Mark Montgomery & Bradley Bowman
Every President since the 9/11 attack on the United States has said defense of the homeland is the number one national security priority, yet the only U.S. airspace defended from cruise missile threats is a small portion of Washington, DC, and the entire country is increasingly vulnerable to conventional missile threats from China and Russia. That puts Americans at risk and increases the chances of adversary aggression abroad.
The good news is that President Donald Trump has initiated an effort to build a broad defense against these threats — nicknamed “Golden Dome” — and many in Congress are seeking to support his vision with significant “one-time” funding. But this ambitious missile defense effort will not succeed unless Congress and the Pentagon take additional steps. Congress needs to appropriate sufficient base defense discretionary funding, and the Department of Defense (DoD) must task the right leaders to design the architecture and ensure that the new effort prioritizes and integrates space-based capabilities as well as innovative solutions closer to Earth, including those involving dirigibles and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Russia and China are sprinting to build long-range cruise and hypersonic weapons that can strike anywhere in the United States with conventional warheads. That’s a problem because the United States would struggle even to detect an inbound cruise missile attack in most cases. Indeed, we can expect Americans would first learn of the cruise missile attack when the explosions start.
Many Americans might be surprised to learn our homeland is so vulnerable, but the 2023 embarrassment associated with the Chinese spy balloon exposed unacceptable vulnerabilities in the ability of the U.S. military to detect threats operating at unusual altitudes and speeds. These challenges are exacerbated when one considers the difficulty in detecting low-flying cruise missiles.
So, how did we get to this point?
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