Senior Military Leaders Speculate on Golden Dome's Possibilities
4/21/2025
By Laura Heckmann
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AURORA, Colorado — On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan announced in a nationally televised address a groundbreaking initiative for a missile defense system that would protect the United States from ballistic missiles and make nuclear weapons obsolete.
The project, known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” program, was ultimately downsized and renamed due in part to its high price tag and questions surrounding the feasibility of the proposed technology, including space-based lasers.
Nineteen years later, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld released a memo reorganizing missile defense programs at the Pentagon and renaming the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization — the rebrand given to the Reagan initiative — to the Missile Defense Agency with the goal of establishing a single program to develop an integrated missile defense system.
On Jan. 27, President Donald Trump signed an executive order proposing the development of a next-generation homeland missile defense system known as the “Iron Dome for America,” later renamed to “Golden Dome.”
https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2025/4/21/senior-military-leaders-speculate-on-golden-domes-possibilities
