soon arsenic possible."
"The United States, successful pursuing a 'U.S.-first' policy, is obsessed with seeking implicit information for itself," she said astatine a Wednesday briefing successful Beijing, according to quality agencies. "This violates the rule that the information of each countries should not beryllium compromised and undermines planetary strategical equilibrium and stability. China is earnestly acrophobic astir this."
She besides said the Golden Dome program "heightens the hazard of abstraction becoming a battlefield" and "fuels an arms race."
When asked astir China's effect successful an interrogation connected "Fox & Friends First," Lockheed Martin's St. John said, "What we've seen historically is that the happening that leads to struggle is the deficiency of deterrence, and truthful our belief, on with the administration, is that having beardown deterrence is the champion mode to deter conflict."
A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency appraisal shows that the U.S. subject expects, implicit the coming decade, to contend with rocket threats that are greater successful "scale and sophistication." It besides said that "China and Russia are processing an array of caller transportation systems to exploit gaps successful the existent U.S. ballistic rocket defenses."
China has been rapidly developing rocket and different subject capabilities, portion deepening ties with Russia. The 2 nations said successful a connection earlier this period that the dome task was "deeply destabilizing successful nature" and would crook abstraction into "an arena for equipped confrontation."
Karako said that the Golden Dome inaugural is "a belated realignment of U.S. rocket defence policy" to antagonistic some China and Russia, countries that the past 2 administrations successful their nationalist defence strategies person pointed to arsenic strategical competitors.
Sarah Lynch Baldwin is simply a lawman managing exertion of CBSNews.com. She helps pb nationalist and breaking quality sum and shapes editorial workflows.
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