China’s efforts to develop and field hypersonic weapons has been “tenfold” that of the U.S.’s own push, but the Pentagon will likely increase funding for testing, development, and threat warning in that area in the forthcoming 2023 budget, the commander of U.S. Northern Command told ...
China’s August launch of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile that circumnavigated the globe before reentry demonstrates the need for innovative solutions to spotting and tracking such threats. Unlike conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles, which follow a predictable ballistic arc, China’s hypersonic glide vehicle circled the world at ...
One day after the Space Force’s second in command warned that the U.S. is “not as advanced as the Chinese or the Russians in terms of hypersonic programs,” a media report indicated that China’s likely test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon this summer included an added ...
The Defense Department may change its policies to hold leaders accountable when military strikes go awry and innocent civilians are killed, said Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Nov. 17. During a rare press briefing by Austin at the Pentagon, he also questioned Putin’s ...
China is building new nuclear weapons much faster than previously predicted, already has a “nascent nuclear triad,” and will field more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, according to the Pentagon’s 2021 report on China's military power, released Nov. 3. According to a Pentagon briefing ...
Defense Department officials will visit Capitol Hill on Nov. 3 to brief staffers on the department's annual report on the Chinese military amid heightened concerns about China's military buildup, a DOD spokesperson confirmed. The report, “2021 Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of ...
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III chaired a China-focused military briefing Oct. 27, part of a biweekly series of briefings with senior military commanders about China’s growing threat in the wake of an orbital hypersonic weapon test that elicited public worries from the Chairman of ...
Across the defense establishment, officials have declined to comment on a report that China fielded a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon in August, but defense policy nominee Alexandra Baker told senators Oct. 19 there was a “sense of urgency” for the Defense Department to develop similar capabilities. ...
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said he's "unsatisfied" with the pace of progress in Air Force hypersonics programs and even "the degree to which we’ve figured out what we need from hypersonics." Speaking to reporters at AFA's Air, Space & Cyber Conference, he said he's ...
The list of Russian “exotics”—its most modern nuclear weapons systems—is starting to worry members of Congress. Skyfall is a nuclear cruise missile that can orbit the Earth. Poseidon is a submarine-launched, nuclear-capable torpedo that can emerge from beneath the waves and strike coastal cities. And ...
The United States is on a crash course to field prototype hypersonic weapons within three years, with more elaborate and mature systems to follow soon after. Flight tests will ramp up quickly this year, with follow-on tests as frequently as every six weeks over the ...