WASHINGTON: Even as the Pentagon hustles to ensure that its defenses keeppace with North Korea’s fast-growing rocket program, US officialsincreasingly are turning attention to a new generation of missile threat.
These weapons under development by China and Russia – as well as by theUnited States – can fly at many times the speed of sound and are designedto beat regular anti-missile defense systems.
The hypersonic missiles could change the face of future warfare, as theycan switch direction in flight and do not follow a predictable arc likeconventional missiles, making them much harder to track and intercept.
“China’s hypersonic weapons development outpaces ours… we’re fallingbehind,” 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 in orderto ensure that we have the capabilities to both defend against China’shypersonic weapons and to develop our own offensive hypersonic weapons,” headded.
In its proposed $9.9 billion requested budget for 2019, the Missile DefenseAgency (MDA) is asking for $120 million to develop hypersonic missiledefenses, a big increase from the $75 million in fiscal 2018.
MDA Director of Operations Gary Pennett told Pentagon reporters this weekthat the potential deployment by America’s rivals of hypersonic weapons –which could be launched from planes, ships or submarines and carry eithernuclear or conventional payloads – would create a “significant” gap in USsensor and missile interceptor capabilities.
“The key challenge to US national security and the security of US friendsand allies is the emergence of new threats designed to defeat the existing”ballistic missile defense system, Pennett said.
So, why the sudden alarm?
According to reports in the Japan-based Diplomat magazine, China hasdeveloped – and last year tested – a new type of hypersonic missile calledthe DF-17. The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence this weekstated China “has tested a hypersonic glide vehicle.”
Russia too is believed to be developing its own hypersonic weapon calledthe Zircon. According to Russian news agency Tass, it is to go into serialproduction this year.
Though the Pentagon is warning about hypersonics, the United States hasbeen developing the technology for years.
The Air Force says its X-51A Waverider cruise missile, tested in 2012,could travel at speeds faster than Mach 6 (3,600 miles per hour, 5,800kilometers per hour).
That’s more than one mile a second, and future iterations are expected togo much faster.
Part of the reason China has been able to advance its hypersonic missileprograms is that it is not subject to anti-missile treaties signed betweenthe United States and Russia.
The 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty banned short- andintermediate-range ground-launched missiles.
“Over 90 percent of China’s ground-based missiles would be excluded by INFif they were now in it,” Harris said.
Still, by far the lion’s share of the MDA’s budget continues to go towardsimproving existing missile-defense systems.
Various sensors and radars can track an incoming missile hurtling towards atarget, then blast interceptor rockets toward it to pulverize it withkinetic energy.