That was Russian President Vladimir Putin speaking to members of his Security Council in the Kremlin on September 22, 2025, in the Kremlin.

Later that day, when White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about Putin’s offer, she said, “The President is aware of this offer extended by President Putin, and I'll let him comment on it later. I think it sounds pretty good, but he wants to make some comments on that himself, and I will let him do that.”

One day later, 22 minutes into his long, rambling speech before the U.N. General Assembly, President Trump departed from his prepared remarks and said, “We want to have a cessation of the development of nuclear weapons. We know and I know and I get to view it all the time — Sir, would you like to see — and I look at weapons that are so powerful that we just can’t ever use them. If we ever use them, the world literally might come to an end. There would be no United Nations to be talking about. There would be no nothing.”

I want to believe that was President Trump beginning to respond, extemporaneously, to Putin’s offer, and serious talks will soon begin to extend the New START limits on U.S. and Russian deployed nuclear warheads and delivery systems.

Let me suggest a reason why Putin made the offer and more reasons why Trump should go along.

In calling for the New START extension, Putin made reference to “U.S. plans to expand strategic components of its missile defense system, including preparations for the deployment of interceptors in outer space.” That was a reference to Trump’s so-called Golden Dome, space-based, missile defense plans of which Putin said, “practical implementation of such destabilizing measures could nullify our efforts to maintain the status quo in the field of strategic offensive arms.”

It reminded me of 1984, when then-President Ronald Reagan started his own space-based missile defense program, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which also drew complaints from Moscow. However, three years later, Reagan and then Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which at that time did away with a whole class of nuclear weapons.

Eventually, when SDI proved unworkable, in 1991 then-President George H.W. Bush and Gorbachev agreed to the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

At the time, the was a belief that Gorbachev sought negotiations that led up to START because Russia could not afford to match the costs the U.S. was putting into space-based missile defense.

Back then, I believed that was the case and today I think that Putin, faced with continued fighting in Ukraine, cannot afford a space-based missile defense competition with the U.S. -- and neither can Trump, although the latter does not know it yet.

The Ukraine war costs are dominating Russia’s economy.

After raising personal income taxes sharply at the start of the year, Putin had pledged there would be no more big changes to the tax system until 2030. But the Russian Finance Ministry last week said it intends to raise the country’s value added tax (VAT) by two percent to 22 percent, to help meet the growing deficit. Russia’s VAT applies to the sale of goods and services within Russia, the import of goods, and the provision of electronic services by foreign companies, much like a U.S. excise tax.

The Russian budget deficit increased to 4.9 trillion rubles ($58 billion) in the January-July 2025 period, up from 1.1 trillion rubles ($13 billion) the year before. Russia has already revised its 2025 deficit projection upward from 1.7% to 2.6% of GDP. Russia’s oil and gas revenues fell 19% compared with the year earlier, in part due to lower global oil prices, but also thanks to lower world purchases, such as Moscow’s loss of most of its natural gas sales to Europe.

At home, inflation is around 8 percent as wholesale gasoline prices in Russia have surged in part because of Ukrainian drone attacks that have damaged oil refineries and shut down some major facilities. In August, the government introduced a temporary gasoline export ban and last week Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the plan is to extend that ban through the end of the year.

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On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia had not yet received signals from the American side via secure channels in response to President Putin’s proposal to extend New START. But, when asked about the timing of a Washington reply, Peskov said, “We’ll wait this week,” noting Trump’s busy schedule during the United Nations meetings. “Understandably, these have been difficult days for him [Trump],” Peskov added.

Trump’s most immediate problem this week is the looming shutdown of the government. But when he gets around to dealing with Putin’s offer to extend New START, he faces some new U.S. nuclear weapons cost problems that he needs to recognize, along with serious technical issues facing his Golden Dome program.

For example, on September 18, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported to Congress that the modernized, uranium processing facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee that was originally to be operational in 2026 to ensure uranium for nuclear weapons and to fuel U.S. Navy ships will not be ready before 2034. Meanwhile, the original cost has ballooned from $6.5 billion in 2018 to $10.35 billion.

