Inside Trump’s new Star Wars program, plus HIMARS dispatch
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Whether or not this is a defensive system, it will be perceived by China and Russia as an offensive threat.

We'll measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end. The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip. We'll own it. Know that China is doing very poorly right now. I just saw some reports coming out, and I don't want that to happen to China. You're gambling with World War III. I was saved by God to make America great again.

I'm Roland Oliphant and this is Battlelines, Trump edition. It's Friday the 23rd of May 2025. In today's episode, we look at Donald Trump's plans for a futuristic space-based missile defence system and Venetia Rainey joins American troops on manoeuvres in the Baltic, asking whether the NATO alliance is really what it used to be.

On Tuesday, Donald Trump and his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, summoned reporters to the Oval Office to present them with a map of the United States covered by a large gold-coloured balloon. Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from...

The Golden Dome, Mr Trump explained, would feature next-generation technologies across land, sea and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors to protect America from all incoming aerial threat. And we will have the best system ever built. As you know, we helped Israel with theirs and

It was very successful and now we have technology that's even far advanced from that. He added that the system would be capable even of intercepting missiles launched from the other side of the world or launched from space. It would be, in other words, the most advanced and ambitious missile defence shield ever constructed. Something from the pages of science fiction. It will rewrite the entire balance of global deterrence. But why?

Would it work? How much would it cost? And is it even technologically feasible?

I asked Julia Cornoyer, Research Associate at the International Security Programme at Chatham House, to explain just what the Golden Dome is. The Golden Dome is meant to be this sort of nationwide missile defence system. It's supposed to be sort of a protective shield that would guard the United States from coast to coast from all kinds of aerial threats.

So that includes sort of ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons, cruise missiles, and even sort of space-based attacks.

And so it envisions this multi-layered defense architecture involving hundreds or even thousands of satellites in orbit that would be equipped with advanced sensors and interceptors, including space-based lasers to sort of detect, track, and then destroy any incoming missiles while they're still rising into the sky. So before they reach orbit, that's called hitting them in the boost phase.

And that's incredibly hard to do. So in theory, it's this sort of very ambitious, see everything, stop everything approach. And the name is sort of very much inspired by Israel's Iron Dome. But of course, Israel's geography is much smaller and sort of the angles and directions and types of missiles are...

are much more limited. So while sort of Trump is taking inspiration from Israel's Iron Dome, I think that it's also a program very much inspired by Reagan's Star Wars or Strategic Defense Initiative plans from the 1980s that sort of had very, very similar aims

to this Golden Dome, but was unrealized because it was not technologically feasible at the time. So I guess we will find out whether it's technologically feasible now. Maybe we should go back to Star Wars, which was that 1980s, that first idea of some kind of hyper-futuristic universe

missile defense system for America. Tell us about Star Wars, what it was, how Reagan came up with it, and why it didn't work. The Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars as it's known from the 1980s, was Reagan's idea to use space-based lasers, space-based interceptors to do exactly what the Golden Dome proposes, to create this coast-to-coast shield for the United States and protect against all kinds of incoming aerial threats.

In the 1980s, we did not have the technology to achieve this. And so it was very much an unrealized plan and unrealized vision for Reagan. There was also sort of a calculus that perhaps those weren't the kinds of threats that we needed to be protecting against in the 1980s at that scale, and whether the investment would be worth it were all kinds of considerations in the 1980s. To be honest, a lot of the same sort of considerations are being raised today, whether it sort of protects the United States from the kinds of threats

that it needs to be protecting itself against, whether it's worth the amount of investment that it will cost. I mean, Trump prices it at sort of $175 billion. We've seen other estimates cost the Golden Dome at over $500 billion to operate and run this system for the next 20 years. And so there's sort of a calculation that has to be done as to whether

whether you need to protect the United States at that scale from coast to coast, how it sort of impacts your strategic stability, whether it sort of might trigger another arms race, and all those kinds of questions. And those are sort of the same questions that Reagan was thinking about in the 1980s as well, as we were in the midst of an arms race with the Soviet Union. It sounds to me from what you're saying that it's going to cover the continental United States. What about Alaska and Hawaii? Well, this is a good question because...

A lot of the existing missile defense that the United States has is in Alaska and covers sort of the threats that might come in from that side of the United States. And that is one of the reasons why Canada is looking to be involved in this Golden Dome project. But we don't yet know about sort of the intricacies. Trump has said that this Golden Dome project will cover the entirety of the homeland, including Hawaii and Alaska. Yes.

What do we know about the genesis of this idea? Because I know, I think, in his first week or so in office, he did instruct the Pentagon to look at some kind of comprehensive defense system. Is this the result of that request?

