Alaska’s strategic position as the cornerstone of America’s missile defense system was reaffirmed Tuesday as US Sen. Dan Sullivan and congressional colleagues introduced the GOLDEN DOME Act, a $23 billion legislative effort to modernize and expand the nation’s missile defense infrastructure. In short, it will enhance the ability to intercept incoming missiles from enemy nations or terrorists.
The “Ground and Orbital Launched Defeat of Emergent Nuclear Destruction and Other Missile Engagements (GOLDEN DOME) Act” was unveiled during a press conference in Washington, DC with co-sponsors Senators Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Representative Mark Messmer of Indiana, who will carry the bill on the House side.
The legislation advances the missile defense vision laid out by President Donald Trump in his January 2025 executive order, which called for a layered, open-architecture defense shield capable of countering threats from adversaries such as Iran, Russia, and China.
Sen. Sullivan emphasized Alaska’s critical role in the new defense posture.
“The great State of Alaska has been — and will continue to be — the cornerstone of our missile defense system,” said Sullivan, pointing to Fort Greely’s interceptor fields near Delta Junction and the state’s expanding infrastructure.
“The escalating missile threats we’ve witnessed from the Iranian terrorist regime and the rapidly evolving threats from Russia and China demonstrate why we need this now,” he said.
The bill authorizes funding for a nationwide, layered missile defense shield integrating space-based sensors, new intercept technologies, and significantly expanded ground-based infrastructure.
For Alaska, this means continued investment at Fort Greely, already home to the country’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense interceptors, and likely additional military construction to support expanded capabilities. The Golden Dome plan builds on such defenses, by creating, maintaining and/or revitalizing other sites as well, including the Cobra Dane — a land-based “passive electronically scanned array” radar system positioned in the Aleutian Chain.
The legislation also dovetails with the $25 billion already included in the reconciliation bill as a “down payment” toward this effort.
The bill is backed by a host of Senate Republicans, including John Hoeven (ND), Tim Sheehy (Mont.), Katie Britt (Ala.), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), Jim Banks (Ind.), and Tim Scott (SC).
The legislation also aims to accelerate US defenses against emerging threats, including hypersonic missiles and advanced cruise missile systems, and improve all-domain awareness, integrating land, air, sea, space, and cyber systems to provide faster detection and tracking.
With its northern latitude and proximity to potential threats from Asia and the Arctic, Alaska has long been central to America’s missile defense strategy. Fort Greely’s interceptor fields already play a pivotal role, and the GOLDEN DOME Act appears to lock in and potentially expand that role for decades.
The bill’s sponsors said they plan to move quickly to pass the GOLDEN DOME Act and deliver it to President Trump for signature.
“Alaska is a big part of [missile defense] because the location is sort of perfect,” President Donald Trump has said. Alaska is both the most western and the most eastern part of the nation, with the tip of the Aleutian Chain crossing the into the Eastern Hemisphere at Semisopochnoi Island.
The term “Golden Dome”, a take off of on the term “Iron Dome” concept is perfect!
Our government added hundreds of billions to the national debt to finance and cooperatively build the Iron Dome with our Mid East vassal state Israel which has proven an abject failure. Our interceptor and offensive missile technology is antiquated and a proven failure in both our current overseas wars of attempted regime changes in Ukraine and Iran.
We have no response to hypersonic missiles prevalent in the Russian, Chinese and Iranian arsenals, let alone a system like the Oreshnik. While we had mixed results in successful interceptions with the older missile types used by Iran, it takes 2 to 4 interceptors to neutralize one incoming missile and we simply do not have surge manufacturing capability to successfully fight modern wars against peer enemies in attrition warfare.
The reason “Golden” Dome was chosen for this systems’ name with the massive enabling spending bill designed to further enrich our MIC corporations, the active and retired 4 star generals who issue the contracts and our politicians who receive huge campaign donations by the lobbyists to appropriate the funds are going to make a “killing” financially.
Senator Graham and Blumenthal are known to have pocketed $17.3 million and $25 million respectively just for their efforts in promoting and effort to continue the Ukraine money laundering scheme. This project will be even more lucrative, and add billions to the exploding national debt bomb.
The timing is perfect to illustrate the idiocy of this project as the myth of American and Israeli invincibility has again been proven a fallacy, as the Kiev regime is being destroyed and Israel pounded into rubble. All due to the lack of leadership with diplomatic skills to avoid unnecessary wars and the incompetence of our Pentagon and utter disregard for the destruction of other countries under our political control.
Money is better spent to invest in technology to design missiles that are actually functional for defense, and end the continuing overseas aggressions.
It very possibly won’t work. Russia has hypersonic missiles. China may have them too. Iran’s hypersonic missiles have been able to penetrate the three or four different types of antiballistic missile systems Israel and the US are using to keep them from striking Israel.
Some say the Iron Dome is like a sieve.
Make Nome the Home of the Dome