The Pentagon office overseeing the “Golden Dome” missile defense program has repeatedly declined requests from the Congressional Budget Office for a briefing on the system’s planned architecture.
The disclosure comes amid a public dispute between the administration and the independent budget watchdog after the CBO estimated that developing, deploying and operating the missile shield could cost as much as $1.2 trillion.
CBO Says It Has No Clear Picture of the System
David Mosher, head of the CBO’s National Security Directorate, said the organization had repeatedly asked Golden Dome officials for briefings but had not received one.
Without direct access to the program’s leadership, the CBO has been unable to assess precisely what the Pentagon intends to build.
Mosher emphasized that the CBO’s analysis was not designed to estimate the cost of the Pentagon’s current implementation plan. Instead, the study sought to calculate the resources required to carry out the presidential executive order that launched the initiative.
Two Cost Estimates Separated by Hundreds of Billions
The Golden Dome office and the CBO have produced sharply different estimates of the program’s scale and cost.
The CBO examined a notional national missile defense system intended to meet the administration’s stated objectives. It concluded that such a system could cost up to $1.2 trillion to develop, deploy and operate over a 20-year period.
President Donald Trump initially placed the cost at $175 billion. In April, Gen. Michael Guetlein, the Pentagon official overseeing the program, raised the estimate slightly to $185 billion for deployment over the next decade.
Guetlein has repeatedly rejected the CBO figure, arguing that it relies on outdated technology and assumptions that do not match the architecture currently being planned.
Pentagon Points to a Different Program Scope
Part of the disagreement may stem from the fact that the two sides are not evaluating exactly the same system.
The CBO calculated the potential cost of a broad national architecture capable of fulfilling the executive order’s stated objectives. The Pentagon, by contrast, is basing its estimate on current spending and deployment plans.
The administration’s fiscal 2027 budget request includes $17.5 billion for Golden Dome. However, only about $400 million is included in the Pentagon’s base budget, with the remainder coming through reconciliation funding.
The CBO estimates that the program’s five-year spending plan would require an average of roughly $15 billion annually, a figure broadly consistent with the Pentagon’s $185 billion estimate.
A Smaller Shield — or Additional Funding from Other Accounts
The budget analysis indicates that the Pentagon’s estimate likely covers a shorter period than the CBO study and may involve a different range of activities and budget categories.
The enormous gap between the two figures points to two possible explanations: either the Pentagon’s planned architecture is significantly narrower than the national missile defense system examined by the CBO, or the administration expects substantial funding to come from other accounts — or both.
Unanswered Questions About Weapons, Coverage and Deployment
The CBO is not the only congressional institution complaining about the Pentagon’s limited disclosures.
Lawmakers from both major parties have demanded answers about the program’s structure and financing. Their questions include:
- which weapon systems will form part of the shield;
- what role space-based interceptors will play;
- where Golden Dome assets will be deployed;
- which areas of the United States will be covered;
- how much each component of the system will cost;
- which budget accounts will finance the program;
- how much individual military service budgets will contribute.
The absence of detailed answers has fueled concerns that the program is moving forward without a clear public understanding of its objectives, price tag or actual level of protection.
From “Iron Dome” to “Golden Dome”
The initiative was launched in January 2025 through an executive order calling for nationwide protection against ballistic, hypersonic and advanced cruise missiles, as well as other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer and rogue adversaries.
The project was renamed “Golden Dome for America” in February to avoid confusion with Israel’s “Iron Dome,” a system designed to counter a more limited range of threats.
In its current form, the program remains one of the most ambitious and least transparent defense projects under development by the U.S. administration. The dispute over its price is not merely a budgetary disagreement; it reflects deeper uncertainty over the shield’s scale, technology, operational coverage and funding structure.