Yes. So this is the result of a Trump's executive order that he released in January, where he sort of came out with this vision for this for this Golden Dome. We don't exactly know how he got the idea or why he sort of set on this idea of the Golden Dome. But it's very much a political message as well. This idea of sort of an impenetrable shield plays very well into sort of the symbols of strength and security. And Trump has this track record of

prioritizing sort of high visibility, space-based initiatives, and Golden Dome fits sort of squarely into that narrative, even if sort of those technical details are fuzzy and the timeline ambitious.

While we don't know exactly sort of how he was inspired at that exact moment to come up with this missile defense system idea or sort of to rejuvenate this idea from the 1980s, the administration has been looking into sort of current and future missile threats to the United States. The Defense Intelligence Agency released an interesting graphic not that long ago, sort of outlining all the kind of missile future threats that the U.S. can expect to face.

And so this is definitely linked to the current administration's overall defense plans and missile defense plans. How quickly are they meant to build this? Well, Trump has mentioned that he'd like this system, this Golden Dome, to be active and start working within his administration. So he said in the next two and a half to three years. Whether that's feasible and whether that's technologically possible in that timeline is another question. Well, let's try and get into the mechanics of it. First of all...

These threats back in the 80s, I suppose, you know, Star Wars era, the big threat was ICBMs carrying nuclear missiles of the traditional Cold War-y type. Could you just elucidate for us what kind of threats they think they're going to have to deal with? And then we can get onto the different systems that are going to be part of this. Because I'm really interested in how, you know, space-based, ground-based, lasers, all of this are all going to contribute. What are these threats that they're trying to respond to as specifically as possible?

The current administration, the United States sees a range of aerial threats, including sort of next generation aerial threats, as the Trump administration is calling it. So we have sort of the traditional threats, the traditional aerial missile threats. So China and Russia building sort of novel delivery systems, but also traditional ballistic missiles, which will remain and currently are the primary threat to the United States.

There are also other kinds of aerial delivery threats, so boosted hypersonic weapons, hypersonic glide vehicles, fractional orbital bombardment systems. These are slightly more newer generation technologies and threats to the United States. So hypersonic glide vehicles can be nuclear armed. Fractional orbital bombardment systems is a technology also revived from earlier by China that...

deliver weapons from space. And so this missile defense system aims to sort of counter the full spectrum of those aerial threats. Which sounds ambitious. So let's get into it. Various things you've mentioned. Maybe start with the Iron Dome comparison. The Iron Dome is

in my understanding, is basically a system of Patriot missiles or something else that are guided with great maneuverability to kind of incoming ballistic missiles while they're in flight. How could that technology be adapted? How suitable is it? And to what degree is it not suitable, I suppose? So Israel's Iron Dome is a system designed to specifically protect against

short range rockets and artillery shells. And Israel's geography is much smaller and the angles and the directions and the types of missiles and the threats that it faces are much more limited to what the United States faces.

What Trump is proposing with the Golden Dome is a different order of technical sophistication. First of all, it would be a space-based laser system or a space-based interceptor system. Israel's missile defense system is ground-based. And so this new element of space-based interceptors and lasers is also what many scientists are questioning the feasibility of and what is hiking the cost of this program as well. And so it differs greatly to Israel's Iron Dome.

But is similar in that, or the similarities with Israel's Iron Dome system is that it aims to sort of protect the nation in its entirety rather than regional missile defense or protect against one kind of specific threat. It sort of aims to provide this comprehensive security to the entire nation. So the mechanics sound completely different, even if the intention is similar. Exactly, yeah. What do we know about...

space-based lasers and interceptor systems? I mean, have these things been built or tested? We said earlier in the conversation, you said in the 80s, this just couldn't be done. It didn't exist. It turned out it couldn't. They tried to, it couldn't. Have we moved that far? What do we know? Well, technologically, sort of intercepting hypersonic and ballistic missiles in space, particularly sort of during that boost phase before they reach orbit, requires

requires lasers or interceptors that can operate sort of over hundreds of kilometers with split second precision. And a lot of that technology is unproven at that scale or hasn't been tested publicly. And so there's a lot we don't know about how technologically feasible this project is.

What most people can agree on is that to be able to develop this technology and to be able to prove that it works will require a lot more funding than Trump's proposed $175 billion. Right now, Golden Dome sort of looks like an extremely expensive bet on technology that might not be ready and might not be sort of worth it in the grand scheme of things. I'm just trying to envisage what it might look like. I mean, you talk about space-based technology.

