Donald Trump vows US will develop space-based missile defence, as Pentagon eyes Chinese hypersonic tech with concern
- The Pentagon’s new missile defence review finds that a space-based system is needed to thwart threats from North Korea, Iran, China, Russia
- Trump said the US ‘will now adjust its posture’ to defend against hypersonic missiles
Declaring that space is the new military domain, US President Donald Trump on Thursday vowed the US will develop an unrivalled missile defence system to protect against advanced hypersonic and cruise missile threats from competitors and adversaries.
In a speech at the Pentagon, Trump said that the US would do what it takes “to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, any time, any place.”
Trump did not mention Russia, China or North Korea in his roughly 20-minute speech.
But the Pentagon’s new strategy makes clear that its plan for a more aggressive space-based missile defence system is aimed at protecting against existing threats from North Korea and Iran and countering advanced weapon systems such as the hypersonic missiles being developed by China and Russia.
“We will protect the American people from all types of missile attacks,” Trump said. “In the past, the United States lacked a comprehensive strategy for missile defence that extended beyond ballistic missiles.
“Under our plan, that will change. The US will now adjust its posture to also defend against any missile strikes including cruise and hypersonic missiles.”
The new review, the first since 2010, concludes that to adequately protect America, the Pentagon must expand defence technologies in space and use those systems to more quickly detect, track and ultimately defeat incoming missiles.