More concerning, the GAO said the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which runs the nuclear complex, said its contractor has said that it will cost about $463 million to safely continue uranium processing operations until 2035 for current needs in the 80-year-old Building 9212 at Oak Ridge.

At the same time, the U.S. is in the midst of modernizing its three major strategic nuclear delivery systems – B-52 long-range heavy bombers with the B-21; Ohio class strategic nuclear submarines with Columbia class submarines; and Minuteman III land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with the Sentinel system.

This ambitious program, which the Congressional Budget Office this year said may cost nearly $946 billion to operate and modernize over the next ten years, has shown some troubling problems. While the B-21 bombers seem to be on schedule, the Columbia submarines are running about one year behind schedule. Although the Navy claims the first one will go on patrol in 2030, the Navy is planning to extend the service lives of up to five Ohio-class SSBNs to hedge against potential delays in the deliveries of Columbia-class boats.

Problems with the Sentinel ICBM system are much more serious.

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The Defense Department (DoD) earlier this month estimated the Sentinel program, which involves replacing 450 Minuteman IIIs, currently based in silos in three different states, will cost more than $140 billion and be delayed by years.

Because of the Sentinel delay, the Air Force “must continue to operate and maintain the aging Minuteman III system over the next decade and beyond to meet strategic deterrent requirements until Sentinel is fully fielded,” according to a September 10, GAO report. Air Force Global Strike officials told the GAO that “operating two weapon systems simultaneously while executing a massive military movement to convert the old system to the new system,” would be “a very complex operation.”

Another issue: “As part of Sentinel restructuring, the Air Force is reassessing all aspects of its plan to field Sentinel, including the extent to which Sentinel will use the existing Minuteman III launch facilities. The Air Force has yet to finalize the design for Sentinel launch facilities,” the GAO said.

I have to add to the current strategic nuclear issues facing the Trump administration, serious doubts remain as to whether the President’s space-based Golden Dome missile defense will ever reach fruition.

I have in past columns quoted Todd Harrison, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, as explaining the complications with the idea of space-based interceptors killing enemy ICBMs during their boost phase, which is a key element of Golden Dome. As Harrison has explained it, you have only two-to-three minutes to target and shoot during the enemy ICBM’s boost phase, and then because your orbiting interceptors need to be in range, there’s a requirement that at least 500 interceptors would be needed for each target.

During a September 16, interview at the Council on Foreign Relations, Harrison added a Golden Dome price when he said, “If you want to do boost-phase intercept from space, we're talking something if you really want to do the scale of protection they're talking about for a Russian or a Chinese or a Russian Chinese simultaneous launch, Worst case, you are talking something that's going to go into the trillions of dollars over the next twenty years or so.”

I lay out these details to show that Trump, as well as Putin, has a financial incentive to do the right thing and together renew the New START agreement.

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CIPHER BRIEF REPORTING – The missile threat against the U.S. has quietly and significantly grown over the past four decades as U.S. adversaries have added more sophisticated missiles to their arsenals, investing in both the scope of their systems as well as their ability to reach the U.S. homeland, according to experts.

As one of his very first actions in office, President Trump issued an executive order to address it, calling it the Iron Dome for America. And while some experts believe the name itself is “unfortunate” because it creates unrealistic expectations of what the system can actually do, it also represents what many believe to be a “necessary and long overdue shift in thinking and policy to begin to better address” the vulnerability of the U.S. homeland.

The name itself, the Golden Dome, is meant to echo Israel’s battlefield-proven Iron Dome, the short-range rocket defense system that has proven incredibly effective at saving Israeli lives. Yet while Iron Dome protects a sliver of territory with ground-launched interceptors, Golden Dome is pitched as something far more audacious: a planetary shield in orbit, capable of destroying intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from Russia or China, intercepting hypersonic glide vehicles, and blunting Iran’s growing arsenal.

