The Department of Defense’s (DoD) fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget reshuffle offers a crucial opportunity for military leaders, including Air Force Chief Gen. David Allvin, to secure additional funding for high-priority initiatives like the “Golden Dome.”
President Donald Trump on Jan. 27 signed an executive order calling for the development of the new missile defense system, which he initially referred to as the Iron Dome of America, but later renamed the Golden Dome of America.
According to Allvin, since the air and space domains are central to the Golden Dome it’s not expected that “every service will pay for it equally.” Therefore, he explained that as DoD reassesses “what it needs to do to support this [administration’s] priorities, maybe they come in different ratios from different services.”
“I fully believe that we are relevant and very relevant with these new priorities – so we’ll see where the chips fall,” Allvin said during Defense One’s State of Defense series on March 20.
The Pentagon’s budget realignment, which reallocates 8 percent of the DoD’s FY2026 budget, tasks military services with identifying cuts and prioritizing reinvestments. Military leaders are expected to submit these proposed cuts to Congress in the coming months, alongside their budget requests for FY2026.
In a separate interview during the webcast series, U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman reiterated that the air and space will play “central” roles in the Golden Dome. However, he also noted that integrating multiple agencies’ efforts will be crucial.
“That’s a lot of things coming together … The biggest hurdle is integration. How does it all fit together? Can we make such a large effort come together seamlessly?” Saltzman said. “Because things are going to be happening at supersonic speeds. We’ve got to be able to make the right decisions and put the right data in the right hands of the right shooters.”
Saltzman is not the first defense official to acknowledge that building a “Golden Dome” missile defense shield over the United States will require widespread national support, including a strong defense industrial base.
Saltzman voiced his confidence in the U.S. defense industrial base being fully capable of delivering the capabilities needed to meet the demands of a “Golden Dome.”
“I am so impressed by the innovative spirit of the American space industry,” Saltzman said. “I’m pretty convinced that we will be able to technically solve those challenges.”
For example, one aspect of the “Golden Dome” is space-based missile interceptors, which Saltzman himself labeled an “immense challenge.
“It’s not just that we want space-based interceptors. We want them in boost phase. We want them to achieve their effects as far from the homeland as possible. So, they’ve got to be fast, they’ve got to be accurate,” he said.
Despite this challenge, he remained confident that “most of those technical problems,” could be solved.
“I think it’s just about how fast we can leverage the technology and put it in place and test it, get a demo out there so we can see what’s possible,” he said.
