Surprising US Intelligence, China Tested a Hypersonic Missile (livemint.com)
- Reference: 0153813931
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/10/17/1615237/surprising-us-intelligence-china-tested-a-hypersonic-missile
- Source link: https://www.livemint.com/news/world/china-tested-nuclear-capable-hypersonic-missile-in-august-report-11634428521172.html
AFP explains what's [2]uniquely threatening about hypersonic missiles :
> Ballistic missiles fly high into space in an arc to reach their target, while a hypersonic flies on a trajectory low in the atmosphere, potentially reaching a target more quickly. Crucially, a hypersonic missile is maneuverable (like the much slower, often subsonic cruise missile), making it harder to track and defend against. While countries like the United States have developed systems designed to defend against cruise and ballistic missiles, the ability to track and take down a hypersonic missile remains a question.
Business Insider highlights this [3]assessment from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the US/Canada organization providing North America's aerospace warnings:
> In August, General Glen VanHerck, head of NORAD, said that China's advanced hypersonic capability would "provide significant challenges to my Norad capability to provide threat warning and attack assessment," the Financial Times said... Sources also told the paper that the Chinese weapon could theoretically fly over the South Pole, another cause for concern for the US military, whose missile systems focus on the northern polar route.
Bloomberg [4]reports that the missile missed its target (by over 32 kilometers — about 20 miles), "and the test doesn't necessarily mean China will deploy such a weapon, the Financial Times said..."
They also point out that "Along with China, the United States, Russia and at least five other countries are working on hypersonic technology." (Reuters [5]adds that "last month North Korea [6]said it had test-fired a newly-developed hypersonic missile .")
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/china-surprises-us-with-hypersonic-missile-test-ft-reports/ar-AAPCAPB
[2] https://www.livemint.com/news/world/china-tested-nuclear-capable-hypersonic-missile-in-august-report-11634428521172.html
[3] https://news.yahoo.com/chinas-hypersonic-missile-demonstrated-advanced-113947780.html
[4] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/china-tested-an-earth-circling-hypersonic-missile-ft-reports/ar-AAPCv5x
[5] https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/china-surprises-us-with-hypersonic-missile-test-ft-reports/ar-AAPCAPB
[6] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-says-it-test-fired-new-hypersonic-missile-kcna-2021-09-28
Minimize destruction (Score:2)
When N Korea started developing ballistic missiles there was much analysis of defense. The result was that defense against a well designed missile. Basically you destroy it during boost phase, or you likely still will incur some damage. This is because physics will still deliver the payload or you just destroy the decoy warheads. The shorter flight time might impact a perceived safety factor for evacuation. N the other hand, the lack of ballistic trajectory might open up the possibility of destroying the
Same CIA that Can't keep its agents alive (Score:3)
[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/1... [nytimes.com]
“Counterintelligence officials said in a top secret cable to all stations and bases around the world that too many of the people it recruits from other countries to spy for the U.S. are being lost.”
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/us/politics/cia-informants-killed-captured.html
Re: (Score:3)
The CIA is a shitshow right now.
They can't even keep diplomats safe. How is it that they haven't figured out the "Havana Syndrome" yet?
Bin Laden won. The US has been so focused on the trivial threats from countries where most of the population are living lives little changed from a couple of hundred years ago, while ignoring the real threats from Russia and China.
Re: (Score:2)
The CIA has always been terrible. Can you remember Vietnam? That took them by surprise too.
Bin Laden didn't really "win" as the end goal of the wars America has fought over the last century or more has been to funnel lots and lots of money from the pockets of America taxpayers into the pockets of the wealthy, and that went off without a hitch.
China is never going to attack America, because what could they possibly gain from doing so?
America will however need some new enemy, because the current crop of
Missed by 20 Miles? (Score:3, Funny)
This is terrifying. I wasn't worried when I thought they could hit their targets, but I'm 20 miles outside of the closest major city. This clearly puts me dead center. My Sunday is ruined.
Re: (Score:2)
The glider they most likely used was originally designed and tested to sit on top of short-range missiles as a carrier group killer.
It is accurate to under a mile (which is more than enough if you are nuking an aircraft carrier with 300Kt warhead) in that mode of operation and it is capable to bypass all forms of missile defence used by USA.
If we extrapolate from under 1 mile at 1000Km to an around the globe flight (36000km) we get ~ 20 miles. About right.
Pilfered tech (Score:1)
Not suprised. The Chinese have been stealing military and high tech IP for years. Why is the intelligence community suprised? LOL So stupid.
Re:Pilfered tech (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why they were surprised. They always assume that China has to steal everything and so can't possibly be ahead.
Re: (Score:2)
> They always assume that China has to steal everything
To be fair, it's apparently an easy mistake to make, since China itself often seems to be assuming the same thing.
Re: Pilfered tech (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure where the alleged surprise comes from, we've been talking about the potential threat of Chinese hypersonic weapons for a while, right here on Slashdot.
Someone was surprised they didn't know the exact date in advance?
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed, Russia has them, India has them, and we know the Chinese were working on them.
Re: (Score:2)
There's only one nation on the planet right now with this capability. Russia. Everyone else is still in early stages of development. And even Russian variant is only entering service.
As a result, there's simply no one to steal this technology from. And Chinese have been conducting a lot of hypersonic missile tests in last few years. Therefore, technology is likely at least in large part domestically developed.
Journalistic "Intelligence" (Score:4)
They don't tell you what they know, or what they don't know. They do leak to reporters whatever they want you to report.
Just report on what you actually learned, don't report on what you think the intelligence community knew; you don't know.