The scale alone is staggering. Washington has signed off on $175 billion, most of which will flow to defense giants Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), and L3Harris, to design the satellites, interceptors, and ground systems. Billions more are headed to the U.S. Space Force and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), which will be tasked with weaving the pieces into a functioning shield. The effort is less like Iron Dome and more like the Apollo program—a bet that space-based interceptors can alter the nuclear balance of power.

Since July, when President Trump unveiled the plan and appointed U.S. Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein to lead it, Golden Dome has begun to take shape. Early budget outlines, hints of which defense firms are poised to win contracts, and debates among scientists and strategists all point to the same conclusion: the United States is embarking on one of the most ambitious defense projects in modern history and as with ambitious endeavors, this one is not without risk.

What’s New: Price Tag, Commander, and a Sprint Schedule

At the May 20 White House launch, Trump vowed that Golden Dome would be operational before his term ends—a three-year sprint to bolt revolutionary technology onto legacy missile defenses. He also named states like Alaska, Florida, Georgia, and Indiana as benefitting from the program, indicating that the way it’s being implemented could be politically strategic as well.

These are not random mentions: Alaska hosts vital long-range radars, Florida provides launch ranges, Georgia is home to contractor and military facilities, and Indiana is a hub for advanced aerospace and defense manufacturing. In short, the rollout carries as much weight for domestic politics and jobs as it does for national defense.

The program itself relies on space-based interceptors (SBIs) and missile-tracking satellites linked to existing ground and sea defenses. An early sign of the complications associated with the program came from The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which promptly warned that the actual cost could exceed $540 billion over the next two decades.

Over the summer, the outlines have grown sharper: $40 billion for the Space Force, including $24.4 billion specifically for Golden Dome. Nearly $9.2 billion is allocated for tracking satellites, $5.6 billion for orbiting interceptors, and approximately $1 billion for integration and testing. Congress added another $25 billion through the fast-track “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” The shortcut could accelerate prototypes—but with less oversight, which is not an unfamiliar gamble for big-ticket defense programs.

How It Would Work

Despite its evocative name, the Golden Dome is not a physical shield arching over pockets of the United States. It is a layered missile-defense architecture stitched together by artificial intelligence and rooted in a mix of space and ground systems. Here’s how the architecture is designed to function:

Spot and track: Satellites equipped with infrared sensors detect missile launches the moment engines ignite and then track their trajectories.

Boost-phase intercept (BPI): New space-based interceptors (SBIs) would attempt to destroy missiles in the first minutes after launch, before they can release decoys or split into multiple warheads.

Midcourse and terminal defenses: If anything gets through, existing systems fire. The Navy’s Aegis system launches Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) and Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) interceptors from ships at sea, while the Army relies on Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries and Patriot missiles closer to the ground.

The brain: A central hub known as Command and Control, Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) fuses satellite, radar, and electronic intelligence data, then assigns the best shooter to make a split-second kill decision.

In simpler terms, the system would begin by using satellites equipped with infrared sensors to detect launches and track missiles. Those satellites would feed data to interceptors in orbit, designed to strike in the “boost phase”— the brief moments right after a missile takes off, before it can release decoys or multiple warheads. If a missile makes it past that first layer, existing defenses would kick in: the Navy’s Aegis system with SM-3 and SM-6 interceptors, the Army’s THAAD batteries, and Patriots closer to the ground. A central command system would fuse data from satellites, radars, and electronic intelligence to make split-second engagement decisions.

"I think the real technical challenge will be building of the space-based interceptor,” said Space Force General Michael Guetlein shortly after being confirmed as head of the Golden Dome Program. “That technology exists, I believe. I believe we have proven every element of the physics [to the point] that we can make it work. What we have not proven is, first, can I do it economically, and then second, can I do it at scale? Can I build enough satellites to get after the threat? Can I expand the industrial base fast enough to build those satellites? Do I have enough raw materials, et cetera?"

