Russia and China on Thursday criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to develop a missile defense system modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome, calling it “deeply destabilizing” and warning it could turn space into a “battlefield.”
Trump ordered the creation of what he has called a “Golden Dome” shortly after taking office in January, a program aimed at countering ballistic and hypersonic missile threats. The initiative revives elements of the Reagan-era “Star Wars” missile defense project, which proposed deploying space-based interceptors.
“The recently announced large-scale ‘Golden (Iron) Dome for America’ program is also deeply destabilizing,” Russia and China said in a joint statement published by the Kremlin following talks between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Moscow.
The missile defense plan “explicitly provides for a significant strengthening of the arsenal for conducting combat operations in space,” the statement added.
Moscow and Beijing said they would begin consultations on preventing the deployment of weapons in space and pledged to “counter policies and activities aimed at achieving military supremacy and formalizing the use of space as a battlefield.”
Trump’s “Golden Dome” proposal references Israel’s Iron Dome system, which has successfully intercepted short-range rockets. But the threats faced by the U.S., including long-range ballistic and hypersonic missiles, differ significantly from those countered by the Israeli system.
Russia and the U.S. have increasingly accused each other of militarizing space in recent years.
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