Canada’s connection to US ballistic missile defence efforts goes back a long way and is interwoven with our shared history of continental air defence.
Now, Trump is proposing a ‘Golden Dome’ to supposedly make America safer from foreign threats, and Canada is part of the discussions.
Recently, the American Physical Society released a detailed free report: “Strategic Ballistic Missile Defense: Challenges to Defending the U.S.”
The basic weaknesses of the whole concept are simple to understand: it takes drastically more expense and hardware to (possibly) stop one missile than it does for a challenger to build one more missile. As a result, the technology is inherently likely to fuel arms races, as foreign challengers fear their deterrents will lose credibility.
Related:
- Open thread: ballistic missile defence
- Obama changing tack on missile defence
- Robert Gates posturing on missile defence
- Canada and Ballistic Missile Defence
- US security assurances and nuclear weapon proliferation
- Open thread: the global nuclear arms race
- Blair on the fragility of nuclear deterrence
- Consequences of nuclear weapon proliferation
- The military importance of space
- The nuclear razor’s edge
- Unproductive investments that harm the world
- Experiential education on nuclear weapon proliferation
See also my 2005 report: “Common Threats, Joint Responses: The Report of the 2005 North American Security Cooperation Assessment Student Tour“
Bad news for Trump’s Golden Dome: He can’t build it without Canada
The president would have to rely on his “51st state” to track Chinese and Russian missiles that could come at the U.S. from over the horizon.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/23/trump-canada-golden-dome-00366410
Is Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ more fantasy than reality?
Donald Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ is a proposed defense program that will feature the use of space lasers, satellites and interceptors designed to provide 24/7 space based defence. It’s advertised as a bulwark against missiles and nuclear attacks from the likes of China, North Korea and Russia.
Mike Stone is a Reuters reporter covering the U.S. arms trade and defense industry and joins the show to discuss Donald Trump’s trillion dollar sci-fi inspired project, Canada’s potential involvement, and its implications for the global arms race.
For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts
The problem with Mr Trump’s plan is that it is still unclear what Golden Dome is supposed to do. Will it modestly improve America’s ability to shoot down drones and handfuls of conventional cruise missiles fired by China towards military bases in the continental United States during a war over Taiwan? Will it parry small salvos of warheads launched by a second-tier nuclear power like North Korea? Or will it block hundreds of Russian and Chinese warheads in a full-blown nuclear exchange, neutralising their ability to threaten America’s existence?
The answers to these questions matter greatly. Experts calculate that a smallish Golden Dome, focused on parrying small incoming salvos, might cost just over $250bn over 20 years, a modest sum by the standards of America’s annual defence spending. But a full-fat version with tens of thousands of SBIs in orbit—a key factor driving up cost—could run to $3.6trn, a vast sum that would cannibalise America’s armed forces. That would not only be wasteful, but it might also induce adversaries to expand their own arsenals more than they otherwise would. A degree of mutual vulnerability is an inherent part of stable nuclear deterrence.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/11/06/americas-plans-for-a-golden-dome-are-dangerously-obscure