Feasible but Costly

Experts agree that the most complex and most ambitious piece is the boost-phase intercept. Dr. Patrick Binning, a space-systems expert at Johns Hopkins, calls it the “holy grail” of missile defense. Taking out a missile right after launch gives the U.S. its best chance of success. But the hurdles are enormous: maintaining global satellite coverage, striking within seconds, and defending the system itself from cyberattacks, jamming, or anti-satellite weapons.

Binning calls the idea “quite feasible, but also likely quite costly.”

“Designing, developing, and deploying the space-based interceptors are the key technical risk,” he tells The Cipher Brief. In other words, the concept is sound, but building the hardware will be the real test.

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Peter Garretson, Senior Fellow in Defense Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, argues that the technology is no longer science fiction.

“Completely feasible,” he tells The Cipher Brief, citing decades of progress: successful missile intercepts in space, proven battle-management systems like Aegis, miniaturized computing power, and advances in artificial intelligence. In his view, the building blocks for a space-heavy defense are finally in place.

The White House aims to have the Golden Dome operational within just three years. Binning, however, is blunt.

“Full operational capability in three years? Never going to happen,” he observes.

At best, he predicts, “the Golden Dome could conduct a sophisticated intercept test against an intercontinental ballistic missile test target using a newly orbiting space-based interceptor.”

Yet, turning a demonstration shot into a reliable shield will take far longer. But Garretson sees political risk in missing the target.

“Golden Dome must achieve both successful testing and initial deployments before the 2028 election,” he says. If that happens, “no political party will remove a missile shield from the U.S. public.”

But he warns that bureaucratic turf wars inside the Pentagon could be as dangerous as engineering setbacks.

Even if the politics align, the physics remain punishing. Building a shield in the sky is not just about winning budgets or inter-service battles—it’s about scale. Seeing everything—and firing first—requires massive constellations of satellites and interceptors. That scale creates two problems: launch bottlenecks and space debris.

Strategic Effects—And a Dual-Use Case

Golden Dome is meant to complicate the war plans of China and Russia while reducing leverage from Iran and North Korea. Garretson argues it could force adversaries to rethink their arsenals.

“It will cause their current force structure to be a wasting asset and cast doubt on their current investments,” he said. “They will be forced to massively overbuild to compensate and for their war plans to have similar confidence.” In time, he suggests, the pressure could open doors to new arms-control talks—just as President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) pushed the Soviet Union to the table.

Beyond deterrence and diplomacy, advocates see the Golden Dome serving another role: safeguarding the United States’ own presence in space. The conversation isn’t only about missile defense. Proponents argue that the Golden Dome could also guard the satellites that anchor U.S. power in space.

“The space-based interceptors will have a dual-use capability to also protect our critical space systems from anti-satellite interceptors being developed by our competitor nations,” Binning asserts.

In other words, Golden Dome might not only shield against nuclear attack—it could also defend the satellites that underpin U.S. communications, navigation, and intelligence.

Politics and Procurement

The administration has built political durability into the Golden Dome by spreading contracts across multiple states. Congress’s $25 billion “accelerator” allows the Pentagon to bypass some oversight in the name of speed. However, credibility will depend on rigorous testing—multiple simultaneous launches, decoys, and heavy jamming.

Garretson argues that management will matter as much as technology.

“Centralized leadership reporting directly to the President, with broad independence and exceptions from normal oversight,” will be needed, said Garretson. “Focus on sprints to incremental testing… Deploy in tranches and continuously upgrade… Focus on building and testing, not on studies and requirements documents.”

The core question isn’t whether Golden Dome can stop every missile. It is whether it can change how rivals think. A reliable boost-phase layer could force Beijing and Moscow to adjust their nuclear strategies. However, a fragile or easily compromised system could invite a preemptive attack.

For now, Washington hasn’t built a shield in space—it has placed a bet. The coming months will reveal whether defense contractors can turn promises into hardware, whether early tests prove the concept, and whether Congress will continue to write checks for a program on par with Apollo in terms of cost and ambition.

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