Opinion
Opinion

Golden Dome Could Learn From the Politics of the Strategic Defense Initiative

Golden Dome Could Learn From the Politics of the Strategic Defense Initiative
President Donald Trump listens during an announcement about the Golden Dome missile defense shield in the Oval Office, on May 20, 2025. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
William Courtney
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Commentary
President Trump has proposed that to “protect our homeland” he would move ahead with a Golden Dome missile defense. The Department of Defense is seeking a hefty budget increase for it next year, but the program is controversial. Missile defense was contentious also in the 1980s when President Ronald Reagan offered a vision to render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” Golden Dome proponents might avoid some of the disputes of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) era.
William Courtney
William Courtney
Author
William Courtney is an adjunct senior fellow at RAND and professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy. In a career in the foreign service, he was deputy U.S. negotiator in U.S.-Soviet Defense and Space (missile defense) talks in Geneva and ambassador in negotiations there to implement the Threshold Test Ban Treaty.