Golden Dome’s space focus may leave US open to drone and missile gaps

EXCLUSIVE: As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets President Donald Trump in Washington for talks expected to center on Iran and regional security, a new report is urging the administration to expand U.S.–Israel defense cooperation by making Israeli air-defense technology a central component of Golden Dome, the planned layered missile shield intended to detect, track and intercept ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons and drones before they can strike the United States.

The report warns that the planned American missile shield could leave U.S. cities, military installations and critical infrastructure exposed to increasingly common drone and cruise-missile threats if Washington directs too much money toward costly space-based systems that could take years to become operational.

The Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) report, titled “The Missing Shield: Acquiring Israeli Air Defenses Makes Golden Dome Sustainable,” argues that the initiative’s current funding priorities favor strategic and space-based capabilities that could take years to develop while giving insufficient attention to more frequent, lower-altitude threats such as drones, cruise missiles and shorter-range projectiles.

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Ari Cicurel, the report’s author, told Fox News Digital that long-range defenses remain necessary but should not come at the expense of systems capable of stopping threats that could reach the United States now.

“Right now the current approach is spending the time and money primarily on space, long range threats, which are absolutely needed,” Cicurel said. “But the most frequent and immediate threats are actually short range projectiles, particularly drones.”

Cicurel pointed to recent drone activity over American cities, including Washington, D.C., as evidence that the danger is not confined to overseas battlefields.

“We’ve seen several drone overflights of cities, including in Washington, D.C., over the past few months,” he said. “And that’s certainly the most frequent threat that the U.S. needs to be addressing.”

The report estimates that the Israeli-designed launchers it examined are 58% to 88% less expensive, interceptors 19% to 97% less expensive and radars 32% to 87% less expensive than the U.S. systems used for comparison. JINSA argues those savings could allow the Pentagon to purchase more launchers, expand interceptor stockpiles and preserve funding for expensive strategic and space-based technologies.

The Pentagon told Fox News Digital that Golden Dome is being designed as a layered system capable of addressing a broad range of threats.

“Golden Dome for America continues to focus its efforts on protecting America and delivering on President Trump’s vision for homeland defense,” a Pentagon official said.

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The official said the implementation plan remains “dynamic” and is intended to defend against “the full spectrum of evolving threats,” including hypersonic and ballistic missiles, advanced cruise missiles and unmanned aerial systems.

The scale of the choices ahead was underscored by a May 12 Congressional Budget Office analysis. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a notional national missile-defense system broadly consistent with Trump’s executive order could cost approximately $1.2 trillion throughout 20 years to develop, deploy and operate. 

The office stressed that the estimate was not a projection of the Pentagon’s actual Golden Dome plan because the department had not released sufficient details about its intended architecture.

The Congressional Budget Office modeled four interceptor layers, including a space-based layer, two wide-area surface layers and a regional surface-defense layer.

The JINSA report proposes making Israeli-designed defenses a central part of those lower layers. It recommends Iron Dome for short-range threats, David’s Sling for medium-range threats, Arrow for ballistic missiles and Iron Beam for lower-cost laser interception.

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Cicurel said the proposal should not be seen simply as buying foreign weapons because Washington helped finance their development and American companies already participate in their production.

“What we’re really talking about is finally leveraging American tax dollars that have gone to help produce, help develop these Israeli systems,” he said.

One hundred and two companies across 34 states participate in producing Israeli air-defense systems.

Asked specifically whether the Pentagon is evaluating Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow or Iron Beam for purchase, integration or expanded co-production, the official declined to say.

“We have nothing new to announce at this time,” the official said. “Due to operational security and the need to protect our competitive advantages, we will not provide further details.”

The report also argues that recent fighting with Iran demonstrated how high interception rates can obscure vulnerabilities, including rapid depletion of interceptor inventories, strained production lines and attacks against radar systems anchoring defensive networks.

“Both the U.S. and the Israeli defense industrial bases were not well equipped to handle the amount of production that either country needed,” Cicurel said.

The report calls for dedicated Golden Dome funding for short- and medium-range defenses, expanded joint production, and the inclusion of Golden Dome cooperation in the next U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding. It also recommends updating export-control and technology-sharing rules, while acknowledging challenges involving interoperability, classified data and intellectual property.

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Trump repeatedly has described Golden Dome as a defining homeland-defense project, saying it would create a shield capable of protecting the United States from advanced missile threats. Whether Israeli systems become part of that architecture remains unclear, but Netanyahu’s visit gives both governments an opportunity to push the issue higher on the bilateral defense agenda.