‘Falling behind’: US admiral warns of China dominance in hypersonic missile race
Weapons under development by China and Russia – as well as by the United States – can fly at many times the speed of sound and are designed to beat regular anti-missile defence systems.
Even as the Pentagon hustles to ensure that its defences keep pace with North Korea’s fast-growing rocket programme, US officials increasingly are turning attention to a new generation of missile threat.
The hypersonic missiles could change the face of future warfare, as they can switch direction in flight and do not follow a predictable arc like conventional missiles, making them much harder to track and intercept.
“China’s hypersonic weapons development outpaces ours … we’re falling behind,” Admiral Harry Harris, who heads the military’s Pacific Command, warned lawmakers on Wednesday.
“We need to continue to pursue that and in a most aggressive way to ensure that we have the capabilities to both defend against China’s hypersonic weapons and to develop our own offensive hypersonic weapons.”
In its proposed US$9.9 billion requested budget for 2019, the Missile Defence Agency (MDA) is asking for US$120 million to develop hypersonic missile defences, a big increase from the US$75 million in fiscal 2018.