Senators clashed on March 13 over President Donald Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system, with key disagreements about funding and priorities at a Punchbowl News “pop-up” conversation on space policy.
Sens. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., both agreed on the need for better defense systems to combat evolving threats. However, Kelly raised concerns about the costs and urgency of the project, questioning whether the U.S. should rush into spending billions of dollars on the system.
President Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 27 directing the Department of Defense (DoD) to “deploy and maintain a next generation missile defense shield” against hypersonic weapons and other aerial threats.
“It’s really a whole series of defensive capabilities to protect against a whole series of different attacks,” Rounds said.
“In theory, I’m not opposed to the idea of having a system like this but it’s not just the idea pops into one guy’s head and we should just suddenly spend hundreds of billions of dollars on it,” Kelly said.
Kelly further explained that the project needs specific priorities for advancements such as increased ship building, Air Force fleet improvements, or intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). He said that adversarial nations like Russia could also advance their weapons systems to counter the United States’ investments.
“I would expect an adversary’s response would be to just start cranking out [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles]” Kelly said.
Adversely, Rounds said other nations like China have already advanced their weapons systems and “Golden Dome” is simply responding to those threats.
Rounds also explained that increasing infrastructure through “Golden Dome” and other space-based weapons systems is necessary for the United States to move forward as technology continues to advance. He said adversarial nations need to fear the capabilities of the United States military and defense systems.
“What we’ve got to be able to do is to have systems that they still fear,” Rounds said. “It’s a whole lot easier to have a diplomatic outcome if they believe very seriously that you have the capability of causing great harm,” Rounds added.
Kelly cautioned large amounts of spending and rapid defense manufacturing to compete with other nations, emphasizing priorities that would keep the U.S. safe from nuclear war.
“We should really think through what this means for nuclear proliferation and for our own safety,” Kelly said. “Is this going to make us safer? It might, it also might not,” he added.
Despite their differing views, Rounds and Kelly did agree that a key aspect to developing a space-based defensive weapons system must include artificial intelligence (AI).
Rounds said the U.S. needs to use AI to in the deployment of offensive and defensive cybersecurity capabilities. He emphasized domestic development of AI to increase its use for defense.
“We want to make sure that we develop it here and that we apply it here, and I think the application of AI as an accelerator into our offensive and defensive cyber capabilities is critical,” Rounds said.
Kelly agreed and highlighted the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which provided up to $52 billion in funding for domestic semiconductor production. He said manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductors investments to increase domestic semiconductor production needs to “go smoothly.”
“We got to make sure that his goes smoothly and we don’t wind up with any bumps in the road because we need those semiconductor chips to build AI capacity,” Kelly said.
