At missile defense conference, the first rule of Golden Dome is don’t talk about Golden Dome

SMD 2025 — The Trump administration’s Golden Dome initiative to create an all-encompassing air and missile defense shield over the US will be the most ambitious Pentagon weapons program since Ronald Reagan’s (ultimately failed) Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in the 1980s.

But discussion of the massive project has been greatly curtailed at a conference dedicated to missile defense, the Space and Missile Defense Symposium, after government and industry sources here said the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s (OSD) public relations team barred Defense Department officials and military personnel from discussing the planned effort.

“We can’t comment on OSD guidance to senior officials. We were asked to roll our Golden Dome discussions into the [Missile Defense Agency] Golden Dome industry summit following the symposium and we agreed,” Bob English, who runs the SMD Symposium’s media operations, told Breaking Defense at the annual gathering of Army, Space Force and industry missile defense experts in Huntsville, Ala.

That industry summit is due to take place on Thursday, but despite being unclassified is not open to the press. The Pentagon has not responded to Breaking Defense’s request for comment today on Golden Dome discussions at the SMD Symposium. Politico previously reported the apparent ban.

The development follows a Pentagon bar on appearances by officials and military brass at think tank functions, thus leading to a whirlwind of conflicting interpretations as to who could say what, where and to whom at the SMD Symposium.

“There was some initial confusion and differing interpretations of the initial guidance. After conferring with OSD PAO [Public Affairs Office], they clarified that the guidance pertained only to moving Golden Dome discussions,” English said.

US government and industry officials here widely expressed bafflement at the decision — with speculation about the reasoning ranging from concern about getting ahead of recently appointed Golden Dome czar Gen. Michael Guetlein’s blueprint for the program to DoD to congressional annoyance that members have yet to be briefed despite being asked by the administration to pony up billions for the effort.

Golden Dome is expected to involve myriad ongoing air and missile defense programs across the military services as well as re-launching the SDI-era program to develop space-based interceptors. Initial funding for the effort in the government’s reconciliation package amounts to $25 billion.

Less restricted were defense firms, who took the opportunity of the conference to highlight capabilities they said would be useful to the sprawling defense shield.

But for government and military officials, the ban on discussion the effort further led to some amusing moments on the SMD 2025 stage as they struggled to talk about the Golden Dome capabilities without uttering the program’s name.

For example, several DoD and military officials spoke of ongoing activities being in line with President Donald Trump’s “January executive order,” which mandated the Golden Dome initiative.

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey, head of Army Space & Missile Defense Command (SMDC), spoke at length about the Army’s role in homeland defense, and its future plans to coordinate with Northern Command, the Missile Defense Agency and US Space Command in developing “a next-generation defensive architecture that will keep our nation safe for years to come.”

Ashley Roque contributed to this report.