Golden Dome could strengthen U.S. nuclear deterrence by protecting elements of the nuclear triad and other strategic infrastructure from conventional and nuclear missile attacks, panelists said this week.
The discussion, hosted Tuesday by the Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance Deterrence Center, comes as U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) examines the strategic implications of Golden Dome.
Patrycja Bazylczyk of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the growing ability of conventional weapons to threaten nuclear infrastructure is blurring the traditional distinction between conventional and nuclear attacks.
“A conventional strike that takes out a part of the triad puts us on the escalation ladder before anyone has used a nuclear weapon,” Bazylczyk said, adding that such an attack could threaten the U.S. ability to carry out a second strike.
Golden Dome is intended, in part, to prevent adversaries from using missile attacks to coerce the U.S., Bazylczyk said.
Rep. Jeff Crank (R-Colo.), a member of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee and co-chair of the House Golden Dome Caucus, said the system could provide U.S. leaders with “more decision space” and “more decision time.” If the U.S. can detect and defeat an incoming attack, he said, it could strengthen deterrence and help preserve the country’s second-strike capability.
Retired Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, currently with the Atlantic Council and a former director of the Missile Defense Agency, argued that missile defense can strengthen rather than undermine strategic deterrence. Golden Dome does not need to be perfectly impenetrable, he said. Instead, it needs enough capability to make an adversary question whether an attack could succeed.
Obering also described Golden Dome as an integrated “system of systems” combining space and terrestrial sensors, command-and-control networks and interceptors across multiple phases of an attack. That architecture could increasingly blur the distinction between strategic and theater missile defense. Obering said Golden Dome will tie “classic theater and strategic level capabilities together,” including strategic sensors with tactical shooters.
That has implications for the nuclear triad, particularly the survivability of its components. The panel’s discussion echoes previous debate over whether the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program is becoming part of the broader Golden Dome effort. In December 2025, Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said Sentinel was moving under Golden Dome, with Rounds saying, “Sentinel is moving.”
Golden Dome would not replace the triad, however. STRATCOM and its Commander Adm. Richard Correll has continued to emphasize the importance of modernizing all three legs — Sentinel, Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines and B-21 bombers — as essential to maintaining the U.S. nuclear deterrent.
The panelists also emphasized space-based sensors, artificial intelligence and machine-speed decision-making as critical to Golden Dome’s effectiveness. But funding remains a major challenge, with the continuing resolution potentially complicating the administration’s effort to rapidly develop the architecture.
“We need budget,” Kevin Hanson from Lockheed Martin said. “The effort needs budget in order to keep it on track.”
