High-ranking defense officials outlined some of their early work and thoughts on the United States’s ability to develop a “Golden Dome” defense system in a Wednesday hearing on Capitol Hill.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a “Golden Dome” akin to Israel’s Iron Dome, which defends the nation from short-range missiles. In an address to Congress earlier this month, Trump asked the legislative body to “fund a state-of-the-art Golden Dome missile defense shield to protect our homeland, all made in the USA.” 

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Space Force Gen. Stephen Whiting, who serves as commander of the U.S. Space Command, told the Senate Subcommittee on Strategic Forces that the Department of Defense has been conducting meetings and working groups to “define what that architecture will look like.”

“I think it’ll be a layered system that will have to account for all of those threats at multiple phases of the life cycle of the missile,” Whiting said in response to a question from Sen. Angus King (I-ME).

Whiting added that the J8 team, a directorate responsible for developing capabilities, conducting studies, and evaluating plans, programs, and strategies for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was working with the Northern Command to “co-write requirements” for the “Golden Dome” that will be delivered to the DOD in the coming months.

At the hearing, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) voiced his concerns that the U.S. developing such a defense system could backfire. 

“Though I am not against the idea of a system that could protect the entire United States from incoming ballistic missiles … at the same time, this could accelerate a growing number of our adversary’s response to having a missile defense system could be to build more nuclear weapons, and if one or two get through that is too many,” Kelly said.

Kelly added, “Right now, we do have a defensive system to protect us from a rogue actor when launching one ICBM.”

The request to build such infrastructure also came as the Trump administration is looking to make steep cuts across the federal government, including on defense spending. Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND), members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, introduced legislation to fund the dome.

“We need to look at a cost-benefit analysis of this and also consider how it would potentially change the nuclear deterrence posture of not only us but China and Russia,” Kelly said.

Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE), committee chairwoman, asked whether the “Golden Dome” could still be executed if the government auctioned off spectrum to boost 5G networks and generate revenue.

In response, Whiting said the “Golden Dome” would not be able to be executed if that spectrum was sold off.

“We could not execute Golden Dome without full access to those two spectrums that we discussed earlier, the lower third, the lower three, and then the seven and eight gigahertz,” Whiting said.

He said many defense radars use the lower three bands to track from the ground and that “the seven and eight gigahertz band is so important for our communications and other special missions.”

“I can only see those requirements getting bigger for those spectrums as Golden Dome delivers,” Whiting added.

Trump’s executive order gave the Pentagon two months to submit an implementation plan for “the next-generation missile defense shield,” which was titled “The Iron Dome for America” and was since rebranded as the “Golden Dome.”

There are some other logistical challenges with mimicking Israel’s defense system. Israel is about the size of New Jersey, and its Iron Dome protects the Jewish state from short-range threats. Trump, on the other hand, is pushing for a space-based missile defense system capable of defending the entire U.S. from advanced ballistic and hypersonic missiles.

TRUMP’S ‘GOLDEN DOME FOR AMERICA’ REKINDLES DECADESLONG DEBATE OVER MISSILE DEFENSES

The idea for a defense system such as the “Golden Dome” was first proposed under former President Ronald Reagan. 

“Ronald Reagan wanted to do it long ago, but the technology just wasn’t there, not even close,” Trump said in his address to Congress earlier this month. “But now we have the technology. It’s incredible, actually.”