Making Golden Dome Work: Innovation Lessons from the Cold War
Thane Clare | 06.18.25
Making Golden Dome Work: Innovation Lessons from the Cold War
President Donald Trump’s Oval Office “Golden Dome” announcement kicked off the most ambitious American defense project since President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. Although the collapse of the Soviet Union brought that project to a premature end, the Cold War still offers important lessons for defense innovators.
The most critical lesson is that Golden Dome will require an empowered leader who remains in place until it is fully deployed—a common component of the most impactful Cold War innovation success stories. The president’s designation of the vice chief of space operations General Michael Guetlein to head Golden Dome is an encouraging first step—but there is more to be done, and quickly.
Analyses by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments pinpoint four prerequisites for successful military innovation: an operational problem with no existing solution; senior leader support; receptive organizational norms and culture; and empowered innovators. Golden Dome appears to be on relatively firm footing on the first two prerequisites—but its success or failure will hinge on the administration’s ability to accomplish all four.
When it comes to rapid and effective defense innovation, two Cold War examples set the gold standard. Using these as benchmarks, we can identify the near-term decisions and actions essential to Golden Dome’s ultimate success. This first of these groundbreaking achievements is Admiral Hyman Rickover’s naval nuclear power program. Rickover’s accomplishment was astounding. “Almost none of the necessary technology was available,” wrote one chronicler. “It all had to be created.” Yet USS Nautilus was underway on nuclear power in January 1955, five years after program start.
The second accomplishment is General Bernard Schriever’s Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The first operational Atlas missile went on alert in 1959, five years after President Dwight Eisenhower designated the ICBM a top national priority.
Golden Dome: A Preliminary Scorecard
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/making-golden-dome-work-innovation-lessons-from-the-cold-war/
