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U.S. Sees Russia, China Weapons Threat at 5 Times Speed of Sound

Hypersonic Attacks by Russia, China Threaten U.S., Official Says

(Bloomberg) -- The United States isn’t prepared to counter hypersonic attacks as China and Russia step up their capabilities for the ultra-fast weapons, a top Pentagon official said.

Michael Griffin, the under secretary of defense for research and engineering, said Tuesday that the U.S. hasn’t significantly invested in such transformative technology since Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

“If the United States is going to remain ahead, we have to reinvest,” he said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “A generation or two has gone by since that era. Other people are not stupid. Other people don’t stand still. It’s time for us to get back to work.”

Hypersonic weapons can travel five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5. The highly maneuverable and hard-to-detect weapons are among the frontiers where U.S. adversaries are accelerating their capabilities. If such risks aren’t managed properly, Griffin said, advances by China and Russia could pose “existential” threats to the U.S.

American forces need to be “closer to the action,” because hypersonic weapons have rapid launch-to-attack intervals that are in the tens of minutes, he said.

In July, the Pentagon informed Congress of its plans for the nation’s first hypersonic offensive weapons. The Defense Department said it would shift $20 million in existing funds so the Air Force could accelerate development and deployment of a prototype for a “Hypersonic Conventional Strike” air-launched glide munition, with a first test flight in late fiscal 2020. An additional $65 million was sought to accelerate demonstration of a land-launched version.

To contact the reporter on this story: Benjamin Din in Washington at bdin2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Shepard at mshepard7@bloomberg.net, ;Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert

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