The US and China are engaged in an arms race to develop the most lethal hypersonic weapons, US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said on Tuesday, as Beijing and Washington build and test an increasing number of the high-speed next-generation arms.
“There is an arms race, not necessarily for increased numbers, but for increased quality,” Kendall said in an interview at his Pentagon offices. “It’s an arms race that has been going on for quite some time. The Chinese have been at it very aggressively.”
In October, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, the top US military officer, confirmed a Chinese hypersonic weapons test that military experts say appears to show Beijing’s pursuit of an Earth-orbiting system designed to evade US missile defenses.
Photo: Courtesy of Northrop Grumman vis Reuters
This year, the Pentagon has held several hypersonic weapons tests with mixed success. In October, the US Navy successfully tested a booster rocket motor that would be used to power a launch vehicle carrying a hypersonic weapon aloft.
Hypersonic weapons travel in the upper atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound, or about 6,200kph.
Kendall said that while the US military has focused funds on Iraq and Afghanistan, it has taken its eye off the ball in terms of hypersonic weapons.
“This isn’t saying we’ve done nothing, but we haven’t done enough,” he said.
As the Pentagon enters the 2023 annual budget cycle, Kendall hopes to raise funds with the retirement of older and expensive-to-maintain systems in favor of new systems, including hypersonic development programs.
“I love the A-10 [combat aircraft]. The C-130 [cargo plane] is a great aircraft that’s been very capable and very effective for a lot of missions. The MQ-9s [drones] have been very effective for counterterrorism and so on. They’re still useful, but none of these things scare China,” he said.
Defense contractors hope to capitalize on the shift to hypersonic weapons not only by building them, but also by developing new detection and defeat mechanisms.
Arms makers Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop Grumman Corp and Raytheon Technologies Corp have all touted their hypersonic weapons programs to investors as the world’s focus shifts to the new arms race for an emerging class of weapons.
Still, the Pentagon wants defense contractors to cut the ultimate cost of hypersonic weapons, the head of research and development has said, as the next generation of super-fast missiles being developed currently costs tens of millions of US dollars per unit.
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