Experts warn Trump’s missile defence plan could fuel an arms race while leaving the America vulnerable to a large-scale attack
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenNayan Sethin WashingtonPublished: 5:43am, 20 Aug 2026US President Donald Trump’s ambitious plan to build a national missile defence system, dubbed the “Golden Dome”, may not be able to fully protect America but could accelerate the global arms race involving China, Russia and North Korea, according to experts.“If we expand these missile defences further, we can expect additional responses,” said Steve Fetter, a professor at the University of Maryland.
Speaking during a discussion at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday, Fetter noted that the current expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, including the estimated construction of 350 new missile silos, has been motivated “at least in part” by US missile defences.
“It’s not clear that, at the end of the day, we will be any less vulnerable to a nuclear attack after these actions and reactions,” he added.
Michael O’Hanlon, director of research in the Foreign Policy programme at Brookings, also emphasised that deploying a missile defence tends to “run the risk of creating an arms race”.
“Because whoever is having the defence deployed against them tends to overestimate, and whoever is building the defence tends to compensate in the other way,” he said.
