What Happened
Congressional Budget Office Estimates Trillion-Dollar Price Tag
A new estimate from the Congressional Budget Office suggests that a national missile defense system, akin to the Golden Dome project, could cost up to $1.2 trillion to develop, deploy, and operate over 20 years. The majority of the cost, over $1 trillion, would be for acquisition, including the system’s major components, such as interceptor layers and a space-based missile warning and tracking system. The space-based interceptor layer is the most expensive component, accounting for 70% of acquisition costs and 60% of total costs. The system’s effectiveness against full-scale attacks from peer adversaries is also a concern, as it may not be able to fully defeat such attacks. This estimate was reported by Breaking Defense.