And you talk about lasers and you talk about interceptors hitting missiles on their upward trajectory. Sounds like you're going to have to strike them shortly after launch. Are you talking about, I don't know, like a Starlink style constellation of satellites spanning the entire globe?

all mounted with super powerful lasers or ready to go interceptor missiles to be fired when a launch is spotted? Well, we do know that it would require hundreds, if not thousands of satellites to be able to achieve this goal, to be able to sort of maintain this constant surveillance of missiles being launched and to be able to sort of feedback information in real time and then respond to those threats. That would require a huge network of satellites.

We don't yet know or have a full picture of who would build this sort of Golden Dome system, whether it would be Elon Musk's SpaceX. But we do sort of expect them to bid for key components. And they did suggest that they would run the component that they want to bid for on a sort of subscription model, which raises all kinds of other security concerns.

But what we do know is that the Space Development Agency in the US has already begun acquiring sort of hundreds of satellites for this missile tracking sensor network in low Earth orbit. And so this satellite layer would likely form sort of a key part of the broader missile defense architecture envisioned under Golden Dome. That said, integrating those satellites with space-based interceptors

ground-based missiles, command and control systems, and other technologies into sort of this single reliable shield for the United States is still an enormous technological and organizational challenge. So no single contractor has been awarded control of the sort of full program yet. And there are still other crucial decisions about sort of oversight, architecture, and governance that we still don't have answers to.

I want to ask about the diplomatic aspects of this. There are two stumbling blocks I can see. One of them is about the principle of deterrence, right? So one of the principles of deterrence is that your opponent has to know that you will retain the ability to hit him even after he's hit you first.

And that's one of the reasons why the Russians were always objected to American interceptors in Eastern Europe and so on, because they felt it was a problem with deterrence. It sounds to me like this is going to, you know, other nuclear powers may have concerns about this eroding their deterrence in similar ways. The other thing is, I mean, how are Russia and China and

and everybody else going to respond to the idea of America putting up an absolute globe-spanning constellation of satellites that could blow up Russia's missiles the moment they're launched. It seems to undermine that entire... just nullify the Chinese or Russian deterrence, or even ours, I suppose, as well. The other thing is...

Is it even legal to put lasers and interceptor missiles in space? For your first question, if adversaries like China and Russia believe that the US is pursuing a defensive system that can neutralize their deterrence,

They're likely to develop new offensive weapons that can circumnavigate this Golden Dome or seek to sort of overwhelm the system with more missiles. Because one thing that scientists can agree on is that you cannot create sort of this leak-proof shield that cannot be overwhelmed by flooding it with hundreds and thousands of missiles.

So it could also encourage the deployment of more space-based weapons, a domain that's already sort of dangerously under-regulated in a sort of an attempt to sort of get around this Golden Dome. And that is illegal to put a nuclear weapon in outer space that's protected by the Outer Space Treaty. And so in that sense, Golden Dome could make sort of global security more precarious.

It can also be very destabilizing, as you said, if one nuclear power can show that it can defend itself while having a first strike capability. And whether or not this is a defensive system, it will be perceived by China and Russia as an offensive threat.

Have China or Russia or any of the other nuclear powers said anything about this yet? So we've seen China respond to Trump's announcement on Tuesday, saying that they are seriously concerned with the development of this Golden Dome defense system. And that sort of relates very closely to what I was saying earlier, that if China believes that the US is pursuing this defensive system to neutralize their deterrence, it could upset the balance in deterrence and deterrence.

rendered their nuclear capabilities null, which would force them to create new kinds of capabilities and potentially escalate into an arms race. Julia, thank you for joining us on Battlelines. After the break, Venetia Rainey joins US forces on manoeuvres in the Baltic Sea to ask just how committed is America to NATO's defence?

Welcome back. Donald Trump and his top team have made very clear that Europe can no longer simply assume America will have its back in any future war. But American troops are still on this side of the Atlantic and they are still training alongside their European allies. Venetia Rainey, my co-host, this week travelled to Gotland, Swedish island in the Baltic Sea, to meet US troops on exercises with NATO.

So it's a beautiful morning here in Gotland. I'm surrounded by some Swedish army people, British army people, American army people and lots of journalists. I'm here on the Tofta firing range and we've come here to watch the US Marines fire the HIMARS, the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, and the British Army fire the MLRS, the Multiple Launch Rocket System.

They're both multiple rocket launchers, but they've got a few key differences. The MLRS is heavier and it's tracked, so it rolls on tracks, but it can carry more rockets than the HIMARS. The HIMARS is a bit more nimble, a bit more mobile, can get up to a faster speed, but fewer rockets.

