Days earlier, the Pentagon reported another major breakthrough with interception of an intermediate-range ballistic missile
The US Department of Defense (DoD) has reported a successful test of the hypersonic weapon system dubbed the Dark Eagle, which is being developed jointly by the Army and the Navy.
The two military services intend to use the same hypersonic glider warhead, the C-HGB, whose booster rocket could be launched from either land or a vessel, including a Zumwalt-class destroyer and a Virginia-class submarine.
The recent test launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and which the Pentagon announced on Thursday, involved the Army’s version, officially named the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW).
The weapon has a reported range of 1,725 miles (2,775km), with the warhead travelling at speeds of over 3,800 miles per hour (6,115km/h), which corresponds to Mach 5 and defines the weapon as a hypersonic projectile.
The joint program faced delays, with the Army telling Bloomberg in September 2023 that it was missing its goal to field the system by the end of FY2023.
On Wednesday, the Pentagon heralded a major defense achievement, reporting that the US Missile Defense Agency has for the first time conducted a successful interception of an air-launched medium-range ballistic missile in Guam.
(archive link)
Regardless of whether you think this test had issues or was gamed like the Millennium challenge it's really only a matter of time before the US obtains a working, quality hypersonic missile platform, they have too many people with too much money thrown at it that even with defense contractors intentionally slow-walking it they have to stumble into success eventually and be unable to hide it at which point the only thing to do is go into production and lobby for the US buying thousands of them which the US will almost certainly be happy to do as it needs them for its coming attempts at suppressing multi-polarity. It'll sell some to Europe and its NATO vassals, some to perhaps its Japanese and occupied Korean vassals, etc.
I say this because there are those in anti-imperialist spaces who seem to at times assume that the Russian/Chinese advantage in this space would last through the coming war against China before 2030 and that the US would remain unable to get a working system anytime in the near future.
Let us remember that it's not who gets there first. As the US is the one who sets the start time for the conflict whether that's WW3 or a regional showdown against China. "China can produce more" yeah I get it, that's obvious but the west knows this too by this point and frankly I think their choice is likely to do a first strike, possibly nuclear and attempt to use this to deliver such a strike and then suppress the Chinese response using their first/second island chain advantage to intercept before terminal phase is reached. For this reason I hope China moves very speedily to move the majority of their nuclear arsenal to their hypersonic delivery vehicles to blunt such a move having success.
Just the same it should make everyone very nervous the US has something that can hasten the already quick speed with which it can deliver first strikes with conventional and nuclear weapons.
I really hope the Chinese are working on defensive systems that are comparable to the Russian S-600/500 though I don't think Russian style tactics will work as well against the US for China as they've been using Ukraine as a test laboratory to see what modern warfare looks like and adapt secret battle-plans for winning it with new doctrines and technologies.