Moscow and Beijing continue to fund the development of hypersonic technology, which poses a threat to the United States.

This was stated by the head of the Aerospace Defense Command of North America and the Northern Command of the US Armed Forces, General of the United States Air Force Glen Van Hurk.

According to him, the "enemy" hypersonic weapons with the ability to control the maneuvering challenge the outdated early warning systems of the US Department of Defense.

“Protection against hypersonic weapons has not kept pace with the development of its offensive capabilities,” he said.

At the same time, Van Hirk noted that new technologies are not required to protect against hypersonic weapons - those that the Pentagon already have are enough.

Effective protection, according to the American general, should include awareness of the enemy's actions, as well as effective tracking of all stages - from launch to strike.

As Van Hirk emphasized, situational awareness in all environments involves the deployment of over-the-horizon radars and sensors of underground, ground, air and space-based, as well as an effective network of communications and combat control centers based on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

He added that the Pentagon is moving "in the right direction."

For example, in order to track missiles, the Missile Defense Agency and the US Space Force are working to create satellites and a space-based system for tracking hypersonic threats.

At the same time, he stressed that such activities should develop at an accelerated pace.

Recall that in August, American General Neil Thurgood said that the United States Ground Forces, together with the Navy, intend to conduct three flight tests of the C-HGB (Common Hypersonic Glide Body) hypersonic floating unit in 2021.

“I just want to say that the flight test program is very aggressive.

We need to be aggressive in order to maintain the pace and really compete with our closest rivals, namely Russia and China, "- said then Thurgood.

  • Pentagon

  • © US Air Force

It is assumed that the floating unit will be adopted by the Ground Forces in 2023, however, provided that all tests are successful.

Thurgood also stressed that the program for the development and testing of hypersonic weapons should be "radically" accelerated.

“Although before we, in fact, conducted or carried out almost one flight test in three years, next year we intend to conduct several flight tests at once,” he said.

Russian position

Recall that in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia possesses the most modern types of weapons, which are many times superior in their characteristics to the development of other states.

“For decades, we constantly had to be in the role of catch-ups ... This concerned atomic, nuclear weapons, then long-range strategic aviation, and then intercontinental missile technology ... This always put the country in a very difficult, even dangerous position,” he noted Putin.

The Russian leader also explained that Moscow has started developing hypersonic weapons since the United States withdrew from the anti-missile defense treaty in 2002.

“We had to create these weapons in response to the deployment of a strategic missile defense system by the United States, which in the long term could actually neutralize, nullify our entire nuclear potential,” said Vladimir Putin.

He recalled that among the breakthrough developments of Russia - the Avangard hypersonic complex, the X-47M2 Dagger aviation complex, the Zircon sea-based hypersonic munition, the Poseidon nuclear-powered underwater robotic drone, and the unlimited-range cruise missile. Petrel ".

Also in June, the Russian president said in an interview with the Russia 1 TV channel that the Russian Federation is in a unique position, since no one can shoot down hypersonic missiles now.

According to him, "the speeds are such that it is impossible to take them."

“This is the uniqueness of our present position.

I repeat once again: with a high degree of probability, we will have a means of fighting hypersonic weapons by the time the leading countries of the world will have this most hypersonic weapon, ”he said.

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin

  • © Alexey Druzhinin / RIA Novosti

As Vladimir Putin noted in March, Russian hypersonic weapons allow maintaining a strategic balance in the world, thanks to which there were no major armed conflicts after the Second World War.

"There is nothing to bring down"

As Vladimir Prokhvatilov, an expert from the Academy of Military Sciences, said in a conversation with RT, the likelihood that in the coming years the Pentagon will be able to create an effective hypersound protection system is "practically zero."

“It takes a lot longer.

Not to mention the fact that the United States now does not even have an anti-missile defense system that could protect them from the nuclear weapons available to Russia within the framework of START III, ”explained Prokhvatilov.

According to him, the creation of a system of protection against hypersonic missiles is "an extremely complex process that requires a large number of detection equipment: radars, satellites, anti-missiles."

"That's a very difficult question.

And not only the United States, but also Russia and China are working on this now, ”the analyst added.

According to military expert Alexei Leonkov, the development of hypersonic technologies in the United States now looks like "work on a number of projects, some of which are at the R&D stage" (research and development work).

“As a result of these works, prototypes, prototypes should appear, and after successful tests the issue of their serial production will be decided.

However, all this is only on paper.

In fact, all the developments of the Pentagon in this area may ultimately end in nothing.

After all, hypersound is a definite breakthrough based on scientific and technical groundwork, which the Americans do not have.

In the past, there were those times when they could freely obtain military technology by buying brains or industrial espionage, "the expert said in an interview with RT.

The US is unable to develop weapons that could intercept hypersonic missiles, including Russian ones, Leonkov said.

For this reason, "the Americans are focused on creating some kind of system that would monitor the airspace," the analyst said.

“We are talking about a whole system of satellites (the constellation can reach up to 15 thousand copies), an early warning system.

Such a system will be designed to "see" the flight of hypersonic complexes, to predict their trajectory.

But it will take a lot of money and time to create such a system.

At the same time, the United States will have nothing to shoot down hypersonic missiles, even if they can create such a detection structure, ”Leonkov said.

  • Hypersonic floating block C-HGB (Common Hypersonic Glide Body)

  • © Oscar Sosa, Navy

According to him, when the United States speaks about the "danger" allegedly emanating from Russia and China, they somehow forget that the appearance of hypersonic systems was a response precisely to threats from them, in particular, to withdraw from the ABM Treaty.

“As a result, the Russian side made such a weapon against which the missile defense system is powerless - it is not able to intercept it.

Russian weapons have leveled the balance and neatly raised the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, ”the expert noted.

Vladimir Prokhvatilov, in turn, noted that Washington's accusations that Moscow and Beijing, while developing their own hypersound technologies, allegedly threaten them with something, are inappropriate.

“It has already become a tradition for the Pentagon to declare Russian and Chinese threats, to accuse these countries of having hostile plans against the United States.

However, Russia is only doing everything for its own security, developing not only means of defense, but also of attack.

In addition, military-technical progress cannot be stopped.

Weapons systems will always develop, this is a natural process, ”concluded Prokhvatilov.