We're here to watch them fire some missiles out into the sea, out into the Baltic. We're going through some routines now before, so it's going to be probably about 20 minutes until they actually fire, and we will get a two-minute pre-warning, so you don't have to fire away. Thank you so much. You might even have another cup of coffee. I think we'll do just that. Hold on a second.

Over a cup of coffee, we watch the HIMARS and MLRS manoeuvre into place. They're essentially just two green trucks with rocket launchers on the back. But this will be the first time they've fired simultaneously alongside each other, and everyone involved wants to get it right. Suddenly, the calm early morning silence is shattered. The dummy rockets streak across the sky with a flash of bright yellow light before disappearing into the Baltic Sea nearby.

A total of five missiles are fired between the two systems, and then they fall silent again, leaving behind clouds of grey smoke and a slightly stunned audience of spectators. It's an impressive display of what the army likes to call interoperability, the extent to which two militaries can work together effectively.

Afterwards, I caught up with Staff Sergeant Caleb Thayer from the US Marines Fox Battery. Can you describe what we just saw today? You just saw a simultaneous shoot with the MLRS. We used our HIMARS to do a joint shoot with you guys and a little bit of shock and awe. Just give a little show for you guys. It was a pretty good show. Yes, ma'am. So everything went very smooth. Super happy to be here.

The Highmars took a while to get into position, is that right? You were looking for the right spot? Just a little bit. We just got off the bird probably 45 minutes ago, so we were just shooting from the hip and it all came to plan. So we just had to hurry up and give you guys the show you guys wanted. How often do you guys do joint drills like this with other countries? This is the first time with the UK, is that right? Yes, ma'am. First time with the UK.

It's a funny point at the moment, isn't it, with the sort of strained tensions between Europe and America, but it's clear on the ground that there's a lot of cooperation between the two militaries. Yes, ma'am, and that's all we can ask for is good cooperation and communication and everybody gets along.

It's a stark contrast to the hostile tone that has dominated transatlantic relations ever since Donald Trump became president again in January. Trump, his vice president J.D. Vance and his defence secretary Pete Hegseth have all criticised Europe for freeloading and not taking care of its own security. The Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth and J.D. Vance, the vice president, said that the Europeans were freeloading. Do you agree with that assessment? No.

Do you really want me to answer? Yeah, I think they've been freeloading. The European Union's been absolutely terrible to us on trade. Terrible. And as you know, NATO, I got them to pay hundreds of billions of dollars. They were way behind. Trump has also repeatedly praised President Vladimir Putin rather than punish him for invading Ukraine.

All of that's led to speculation that Europe can no longer rely on the US to protect it from an increasingly aggressive and expansionist Russia, with some even suggesting that the NATO alliance is on its last legs. But none of that is detectable here on Gotland Island, where the British, Americans and Swedes have come together as part of the US-led swift response exercises that are taking place across the Baltics and Nordics.

I visit another part of the exercise which involves British paratroopers jumping out of an A400 plane and parachuting into a field below. Watching alongside me is Lieutenant Colonel Zach Luthardt. He's been the public affairs officer for the US Marines in Europe and Africa since last July.

Yeah, so Swift Response 25 is what we're here in Gotland Island doing. The Brits brought in their Pathfinders, their reconnaissance element, brought them in, scout drop zones, landing zones for the aircraft and the personnel that they were dropping in. Once they've secured this area,

this piece of terrain, then we're able to bring in other assets, right? And in this case, Marine Corps HIMARS, our rocket artillery, they can come in, they can fire and not have to worry about any adversary that may make in front because the Brits have already secured the area. And this kind of cooperation has...

It's really common, right? I mean, we're in the middle of the Defender series. It's all about the US Army and Europe and Africa collaborating with their European partners. Working with the UK, I've obviously over the course of my career worked a ton with the UK. We work well together. Everybody asks about the language barrier. Obviously, there's none with the UK, but even with the other NATO allies, there's really not a language barrier. We all communicate well. We get the job done. It's really, I've only been here since July. It's really been eye-opening how integrated we can be and how good we work together with our NATO allies. It's super simple and

They're super professional and we've had a blast. My eyes are open to how well this alliance works together. It's really great. It's great to hear because obviously if you've been here since July then you've been here over the change of the US administration. Trump's comments and his Vice President J.D. Vance suggesting that European security is not a priority for Americans anymore. Europeans need to buck up and take care of themselves. That creates quite a different political reality that we hear about in the media.

Is that reflected on the ground here? I'm stationed in Stuttgart permanently. We rotate all the Marine Corps forces in. Nothing on our schedule from the time I've got here has changed. We haven't scaled it down. It hasn't gone up, hasn't gone down. We're doing exactly what we said we were going to do. Our mission and our headquarters is really to plan and set up for all these exercises. Nobody's gone home. Like, our planners are all still there. We've got a fresh batch of new people coming in this summer to take those roles and continue the planning. So from my level, it's operational and tactical level.

