nuclear-news

Golden Dome changes both NATO and the EU.

Now the wording is changed to: “The United States will deter – and defend its citizens and critical infrastructure – against any airstrike against its territory“. The level of ambition has been raised significantly.

Av Ingolf Kiesow, The Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences (Kungliga Krigsvetenskapsakademien 22 dec 2025

SIPRI’s 2024 yearbook is titled “Role of nuclear weapons grows as geopolitical relations deteriorate.” The content of that statement has grown in importance in 2025.

Golden Dome

On January 27, 2025, just a few days after taking office for a new term as President of the United States, Donald Trump signed an “Executive Order” to the US Department of Defense – now called the “War Department” – to build a missile defense system, what he later came to call “The Golden Dome”.

According to a statement by the then Department of Defense (now the “Ministry of War”), the Golden Dome will “unify a range of capabilities to create a system of systems to protect the United States from air attack by any aggressor“. Congress approved $24,5 billion for the purpose on September 5.

Donald Trump has said that this grant should be seen as a first installment and that the entire project should be fully operational before his presidential term ends.

He said in May that the total cost could be estimated at $175 billion. The Congressional Budget Office has since estimated that it will cost more than $500 billion. Other observers argue that the need to continuously replace satellites in the system, as Earth’s gravity pulls them out of orbit, means that the cost will exceed a trillion or several trillion dollars before it can be operational.

A first contract under Golden Dome was signed on November 4. Space X will receive $2 billion to build a system of 600 satellites with Lockheed Martin to create an “Air Moving Target Indicator (AMTI).” These low-altitude satellites will detect and track advanced threats from maneuvering glide missiles and stealth aircraft and then feed the data obtained into the US missile defense targeting system.

Congress has pointed out that the US missile defense strategy has so far been formulated as the US striving afterr “to defend against rogue states as well as against unauthorized or accidental missile launches while relying on nuclear weapons to deter China and Russia from striking American territory“.

Now the wording is changed to: “The United States will deter – and defend its citizens and critical infrastructure – against any airstrike against its territory“. The level of ambition has been raised significantly.

The relationship between the White House and Congress on the Golden Dome is marked by suspicion. In a statement, the Congressional Office laments that the administration has failed to provide the public with a detailed account of the project, has not held meetings with representatives of the business community, and has reportedly instructed military officials not to discuss the Golden Dome publicly.

Reactions to the Golden Dome

On May 8, China and Russia issued a joint statement criticizing the project for undermining the link between strategic offensive weapons and strategic defensive weapons, i.e. the very idea of ​​a nuclear balance. Russian press spokesman Peskov said that while a decision on Golden Dome is a sovereign matter for the United States, it is also in the common interest of both countries to create a new legal framework to replace the no longer functioning nuclear arms treaties between the United States and Russia.

However, as of the end of October 2025, no preparations for negotiations on US-Russian arms control have been initiated. Donald Trump is said to have said that it might be a good idea, but without wanting to discuss the matter in more detail. On January 5, 2026, the only Russian-American arms control agreement still in force, the so-called New START agreement, expires.

In addition to China and Russia, there has also been criticism in the West that the US is trying to make the US invulnerable to nuclear attack with Golden Dome and thereby create a strategic advantage. This would damage the balance that has so far rested on the theory of mutual deterrence, a concept that also presupposes a certain degree of mutual vulnerability.

China shows off its weapons

China celebrated the eightieth anniversary of its victory over Japan in World War II with a military parade in Beijing on October 3 of this year. The parade was characterized by three things: coordination with the authoritarian countries of the world, the focus of Chinese defense on preparations for a war with the United States, and the belief that the next war will be fought globally.

Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un sat on either side of Xi Jinping during the parade, and among the invited guests were a large majority of presidents and prime ministers from the global south.

The new weapons systems on display included new advanced fighter jets, tanks, hypersonic anti-ship missiles and long-range rocket artillery. Three different groups of missile systems were displayed: five nuclear-capable systems, three cruise missile systems and three hypersonic missile systems.

The direction has been interpreted abroad as a warning to the United States not to try to oppose a possible upcoming attempt to invade Taiwan and to keep the United States away from the waters along China’s coasts in the Pacific Ocean.

FOBS has been a headache for the Pentagon

The presence of a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) in both Russia and China has been a particular concern for Western defense forces in recent times. This is especially true since China conducted a pair of test flights in the summer of 2021, when a launch vehicle was launched into orbit around the Earth and a hypersonic glide missile was released, which re-entered the atmosphere on the other side of the world and hit a designated target. The launch vehicle remained in a relatively low-altitude orbit (around 150 kilometers) and the entire crew moved at hypersonic speed the entire way, making them very difficult – almost impossible – to detect and combat.

Some of the missiles displayed at the military parade may be included in FOBS, which would mean that production and supply to units is ongoing.

After China’s first hypersonic missile flight, it took the United States several years to build a similar system and get the missiles flying, which has been a major concern for the Pentagon. The lack of a US system to defend against FOBS has been explicitly cited by the Defense Intelligence Agency as one of the reasons for introducing Golden Dome.

Truce in the trade war with China, but not peace and no deal………………………………………………………………………………….

……………………………………………………………………. Since NATO is designed to function under American leadership, Europe must now create its own organization in peacetime in order to be able to function without or at least with weakened support in wartime. That is the only conclusion that seems logical to draw in the light of this article. Whether such an adaptation can take place within the framework of NATO or can best be done within the EU or through the creation of an entirely new European defense organization has become a pressing question.

How Europe should dispose of its own nuclear weapons assets to deter Russia from attacking is also an issue that is now demanding attention even in peacetime.

Conclusions for Europe.

In any case, the connection between economic and military strength will play a central role. If the US fails to mobilize the financial resources required for Golden Dome and if the EU fails to find the means to both help Ukraine avoid defeat in the war with Russia and at the same time build up our own defenses, the situation may become difficult to manage.

Since Donald Trump came to power, however, the US has committed serious violations of international law, such as the prohibition of genocide in connection with its support for Israel’s war in Gaza and against the rules on freedom of the seas and human rights in connection with the killing of suspected smugglers from Venezuela and Colombia without prior trial. Being part of NATO and being part of the same alliance as the US is beginning to feel embarrassing to a European.

The nonchalance with the rules of international law also raises uncertainty about how serious the US is about its own membership in NATO and its obligations to help the EU preserve sovereignty over its territory.

Donald Trump’s fickleness and the uncertainty about what the investment in Golden Dome will entail create uncertainty for Europe and the rest of the “West”. For Europe, this means having to walk a balance between the desire not to lose the US as an ally in the long term and, on the other hand, the prospect of perhaps having to face a growing threat from Russia alone. In addition, the US may demand help in its power struggle with China, something that it is not in Europe’s interest to allocate resources to.

Can the EU prepare for a period of reduced American support without irreparably damaging the relationship with the US? Can the EU build a partnership with countries in the global south and even with China that resembles the world trade and payments system that functioned before Xi Jinping and Donald Trump came to power in their respective countries?

Puppet dreams? Yes, maybe, but what choice do we have?

The author is an ambassador and member of KKrVA. https://en.kkrva.se/golden-dome-forandrar-bade-nato-och-eu/

January 11, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, politics international, USA