If successful, it could reshape how Europe protects territory, infrastructure and citizens.
Driving the news: Leonardo presented “Michelangelo – The Security Dome” today in Rome: an integrated protection infrastructure that combines all of the company’s defence capabilities — sensors, radars, cyber, AI, command-and-control systems, and effectors — into a single, multi-domain shield.
Key points:
- A unifying architecture: The Dome goes beyond mere aggregation of national capabilities. It aims to rewrite how Europe defends cities, critical infrastructure, and strategic assets by connecting systems that were never designed to communicate with each other.
- Multi-domain reach: It will detect, track and neutralise threats across every operational domain — from air and missile attacks (including hypersonic weapons and drone swarms) to surface and subsurface threats at sea, and hostile ground forces.
The message: “With Michelangelo Dome,” CEO Roberto Cingolani said, “Leonardo confirms its commitment to protecting citizens, institutions and infrastructure by combining advanced technology, systemic vision and industrial capacity… Defence must innovate, anticipate and open up to international cooperation.”
Don’t mislead the name: Trump’s Golden Dome. The name evokes Donald Trump’s Golden Dome, the U.S. space-based missile shield composed of multiple interconnected programs.
- But the resemblance is communicative primarily:
- Golden Dome = a broad umbrella program integrating numerous sub-programs.
- Michelangelo Dome = an enabler, a layer that connects existing systems — often different, legacy or non-interoperable — across all domains, not just aerospace.
The strategic promise. European defence is weakened by systemic fragmentation. The Dome’s value proposition:
- create a shared operational architecture;
- coordinate highly diverse national systems;
- enable interoperability where none was initially planned.
If effective, it could become a crucial, revolutionary asset for Europe’s broader defence integration efforts.
Link to the European Sky Shield. The European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI) — primarily backed by Germany, and excluding Italy and France — faces significant coordination challenges due to its wide technological diversity. A platform like Michelangelo could, in theory, help mitigate that fragmentation.
- France and Italy, meanwhile, already co-develop the SAMP/T air defence system, considered among the most capable currently in service.
The big picture: Just as Michelangelo’s Last Judgment unified disparate Christian symbols into a single coherent vision, Leonardo’s Michelangelo Dome aspires to bring order to Europe’s fragmented defence ecosystem.
- Whether it becomes the architecture Europe needs remains an open—and strategically consequential—question.
