Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, responds to a hearing before the Senate Military Committee hearing in the Capitol in Washington, DC, on the 28th of last month. Washington = AP News
“What we have seen is a very significant event with a hypersonic weapon system. I don’t know if this is necessarily a ‘Sputnik moment’, but I think it’s very close to that.”
These are the remarks made by Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Supreme Commander, appearing on Bloomberg TV, which was released on the 27th (local time). It is also the first public reaction from the United States to China’s test-fire of a hypersonic missile capable of carrying a nuclear weapon in August. China’s test launch was only half successful, but the US also continues to fail hypersonic missile tests. Concerns over the possibility of falling behind in the core arms race with China and Russia and an accelerating arms race between the two camps are engulfing the United States and the world.
The phrase ‘Sputnik moment’ that Milley referred to as “very concerned” about China’s recent test is significant. In October 1957, during the Cold War, the US was shocked when the Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit. Inspired by this, President John F Kennedy declared and carried out an attempt to land astronauts on the moon ahead of the Soviet Union.
The New York Times (NYT) pointed out that the smile’s space race led to an arms race in the 20th century. This is a point connected with concerns that the hypersonic missile development competition may become a signal of the 21st century version of the arms race.
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers a speech at the East Asia Summit (EAS) hosted by Brunei on the 27th. Bandar Seri Begawan EPA = Yonhap News
The US versus China and Russia have already entered the competition. Hypersonic missiles have speeds of 5 to 20 times the speed of sound. Development began in the 1960s. Unlike ballistic missiles that strike a target by ascending and descending in a parabolic pattern to space, hypersonic missiles are being developed to fly in a low orbit in the atmosphere and change direction freely.
If China equips a hypersonic missile with a nuclear warhead and launches it into low orbit from anywhere, including Antarctica, it will inevitably pose a threat to the United States. The New York Times noted that “existing lines of defense on the continental United States are both directed west and north of the Pacific Ocean, which could fail to prevent attacks from the south.”
Also, even if there is a system that defends the South, there is a limitation in that it is for ballistic missile defense. This means that it is difficult to block hypersonic missiles with the US Missile Defense System (MD), which is focused on the western part of the Pacific and the northern part of China and Russia. In addition, Russia is also known to have succeeded in testing a hypersonic cruise missile, the Tircon.
Of course, the hypersonic missile that China tested twice in July and August is known to be about 32km away from the target. This means that China has been testing since 2014, but the weapon system is not yet complete.
However, the U.S., which is aiming for deployment in 2025, is also in dire situation as it failed to successfully test-fire the ‘Hypersonic Glider Vehicle (HGV)’ recently conducted in Alaska. “At a time when President Joe Biden was avoiding trillions of dollars in modernizing America’s nuclear forces and delivery systems, many arms control experts are concerned that this will lead to new forms of competition,” the New York Times reported.
Washington = Jeong-won Jeong correspondent ornot@hankookilbo.com
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