From Iron to Gold: Lessons for Space-Based Interceptor Missile Defense

The announcement of the Golden Dome has reignited debates over missile defense and the viability of large-scale defensive architectures. While existing scholarship largely examines whether national missile defense systems undermine deterrence or provoke arms races, less attention has been paid to how adversaries directly respond in practice. This paper addresses that gap by analyzing the types of responses elicited by a pair of historical missile defense systems and deriving lessons relevant to the United States’ proposed Golden Dome. Using a comparative case study approach focused on Israel’s Iron Dome and the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative, we develop a novel framework for understanding adversarial responses, classifying them as offensive, defensive, or diplomatic. The analysis finds that adversaries predominantly adopt offensive measures to capitalize on the inherent cost asymmetry between offensive and defensive capabilities, and that perceptions of system feasibility strongly influence the scale and type of response. Applied to the Golden Dome, where cost asymmetry is more extreme, the Iron Dome case study offers insights into deployment dynamics, but provides limited guidance on adversary reactions to a space-based system operating in a nuclear context. The Strategic Defense Initiative, by contrast, speaks directly to this context and underscores the role of announcements in prompting early and adaptive responses. These findings suggest that assessing the Golden Dome's strategic impact requires moving beyond Iron Dome analogies toward a systematic analysis of how the system's distinct characteristics shape adversary perceptions and, in turn, drive the nature and intensity of their responses over time.

• Fernando Miranda Espana
• Thomas González Roberts

• Sam Nunn School of International Affairs