Nothing's really changed for us. So all the chatter about the US leaving NATO, about the US pulling out of all the European bases they have, like the one that you're at in Stuttgart, it's nonsense. Listen, the political leaders, elect leaders are going to do their thing. I will say that from what I've seen, we haven't changed it at all. And I refer back to what I saw with Secretary Rubio and Ambassador Witkoff last week.

we are committed to the Alliance. It's our number one priority here in the, in the Atlantic theater. It's encouraging to see our, our, our European allies spending more. I mean, I've been super impressed with some of our nudist NATO NATO members here in Sweden and Finland working with these guys have been great. You can see all their building and how, you know, how serious they're taking the situation, the security situation here in Europe. And really it's been great to see, you know, from the Marine Corps perspective, how the, how the, uh,

the heart of the alliance has really shifted, right? With the addition of Finland and Sweden, it's been incredible. You come here, the Swedes are all in. Like, they're spending money, more conscripts, more people, like, it's only making us better. So what they do at the political level, it's not for me to say. My focus here on this operational and tactical level, it's the mission of all the Marines.

We've got some more 16th Air Assault Brigade guys jumping out. Looks pretty impressive, doesn't it? This is incredible watching these guys hit the ground, pop right back up and hit the mission. I mean, that's incredible. Like, I've never seen it before in real life.

Just back to your point, do you feel like the political rhetoric undermines the hard work that you guys do to pull together American, British, French, all these other European forces? Or do soldiers just shrug that stuff off? I mean, of course, we all are human. We have our thoughts and all that stuff. But when you come together with our allies, it's like...

hanging out with cousins, right? Like I show up in Norway, I mean, we're cooking dinner, we're eating together, we're going out, making friends, we're creating those relationships that really bind us together. And that's been something that I hadn't seen up to my career before I came in here, right? Mostly it was just us doing exercises or doing missions with U.S. only forces. But to come here, it's,

Yeah, what separates us is very minute. It's very small, but you can tell when you come in, like, we have the same values, democracy, defense of our nations. It's hard to tell at our level that things that are going on at the political level are happening.

I'm happy to serve and do the thing, but it doesn't affect us. I'm out here shaking hands, creating relationships and getting good training. And yeah, it's been great. Back at the Tofta firing range, the U.S. Marines Fox Battery team in charge of the HIMARS is getting ready to pack up for the day. The Marines flew overnight from Norway, and they've only had about 90 minutes sleep. They look tired but pleased.

I ask their battery commander, Captain Justin Miller, if he feels like the hard work and long hours put in by his crew are undermined by their commander-in-chief, Trump, having had a two-hour-long phone call with Putin just a day earlier.

Russia, after all, is the unspoken enemy that these exercises are all built around. You know, we're here on the ground. So the people in Washington, they have their job. They're doing things at their level and so are we. So we're

regardless of what's going on, you know, we're out here, we're training with NATO, we're actually in Sweden at the moment, Norway yesterday, and we're going to go to Finland here in a few days. So we're out here, we're training with NATO, and we're going to continue to do so until told otherwise. So the statements from Washington about America abandoning Europe and Europe needing to buck up and take care of its own security, that doesn't affect the defence cooperation with European allies on the ground?

You know, I can't say to the full breadth and width of whether it does or doesn't. From your experience in your work here in Europe? Yeah, what I can say is like, you know, we've had a lot of support. We've done a lot of great training out here. We've been in Europe for quite a little bit now. So it's, you know, it's been great. Again, we're here on the ground until somebody tells us otherwise. So we're out here training with NATO. It's been a great evolution.

So the alliance from the ground, from a soldier's perspective, still feels strong. Still feels strong to me. Venetia Rainey there reporting from Gotland. That's all for this week. We'll be back on Monday with a special edition for the UK Bank holiday. Until then, that was Battle Lines. Goodbye. Battle Lines is an original podcast from The Telegraph created by David Knowles and hosted by me, Roland Oliphant and Venetia Rainey. If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following Battle Lines on your preferred podcast app.

And if you have a moment, leave a review, as it helps others to find the show. To stay on top of all our news, subscribe to The Telegraph, sign up to our Dispatches newsletter, or listen to our sister podcast, Ukraine The Latest. You can also get in touch directly by emailing battlelines at telegraph.co.uk or contact us on X. You can find our handles in the show notes. The producer is Peter Shevlin and the executive producer is Louisa Wells.