MARCH 20, 2025 – Earlier this month, President Donald J. Trump told Congress and Americans the U.S. would pursue a Golden Dome, similar to Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, designed to protect against inbound missile attacks.
The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment is working with partner agencies, including the Missile Defense Agency and the military services, to make that happen, said Steven J. Morani, currently performing the duties of undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment yesterday at the McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Washington.
“Consistent with protecting the homeland and per President Trump’s [executive order], we’re working with the industrial base and [through] supply chain challenges associated with standing up the Golden Dome,” Morani said.
In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan wanted to build such an air defense system, but technology wasn’t available at the time to bring that project to fruition. Morani said the challenge would be formidable and require a lot of teamwork.
“This is like the monster systems engineering problem. This is the monster integration problem,” he said. “This is going to be layers of architecture working together at all group level elevations … to protect the United States … so we’re going to need all the services and agencies that do this kind of work to step up.”
Morani said the acquisitions and sustainment community is focused on meeting the president’s request for the Golden Dome while realigning also to meet Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s priorities. Among those priorities are reviving the warrior ethos, rebuilding the military by matching threats to capabilities and re-establishing deterrence to defend the homeland.
“[We’re] wasting no time in moving out and taking this new direction by the president and the secretary,” he said.
The office, Morani added, is also determining how to shift people, resources and priorities toward providing better support directly to the warfighter.
“[We’re] looking at ways to streamline and remove some red tape,” he said. Part of that includes looking at the department’s real estate portfolio and reducing or eliminating what is not needed.
He said the A&S community is playing a key role in developing the department’s FY2026 budget proposal, one that aligns with the president and secretary’s priorities.
“There is a rigorous analytic process underway taking a relook at [the budget],” Morani said. “This is standard practice for any new administration that takes office.”
Hegseth has said the department is examining the budget to refocus funding away from non-lethal programs and into programs that support the president’s priorities for national defense; A&S is part of that process.
“We’re relooking at some of the things we did in the past before we are going to put more money against them, and perhaps [what] we’re going to stop doing,” Morani said, adding it will be the secretary who makes any final decisions about how funding requests are prioritized.
Over the past eight weeks, A&S has focused on strengthening the defense industrial base and growing the department’s ability to provide logistics and sustainment capability to the joint force.
Sustainment, Morani said, enhances deterrence.
“If a potential adversary knows that your logistics capabilities are robust … and if you are in it for the long haul, they’ll be less likely to engage in hostilities because they know that they’ll not just be outgunned and outmaneuvered, but they’re going to be out supplied,” he said.
By C. Todd Lopez, DOD News