In his Double Ten National Day address on Oct. 10 last year, President William Lai (賴清德) announced plans to construct a nationwide missile defense system, dubbed the “T-Dome.” The proposal was framed as a necessary response to China’s rapidly expanding missile capabilities and its increasingly explicit ambition to annex Taiwan by force.
Given the accelerating pace of Beijing’s military buildup and political coercion, Taipei’s sense of urgency is understandable. The nation cannot afford inaction.
Politically, the T-Dome carries a certain appeal. It signals Taiwan’s resolve to domestic and international audiences, reassures an anxious public and aligns with Washington’s long-standing demand — especially under US President Donald Trump’s administration — that partners demonstrate tangible commitments to their own defense.
For the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the project also promises partisan benefits by projecting leadership and seriousness in the face of external threat.
Yet, political logic does not automatically translate into sound military strategy. The more difficult — and more consequential — question is whether the T-Dome is based on genuine military rationality or whether it risks diverting scarce resources away from more effective means of deterrence and defense.
Taiwan’s defense planners have repeatedly emphasized the need to prioritize asymmetric warfare. The underlying logic is straightforward: Taiwan cannot defeat China in a conventional contest of firepower. Instead, it must deny Beijing a quick victory, impose high costs on an invasion and buy sufficient time — about one month — for US intervention.
A nationwide missile defense shield sits uneasily with this strategic consensus. Missile defense systems are costly, technologically demanding and inherently vulnerable to saturation. Against a quantitatively superior adversary, interception alone is an unreliable foundation for survival.
Comparisons with other missile defense systems, either existing or planned, further underscore the problem. Trump’s “Golden Dome” concept is essentially an expanded version of the Cold War-era Strategic Defense Initiative, designed to intercept nuclear missiles aimed at the US through layered and even space-based systems.
The T-Dome is neither intended nor capable of operating on such a scale. Beyond general ideas such as layered defense and sensor integration, the US experience offers little directly applicable guidance.
Israel’s Iron Dome is frequently invoked as a model, but the analogy is misleading. The Iron Dome is optimized to counter short-range rockets launched by non-state actors and, to a limited extent, medium-range missiles from Iran. Israel does not face the prospect of a full-scale amphibious invasion by a major military power with overwhelming conventional superiority. Taiwan does. While the Iron Dome might offer useful lessons at the tactical or operational levels, it provides little strategic insight for a country preparing for a potential all-out invasion.
Japan’s missile defense system offers yet another cautionary case. Designed primarily to intercept a small number of ballistic missiles carrying single nuclear warheads from North Korea, Japan’s system does not assume complex penetration tactics, multiple warheads or large-scale saturation attacks. Recognizing these limitations, Tokyo has increasingly shifted its focus toward acquiring counterstrike capabilities — conventional missiles intended to disrupt or deter attacks at their source. The evolution reflects a broader reality: Missile defense alone cannot guarantee security.
Supporters of the T-Dome often say that cost concerns are overstated. The Ministry of National Defense estimates procurement costs at about NT$300 billion (US$9.49 billion), a figure that appears manageable given anticipated increases in defense spending. Yet, aggregate figures obscure serious risks.
Even with US technical assistance, integrating legacy systems into a coherent nationwide shield is likely to take far longer than planned. Past experiences with major US systems suggest that delivery delays of several years are not unusual. In a rapidly deteriorating cross-strait military balance, time itself becomes an opportunity cost Taiwan could ill afford.
More troubling still is the strategic opportunity cost. Resources devoted to a comprehensive missile shield inevitably come at the expense of other capabilities central to asymmetric defense: mobile missile launchers, sea mines, uncrewed systems, hardened logistics and dispersed command-and-control networks.
In a realistic conflict scenario, China could employ drones and obsolete platforms as decoys before launching saturation attacks with missiles and aircraft. Taiwan’s interceptors would be depleted quickly. Once exhausted, even the most advanced missile defense system becomes an expensive irrelevance.
Taiwan could attempt to compensate by stockpiling interceptors, but that is neither economically nor industrially feasible. China already enjoys overwhelming quantitative superiority in missiles and aircraft. Taiwan cannot win an arms race in either fiscal or manufacturing terms. The danger is that defeat would be determined long before combat begins, through the exhaustion of Taiwan’s resources and strategic options.
The uncomfortable conclusion is that the T-Dome is not an optimal solution — neither militarily nor in terms of opportunity cost. Taiwan’s security ultimately depends not on technological ambition, but on strategic discipline. Preparing for asymmetric warfare requires painful prioritization, a willingness to accept risk and the resolve to endure significant hardship to deny China a rapid victory.
From the perspective of Japan and the US, another factor looms large: Taiwan’s political unity. If the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) cannot set aside partisan rivalry in the face of an existential threat, Taiwan risks appearing as though it lacks the will to survive. Deterrence rests as much on perceived resolve as on material capability.
The question, then, is not whether Taiwan could build a T-Dome, but whether it should. Strategy is defined not by what is impressive, but by what works. The choices made in Taipei would signal whether the nation is prepared to confront strategic reality or retreat into the comfort of costly illusion.
Masahiro Matsumura is professor of international politics and national security at St Andrew’s University in Osaka.
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