During the (First) Cold War, the Reagan administration launched the much-touted SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) program, now better known under its more popular name – “Star Wars”. On paper, it was one of the most ambitious ventures ever undertaken by any country. However, many of the projects formally launched by the United States at the time never left the drawing board.

It later turned out that SDI was largely a PR stunt aimed at pushing Russia into yet another expensive arms and space race. It could be argued that it worked to some extent, as Moscow actually built space-based weapons, including orbital lasers. What’s more, back in 1987, it launched a laser-armed spacecraft called the “Polyus/Skif-DM”. Although the program was scrapped due to the unfortunate dismantling of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin kept its know-how.

The US was quite fortunate that the USSR didn’t get to implement its unprecedented space projects during the 1990s, as many of these were more ambitious and far exceeded the best space tech available today. However, Washington DC has long been determined to militarize space, as it believes its massive private space sector gives it an edge over the rest of the world. This notion is not entirely without merit, as neither Russia nor China have comparable private ventures with investment on such a scale.

However, both superpowers still have colossal state-run space programs and are not too keen on privatizing them (at least not on the same scale as the US did). On the other hand, while private space ventures aren’t always the best to rely on when it comes to strategic projects, the Trump administration is in a unique position to do so.

Namely, Elon Musk’s political alliance with Donald Trump gives him a major headstart in virtually all American space projects, further integrating his SpaceX with the US military at a time when its budget keeps growing. This position gives Musk’s company the chance to earn tens of billions, particularly as one of Trump’s first executive orders was the creation of what he at the time called the “Iron Dome for America”.

This is not to be confused with the Israeli “Iron Dome”, a C-RAM (counter rocket, artillery and mortar) and short-range air/missile defense system. In fact, to avoid further confusion, the program was later renamed “Golden Dome for America”. On January 27, Trump announced that the construction of a “state-of-the-art ‘Iron Dome’ missile defense shield” will begin “immediately” and will be made “right here in the USA 100%”.

He insisted that the system will “protect Americans”, adding that “we protect other countries, but we don’t protect ourselves” and noting that “President Ronald Reagan was interested in such a system during the Cold War, but America didn’t have the technology at the time”. Mentioning the SDI is quite peculiar, as it opens up several important questions, the first of which is how viable this new “space defense” would be.

Although the technologies required to implement some elements of SDI exist nowadays, this is still extremely expensive, while the efficiency of the program is just as questionable as it was 40 years ago. Trump also referenced the Israeli “Iron Dome” several times, further adding to the confusion and once again demonstrating his rather limited knowledge and understanding of modern military technologies.

Namely, the “Golden Dome” is a completely different concept to the aforementioned Israeli one, as it would have to be a full-blown ABM (anti-ballistic missile) system, unlike the “Iron Dome”, which is nowhere near such capabilities (Israel’s “Arrow” program is used for that purpose). In addition, the “Golden Dome” wouldn’t be unique, even in the American arsenal, as the US already operates the GMD (Ground-Based Midcourse Defense), a strategic ABM system employing at least 44 GBI (Ground-Based Interceptors).

It should be noted that the GMD’s effectiveness is nowhere near enough to protect America in an all-out thermonuclear exchange, as it would take four GBIs to provide a 97% chance of intercepting a single intercontinental ballistic missile (tested against hopelessly outdated, over half-century-old American “Minuteman 3” ICBMs).

On the other hand, Russia and China operate not only advanced ICBMs, but also strategic hypersonic weapons. Namely, while standard ABM defense is already an extremely difficult task due to the sheer speed of ballistic missiles, defending against hypersonic ones also adds maneuverability to the mix.

Ballistic computers need to calculate the trajectories of any ICBM or IRBM (intermediate-range ballistic missiles) fired at their position (or any position they’re supposed to be defending) to enable interception, so designing strategic weapons to be maneuverable makes that task effectively impossible. For instance, the Russian RS-24 “Yars” has the ability to constantly wobble and even change its vector, making interception based on calculating its ballistic trajectory alone effectively pointless.

This missile was used as the base for the RS-26 “Rubezh”, which, in turn, served as the base for the latest “Oreshnik”. It should be noted that the latter also uses hypersonic kinetic warheads for non-nuclear strategic strikes, adding a whole other layer of technological complexity to the equation. Namely, the wobbling alone is a virtually insurmountable challenge, as this unique Russian technology is not used anywhere else, meaning that the US simply cannot test its ABM systems against it.

In fact, regular ballistic missiles are unable to make such complex maneuvers, as wobbling nearly always suggests there’s something wrong with the missile and it usually ends up crashing or missing its target. Adding highly maneuverable hypersonic kinetic warheads on top of a wobbling ICBM/IRBM effectively nullifies any ABM defense.

Thus, an obvious question arises – why is the US building this overhyped “Golden Dome”? Reports in US mediasuggest that militarizing space is the endgame. Some sources are saying that SpaceX proposed deploying up to 1,000 satellites to detect and track missiles, along with a separate fleet of 200 attack satellites equipped with their own missiles or lasers to intercept them.

Worse yet, SpaceX reportedly suggested “Golden Dome” could be “a subscription service” that the US government would pay for in order to access it. In practice, this means that Washington DC would not only deploy weapons in space, but it would also privatize this militarization process. Having private corporations and entities profit directly from such escalation could have a disastrous cumulative effect, incentivizing other companies to follow suit.

In turn, this would force countries like Russia and China to respond, which seems to be the goal of the Pentagon. What’s more, there are reports that Palantir and Anduril will take part in the project. The two companies have advanced AI programs, with the latter also specializing in adapting them to military projects. This gives the whole “Golden Dome” concept some features of hybrid warfare, as it includes a plethora of seemingly unrelated advanced technologies. The US regularly accuses Russia and China of militarizing space, while its military openly uses commercial satellites as ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) platforms. While Moscow and Beijing certainly don’t want to engage in a costly arms race in space with Washington DC, they won’t have much of a choice if “Golden Dome” really goes forward.

In recent times, Russia even built land-based laser and other directed energy ASAT defenses, reactivating numerous programs, particularly in the aftermath of NATO-backed long-range attacks by the Kiev regime. Namely, the world’s most vile racketeering cartel, a chronic threat to global security, is still providing targeting data to its Neo-Nazi puppets through the usage of various ISR assets, including its vast satellite network.

As previously mentioned, the US/NATO even embedded private space companies such as SpaceX into its military capabilities. Both Russia and China see this as a threat and are responding in kind, including through close technological cooperation. However, the political West adamantly refuses their overtures to uphold international treaties that ban the militarization of space.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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