The United States has “no defence against hypersonic weapons or cruise missiles”, a senior Pentagon official told Congress on Monday, as US President Donald Trump’s US$185 billion Golden Dome missile shield faces continued scepticism.
“The Golden Dome will strengthen deterrence by denying adversaries the ability to achieve their objectives through coercion or aggression,” Marc Berkowitz, the assistant secretary of defence for missile defence and deterrence policy, told a Senate hearing on Monday.
Trump, a Republican president known for his fixation on outsize military programmes, proposed last year that the US build a space-based missile defence interceptor system and have it operational before the end of his second term in January 2029.
The plan was initially priced at US$175 billion through 2035, but the US Space Force increased the estimate by another US$10 billion last month.
“We have no defence against hypersonic weapons or cruise missiles today, [or] advanced cruise missiles,” Berkowitz said, when pressed on the urgency of the controversial project.
“China is our pacing competitor. We will deter China from a position of strength with a denial defence along the first island chain,” he added, with other witnesses citing the rapid expansion of the Chinese and Russian missile arsenals.
Beijing last year warned that Washington’s plan would heighten the risk of an arms race and could “turn outer space into a battlefield”, describing the US as being “obsessed with pursuing absolute security”.
The US Congress is holding a series of hearings this month on the White House’s record US$1.5 trillion defence budget request – the largest in history.
Briefing materials for the fiscal-year 2027 defence budget request, released by the Pentagon last Tuesday, show plans to seek US$17.9 billion for the Golden Dome in the coming financial year. Of that, US$17.1 billion would come from a proposed budget reconciliation package rather than through the regular appropriations process.
The department also said last week that it would carve out a US$750 billion “presidential priorities” line within the defence budget covering the Golden Dome, drone dominance, artificial intelligence and the strengthening of the defence industrial base.
Other witnesses at Monday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing included Space Force General Michael Guetlein, the director of the Golden Dome, and Heath Collins, the US Air Force Lieutenant General who serves as director of the Missile Defence Agency.
Asked how many missiles, drones and other attack systems China holds – the principal threat Golden Dome is designed to counter – Collins said: “Those numbers are classified, but they range, depending on the type of threat, from several hundred to several tens of thousands.”
Jules Hurst III, the Pentagon’s acting comptroller, said last Tuesday that the Department of Defence would “expand that sensing network and invest in next-generation interceptors” in 2027.
The US Space Force has already awarded contracts worth up to US$3.2 billion to 12 suppliers – including SpaceX and Lockheed Martin – to develop potential space-based interceptors, according to media reports.
The president’s annual budget request is less a legally binding document than a policy statement of priorities. The final figures are determined by Congress, which holds the power of the purse.
Under the rules of the 100-member Senate, certain spending bills can pass with just 50 votes – a procedure known as budget reconciliation – while others require 60.
Of Trump’s proposed FY2027 military budget, US$1.15 trillion in discretionary spending would need 60 votes to clear the chamber. In comparison, the remaining US$350 billion could be passed by a simple majority via the reconciliation route.
Multiple lawmakers have already voiced concern over the Trump administration’s habitual reliance on the procedure to secure additional funding.
At Monday’s hearing, independent Senator Angus King again voiced his reservations.
“I’m very disturbed by the precedent that this has created,” he said. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
