The 'Golden Dome' Is a Wasteful Fantasy

Our government wants to pour hundreds of billions—and possibly trillions—of dollars into something that will make the U.S. less secure than it is today.

Michael O’Hanlon cheers on the president’s unworkable, ruinous missile defense project:

There’s another good reason to support Mr. Trump’s aspiration: the frayed, maybe irreparably damaged, state of offensive nuclear arms control.

The surest way to kill off arms control for a generation is to press ahead with the creation of a larger missile defense system. Arms control is fraying, but Trump’s “Golden Dome” will deliver the killing blow. Chasing after a missile defense fantasy because hawks have undermined arms control for decades amounts to piling one error on top of another. Other nuclear-armed states will have no reason to negotiate further arms reduction when the U.S. is busy working on a system intended to make their arsenals useless.