MOSCOW – The vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said that theUnited States does hot have technical advantage in the hypersonic weaponresearch, as Russia and China had strengthened their positions in thissphere.

“[The United States] lost our technical advantage in hypersonics… [but] wehaven’t lost the hypersonics fight,” Gen. Paul Selva said on Tuesday,as quoted by the Air Force Magazine, adding that Moscowlink>andBeijing “moved out pretty smartly” in this sphere.

The US military official added that Chinalink>wasplanning to spend up to “hundreds of billions” on development of ownhypersonic technologies, such as hypersonic flight and hypersonic targetdestination.

[image: The Indian Army’s Brahmos Missiles, a supersonic cruise missile,are displayed during the Republic Day Parade in New Delhi, India.]According to Selva, Washington has been actively engaged in developmentof own its hypersonic systems.

In 2017, the Russian deputy defense minister saidlink>thatRussia will consider the development of hypersonic weapons and supplyingthe country’s Armed Forces with them as one of the high-priority spheresin the country’s 2018-2025 state armaments program.

Hypersonic technology is aimed at creating weapons which can moveat extreme speed and thus evade missile defense systems. In addition, theyhave manoeuvrability as one of their main traits which distinguisheshypersonicmissiles from traditional ballistic rockets.