U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to build a “Golden Dome” comprising space-based interceptors, among other capabilities, to take out missile threats represents a dramatic departure from Washington’s established strategy for homeland defense, but will likely do little to decrease the risk of conflict with a nuclear North Korea.

Announced in late May, the Golden Dome missile defense system aims to create a constellation of possibly hundreds of satellites to detect and intercept incoming missiles, pursuant to an executive order issued in the early days of the new administration and at an estimated cost of