In an exclusive interview with CBS News, General John Heiten, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and second-ranked US Army, revealed new details of China’s supersonic weapons test, which sent missiles around the world last summer. More than 5 times the speed of sound.
“They launched long-range missiles,” Haiten told CBS News. “It went around the world and glide all the way to China, dropping a hypersonic glide vehicle that affected China’s targets.” When asked if he had achieved his goal, Heiten was “close enough.” I answered.
Unlike intercontinental ballistic missiles, which move in a predictable arc and can be tracked by long-range radar, hypersonic weapons maneuver far closer to Earth, making radar detection difficult.Combined with the hundreds of new missile silos that China is building, Haiten believes that Chinese can one day have the ability to launch a sudden nuclear attack on the United States.
“They look like the first weapons they use,” Heiten said. “That’s what those weapons look like to me.”
For decades, the nuclear balance between the United States and Russia did not depend on either side having the ability to initiate a successful first strike. If China is now trying to develop its first strike capability, that balance will be at stake.
The United States is developing its own hypersonic weapons, but not as fast as China. Heiten told CBS News that in the last five years, China has conducted hundreds of hypersonic tests, while the United States has conducted only nine. According to Haiten, China has already deployed one medium-range hypersonic weapon, but the United States has only been deploying the first weapon for several years.
China’s Round the World Supersonic Test took place on July 27, making it the first country into space and astonishing the United States, compared to the moment of 1957 during an arms race with the Soviet Union where Moscow launched the Sputnik satellite. I did.
When asked if he would compare the Chinese test to Sputnik, “From a technical point of view, it’s pretty impressive .. .. But Sputnik created a sense of urgency in the United States .. July 27. The test didn’t create that feeling. I think it should create a sense of urgency. “
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