The United States is lagging behind China and Russia in the development of hypersonic missiles, US President's Special Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingsley said during a hearing on his confirmation as deputy head of the State Department.
“We can say we are lagging behind - if we compare our successes, in particular, with the implementation of the Chinese test program. And Russia has already supplemented its arsenal of heavy intercontinental missiles with two hypersonic nuclear units. And I expect that there will be more - the Russians will commission an even more powerful Sarmat missile, which can be equipped with several such units at once, ”Billingsley answered a question from one of the senators about hypersonic weapons.
Billingsley said the emergence of hypersonic weapons would require the United States to "rethink the strike potential of our conventional weapons and, ultimately, our nuclear deterrent forces" against Russia and China.
The special representative for armaments noted the "urgent need" for active testing of a number of promising developments in the field of hypersonic gliding vehicles, which are intended to be adopted by the Ground Forces, the US Navy and Air Force.
It is worth noting that Marshall Billingsley is the leading US negotiator on the extension of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START III).
"Super duper" rockets
Note that now in the United States, the development of hypersonic weapons is going on in several directions at once. So, the Pentagon is working on the creation of a rocket, which President Donald Trump announced in mid-May, calling it a "super duper" rocket. At the same time, he said that its speed is 17 times higher than the speed of any other American missile weapons.
On July 16, an anonymous source in the defense department told CNN that in fact it was about successful tests of a prototype hypersonic weapon, which reached a speed of 17 times the speed of sound.
- © Wikimedia commons
We are talking about the Common-Hypersonic Glide Body or C-HGB, the channel's source said. The Pentagon has successfully tested this weapon on March 19. In August 2019, Breaking Defense wrote that Dynetics had received a $ 351.6 million contract to produce 20 of these missiles.
In addition, various types of the US armed forces independently develop hypersonic projects. Thus, the Ground Forces are working on the LRHW (long-range hypersonic weapon - RT ) - a missile launched from mobile ground-based installations. The budget of the program is $ 5.3 billion, the first samples should go into service by 2023.
In turn, the US Navy is developing a CPS project, which will be a hypersonic cruise missile launched from Ohio-class submarines.
The US Air Force is working with Lockheed Martin to develop ARRW (Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon). This project is a rocket with a detachable soaring hypersonic unit.
The first tests of the rocket with the AGM-183A nomenclature took place in June 2019, but no test launches with warheads were carried out - only the aerodynamic qualities of the product were tested. According to the developer's plans, the rocket should be ready by the end of 2022.
It is planned to equip B-52 strategic bombers or Rockwell B-1 Lancer aircraft with these missiles, if at the time the product is put into service, they are still in the US Air Force.
"Contrary to all agreements"
It is worth noting that Marshall Billingsley said during the Senate hearings that the United States does not plan to develop nuclear hypersonic weapons. At the same time, he outlined the most promising theater for the use of future missiles - the Asia-Pacific region.
“Hypersonic technology offers a number of benefits. The United States, it seems to me, is seeking to develop this direction in combination not with nuclear, but with conventional weapons, and these technologies, I believe, will become an important equalizing factor for us - in particular, in the Pacific region, ”the official said.
- US President's Special Representative for Arms Control Marshall Billingsley
- Reuters
- © Leonhard Foeger
Experts note that, speaking of the "equalizing factor" for the United States in the APR, Billingsley meant the Chinese DF-17 - solid-propellant medium-range missiles with a DF-ZF hypersonic unit.
As Andrei Koshkin, an expert from the Association of Military Political Scientists, noted in an interview with RT, Billingsley's statements about the non-nuclear nature of American hypersonic weapons, along with words about rethinking nuclear potential, do not look very logical.
"Washington would like to sit Beijing at the negotiating table and conduct a nuclear audit, see what it has, because it does not know its real capabilities, and then impose its own conditions related to curbing the development of nuclear weapons," Koshkin suggested.
According to him, this concept fits all kinds of informational public statements based on the fact that the United States is simply forced to improve its nuclear arsenal in order to contain the imaginary aggression from China and Russia and their development in the field of hypersonic weapons.
“Today Marshall Billingsley is trying to create some kind of cognitive trap in the information space to make one doubt the aggressiveness of the United States,” the political scientist believes.
At the same time, Andrei Koshkin emphasizes that American developments in the field of hypersound are primarily directed against Russia.
“This is so, because the Russian Federation already has such weapons on alert. The second in line is China, which has not yet advertised its capabilities, ”the analyst said.
Military expert Alexei Leonkov, in a conversation with RT, also noted that the United States is already modernizing its nuclear shield in violation of the START III treaty and is making plans to equip B-1B strategic bombers with AGM-183A hypersonic cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.
“America is building up its nuclear potential in spite of all the previously concluded agreements, but at the same time declares that it is going to renew the START-3 treaty and sets unrealizable conditions for the Russian side, for example, the inclusion of China in the agreement, the rejection of the complexes that nullified the American global strategy of instant strike ", - said Alexey Leonkov.
He believes that in reality the US plans to equip hypersonic missiles with nuclear warheads, but is now declaring the opposite to "hide its aggressive intentions." At the same time, the clarification of the US President's special envoy regarding the preference for using hypersonic weapons in the Pacific region speaks of the limited capabilities of the Pentagon, Leonkov is sure.
“The United States would like to fight immediately against Russia and China, but their military power is not enough to conduct two campaigns at once, so in the Asia-Pacific region they are now trying to increase their list of allies, pulling India and Vietnam over to their side. At the same time, Europe is being mobilized by blackmail against Russia. The fact that the Russian Federation and the PRC are getting closer is the most horrible scenario for the United States, because their forces are not enough to resist this alliance militarily, "Leonkov concluded.