‘There is no Golden Dome’ unless Congress prioritizes funding, general warns

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.—The sprawling Golden Dome missile-defense program is in peril because the White House decided to seek the vast majority of its 2027 funding via a controversial budget maneuver, the program’s leader said Tuesday.

Gen. Michael Guetlein didn’t explicitly call out the administration’s decision to propose using reconciliation to fund about 97 percent of the program’s $17.5 billion request. But the Space Force four-star did say it creates a “tough budget environment” as lawmakers remain cool to the administration’s request for a third partisan-led defense-funding measure.

“If they don’t figure it out, there is no Golden Dome,” Guetlein told attendees at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium, “because there is no funding.”

His public cry for help contrasts sharply with the mysterious gag order imposed by Pentagon leaders at last year’s symposium. 

And it comes, Guetlein said, as the program makes good progress. He said that 90 percent of the roughly $24 billion allocated for the missile defense program through last year’s reconciliation effort has been obligated. He also said there’s been two “phenomenally successful” tests tied to the effort, and that contracts have been awarded for many of the key parts, such as space-based interceptors, radars, and data networks. 

The general also warned that progress could stall without consistent funding.

“So if there’s no additional funds, we have to continue to leverage the enormous amount of investment that [Congress] already gave me in reconciliation in FY 25-26, and then leverage that going forward,” Guetlein said.

One of Golden Dome’s cornerstone capabilities—space-based boost-phase interceptors— could be too costly for the final architecture. Physicists have said such a scheme would require thousands or even tens of thousands of armed satellites to provide 24/7 defense against even a handful of incoming missiles.

In April, Guetlein told the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee that if building and deploying satellites armed to down enemy missiles early in flight can’t be done affordably or at scale then “we will not go into production.”

On the sidelines of the symposium, Guetlein told reporters that he hadn’t seen anything from the defense industry to change his mind on the affordability of space-based interceptors, but added he was impressed with what he’s seen.

“All of the providers that are part of the competition are progressing exceptionally well,” the general said, adding that he expects those companies developing the technology to progress to the next stage, which involves building the on-orbit capability. He declined to say how Space Systems Command plans to test those interceptors. 

Guetlein told reporters that the Defense Department is already planning for contingencies if they don’t secure the requested funding in the 2027 budget, but said no final maneuvers have been settled on.

“There are discussions within the department about how to go forward because we have diversified execution of a lot of these capabilities, and a lot of these capabilities are already requested by combatant commands,” Guetlein said. “There are some alternatives that we can pursue. We have not made any decisions on any pathway.”

He said, as an example, that some of the capabilities in the Golden Dome program are also being funded by the Space Force, and added that the service could continue to work on those systems.

Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said it isn’t likely that Golden Dome would have to raid various service budgets to continue its progress.

“I think that Congress would prioritize Golden Dome funding and find it another home, either through a supplemental bill, a smaller reconciliation package, or tuck it into a higher base budget,” Harrison said.

Earlier this year, Golden Dome’s price tag had already swelled $10 billion over the original $175 billion goal, and the potential long-term costs have already been the focal point of criticisms.

In the absence of a publicly released architecture, Congressional Budget Office analysts crafted an estimate for a national missile defense system based on Trump’s “Iron Dome for America” executive order. The watchdogs calculated it would cost $1.2 trillion to “develop, deploy, and operate” for 20 years. 

Guetlein has since gone on defense, publicly pushing back on that trillion-dollar figure and saying that the analysts “did not estimate the architecture that we’re building.”

During his panel at the symposium, Guetlein acknowledged Golden Dome’s steep price tag, but averred its necessity.

“That’s a lot of money. That’s one of the biggest systems that we’ve ever put together as a nation,” he said. “We got to keep it affordable.”