North Korea Blasts US ‘Arrogance’ Over Golden Dome Plans

North Korea has slammed President Donald Trump‘s new “Golden Dome” air defense system as “threatening,” according to the secretive country’s state media, which denounced the initiative as turning “outer space into a potential nuclear war field.”

Why It Matters

Trump unveiled initial plans for the “state of the art” missile defense system dubbed “Golden Dome” earlier this month, which he said would be up and running by the end of his administration to shield against “next-generation” threats like ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles.

An increasingly belligerent North Korea has forged ahead with its weapons development, including nuclear warheads. The “Golden Dome” has drawn sharp criticism from Russia and China, North Korea’s two most important allies.

What To Know

Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said the “Golden Dome” was a “threatening initiative” imbued with “self-righteousness” and “arrogance,” in remarks carried by state media.

North Korea accused the U.S. of “militarizing” space, which could become a “potential nuclear war field.”

The U.S. missile shield concept is based on Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome air defense system, although the designs will have significant differences. The Iron Dome, which the U.S. had a hand in developing, fends off short-range rockets, rather than barrages of long-range, very fast-traveling missiles early on in their flight.

Trump has framed the system as the end result of a program kicked off by Republican President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, popularly known as “Star Wars.” The Golden Dome will use space-based sensors and interceptors to knock out missiles “even if they are launched from space,” the president said.

Militaries across the world have increasingly turned to space in developing new weapons and capabilities.

“This highly offensive system violates the principle of peaceful use of outer space,” said Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, at a press briefing last week.

The Congressional Budget Office said earlier this month the bill for the space-based part of the Golden Dome could come in at $542 billion over the next two decades. The Trump administration said the estimated price tag of the missile shield stands at around $175 billion.

Trump said the system will be…