WASHINGTON – US Navy Admiral Charles Richard has admitted that existingAmerican air defences were not designed to counter modern hypersonic glideweapons, like the one recently deployed by Russia,linkandcurrently developed by China, and hence these weapons “challenge” the US,during an open hearing at the US House Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.
He added that the Pentagon even has trouble determining the capabilities ofmodern weapons, although it still can make a reliable guess on what threatthese weapons pose.
“It’s not that we have no ability to characterise the threat to thisnation. The size of a raid alone starts to give us information as to whatthey might be able to do. We already don’t have the ability to characterisethe payload on any inbound weapon system to the US, hypersonic or not”, hesaid.
In addition, while answering a question from House membeк Seth Moulton,Admiral Richard acknowledged that the US defence systems were not designedto counter any ballistic weapons capabilities of Russia and Chinalink,but only to protect from attacks by “rogue nations”.
He noted that it would be “technically infeasible” due to the extreme costsof running such defences.[image: Loading video]
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At the same time, Charles Richard noted that such a state of Americandefence doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s under threat by either Moscow orBeijing.
He explained that the US relies on the strategic stability ensured by theability of Washington to “impose [heavy] costs” on any nation, which mighttry to attack the US, using its own strategic arsenal.[image: Avangard hypersonic missile system]
The admiral made his statements during a hearing, which was devoted to theUS plans to upgrade its arsenal and develop an appropriate response to newRussian cutting-edge weapons. Moscow recently presented and later deployedAvangard (Russian for “Vanguard”) hypersonic missileslink,capable of travelling at speeds between 10 and 12 Machs and changing coursemid-flight to avoid enemy defences. Russia is also completing thedevelopment of one-of-a-kind nuclear-powered ballistic missiles, capable ofcarrying nuclear warheads. – Sputnik.
