China Leads The U.S., Russia In Hypersonics, Pentagon Analyst Says
China leads in developing, testing and deploying hypersonics, besting Russia as the US works to catch up on the new weapons that travel five times the speed of sound, a senior US defense intelligence analyst says.
(Bloomberg) -- China leads in developing, testing and deploying hypersonics, besting Russia as the US works to catch up on the new weapons that travel five times the speed of sound, a senior US defense intelligence analyst says.
The world’s “leading hypersonic arsenal” has resulted from 20 years of China’s efforts “to dramatically advance its development of conventional and nuclear-armed technologies and capabilities through intense and focused investment, development, testing and deployments,” Jeffery McCormick, senior intelligence analyst for the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, told a House Armed Services subcommittee Tuesday.
Russia has used the weapons in Ukraine but lags behind China in total inventory and support systems, McCormick said.
Despite its efforts, the US has yet to field a single hypersonic weapon. The Air Force and Army had goals of having them in 2022 and last year. Both services encountered testing difficulties that resulted in the Air Force shifting to a different weapon and the Army reinvigorating its test plan in fiscal 2025 while scaling back its fielding schedules.
Yet since 2018, the Pentagon has invested more than $12 billion in the development of hypersonic strike weapon systems “to provide diverse capabilities on land, at sea, and in the air,” said James Weber, the military’s principal director for hypersonics, in a statement to the panel.
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