Weapons

Clock Ticking for U.S. Military to Defend Against Hypersonics

Faced with adversaries developing hypersonic missiles that could potentially overwhelm U.S. defenses, the Pentagon is in a race against time to acquire technologies to counter the emerging threat.

In recent months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been touting his nation’s hypersonics arsenal, claiming that no foreign power has the means to defeat it. Meanwhile, China has been aggressively testing its own offensive weapons, according to U.S. officials.

Beijing is “close to fielding hypersonic delivery systems for conventional prompt strike that can reach out thousands of kilometers from the Chinese shore and hold our carrier battle groups or our forward-deployed forces on land … at risk,” Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin told the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities at a recent hearing.