Kerby Anderson

The latest news out of China has been a cause for concern and perhaps a wake-up call to consider what the communist leaders are planning. China tested a hypersonic nuclear-capable missile. Hypersonic vehicles travel at Mach 5 or faster. They are not defensive weapons and fly in the low atmosphere, enabling them to evade defense systems. One source said, “We have no idea how they did this.” One report said that the test revealed that China “was far more advanced than US officials realized. The test has raised new questions about why the US often underestimated China’s military modernization.” Yes, that is a good question. This country has more than a dozen intelligence agencies. They all seem surprised by this latest revelation. That raises the question of why are we spending so much money on agencies that were surprised by the collapse of Afghanistan and surprised by the military advances in China. Hypersonic missiles are uniquely suited to defeat our missile defense systems. We can’t counter them, especially since we would have enough problems even tracking them. An MIT professor hastened to add that just because China tested this missile capability doesn’t mean they plan to deploy it. But I would recommend that professor stick to science and technology, because the history of communist governments is they will likely use advanced weaponry either directly on countries or as a means of intimidating other governments. By the way, this latest news follows the discovery of hundreds of new missile silos in the Chinese desert, likely dug for nuclear missiles. This isn’t the behavior of a nation merely trying to improve its defense capabilities against other nations. Each of these disturbing revelations should be a wake-up call to our leaders.