Re: (Score:1)
Journalistic "Intelligence" Right! Sorry no Journalist left in the US. The media as a whole just does propaganda for this cause or that cause. The media has lost all relevance!
US Intel services... (Score:1)
...for the last several years seemed to spend more time, energy, and effort undermining a president they found distasteful, and implicitly condoning 'leaks' and manipulating the (admittedly cooperative) media toward political ends, than say, doing their fucking jobs particularly well.
You know, in direct contravention of their ostensibly non-political stance and role.
This isn't surprising. Remember the astonishingly successful intelligence operation surrounding Saddam Hussein's nuclear capabilities?
Or their
So maybe.. (Score:2, Troll)
So maybe we should find a peaceful resolution to our economic disagreements with China instead of trying to bully them into submission? Having the strongest military in the world isn't like being the strongest kid on the block. As we've seen in Vietnam and Afghanistan, it doesn't win wars. A direct war with China would see massive casualties on both sides. There will be no winners, but China would absolutely not capitulate to US domination. The US era of being the rulers of the world through military might
Re: (Score:2)
Because China will not accept anything less than total surrender. Just like US accepted nothing less than total surrender from Soviet Union.
And believe me, that is not the path you want to embark on. As awful as US was to Russia after Soviet Union collapsed, PRC will be far worse to US should it surrender. Their ideology is simply far more cruel, far more enslaving and far more genocidal at its core and it will require them to act it out.
Re: (Score:2)
> As awful as US was to Russia after Soviet Union collapsed,
The first thing the US did was to give Russia $1billion USD.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't want to give a long lecture on how the whole thing unfolded, but if that is the level of your understanding, I will simply point out that Hitler had a Jewish girl as a personal friend and a pen pal, and was on record being extremely annoyed when his staff started blocking her from answering his letters in late 1930s and early 1940s and he realised it.
So I would recommend looking in a bit more detail to realise that there was more to Hitler and Jews than his personal friendship with one girl from tha
Re: (Score:2)
> So maybe we should find a peaceful resolution to our economic disagreements with China instead of trying to bully them into submission?
It's not an economic disagreement with China. China has declared that they want Taiwan to submit to their will, by force if necessary. Taiwan has asked other countries for help. The question is whether other countries will help keep Taiwan free from dictatorship, or Taiwan will go the way of Hong Kong.
Lets not get ahead of ourselves here (Score:3, Insightful)
It was launched from a massive low orbit rocket, this cant be used as a weapon in a timely manner, ie exist in cold storage ready to go. China still doesnt have a sizable ICBM early warning defense system so you dont need something that goes super fast and skim the atmosphere to be a threat. Hypersonic tech existed for decades, this isnt exactly new to the US. The question is does the US need to invest in it, if the US says yes, just dust off the science and apply new software/hardware to solve the problem. Based on the hypersonic vehicles in testing, the US prefers a bomber launched hypersonic weapon to reduce complexity and size of the weapon to reach its target, vs static launch as China is doing.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, the US has submarines that can launch nuclear missiles.
Close Only Counts (Score:2)
Close only counts in thermonuclear war.
Re: (Score:2)
Eh, I suspect being 20 miles off target still matters in thermonuclear war. Just not from a global perspective.
Re: (Score:1)
20mi off is a big deal if you using tactical nukes which are smaller for more precise damage.
World Leaders Need A Common Threat (Score:4, Interesting)
Our species should be focusing on planetary defense from asteroids and near earth objects that pose a threat. We are the only species capable of creating the tools that can protect the planetary genetic bank that is biodiversity. Instead we are making weapons capable of annihilating each other and rendering earth defenseless from external forces.
Re: (Score:1)
China is planning an asteroid diversion demonstration mission.
Re: (Score:2)
> Our species is focusing on planetary defense from climate change that does not pose a threat.
Fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
fucking conservatives will still be denying there is a problem as they die.
Re: (Score:3)
Covid.
Re: (Score:2)
Primary threat for all species on this planet is competition from the same species for the same ecological niche.
Not marginal threats like asteroids.
Re: World Leaders Need A Common Threat (Score:1)
A sufficiently sized asteroid would cause cascading radiological events at facilities around the globe. Niche competitionâ(TM)s potential and actualized threat to the global genetic bank is minor compared to the potential threat posed by a large impact or air burst. The slow roll of current ecological collapse is not a catastrophic threat to human survival and will nit drive drastic policy and population changes. An external threat is necessary to unify and stop bickering. Policy makers have tried to l
Re: (Score:2)
Let me try to answer that in a way that you can understand.
There is a small chance in your personal life at any given time that you will get hit by debris from an aircraft, likely fatally.
How much effort do you spend mitigating that problem on daily basis, vs mitigating things that carry far lesser consequences but are far more likely, such as for example looking ahead of you as you walk so you don't stumble and fall?
That is the reason why we spend as much effort mitigating massive external threats that are
Re: World Leaders Need A Common Threat (Score:1)
You confuse understanding with agreement. One of the reasons common people will not agree with the likes of douches like you is your inability to communicate an opinion without resorting to condescension. Belittling others does not constitute a valid argument. By all means continue to opine and lob insults from behind your keyboard, but donâ(TM)t be surprised that nobody wants to associate with you in consensual reality.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't the term "US Intelligence" an oxymoron?
Re: (Score:2)
You have to be kidding. The biggest threat to human beings on earth is unchecked carbon release to the atmosphere. Politicians cannot even make an effective agreement to significantly reduce carbon emissions. It doesn't even require unobtainable advanced tech like fusion energy. But C.R.E.A.M. basically dooms humanity on planet earth.
Our species shouldn't be focusing on a planetary defense system from asteroids. It should be focusing on either eliminating fossil fuel use in our lifetime, or being able