America’s Military Is Not Enough (Source thetrumpet.com)

China has developed and tested a new ballistic missile system that could hit America, Japan and India. United States intelligence assessments of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) show that the new DF-17 “hypersonic” weapon may even be able to avoid the American-made THAAD missile-defense system, according to a December 2017 article by Tokyo-based news site, the Diplomat. The DF-17 is a new missile delivery method known as a “hypersonic glide vehicle” (HGV). Minnie Chan of the South China Morning Post describes the HGVs as “unmanned, rocket-launched, maneuverable aircraft that glide and ‘skip’ through the Earth’s atmosphere at incredibly fast speeds. Compared to conventional ballistic systems, HGV warheads can travel at much higher speeds, lower altitudes and less-trackable trajectories. The approach leaves defense systems less time to intercept the warhead before it drops its payload.”

The new HGV missile systems has U.S. military officials worried. On February 14, the head of the U.S. military Pacific Command, Adm. Harry Harris, told lawmakers: “China’s hypersonic weapons development outpaces ours … we’re falling behind.” America’s military elite are growing worried about this kind of foreign competition. Cyberwarfare is at the forefront of this technological race. Forward Observer, a company specializing in threat intelligence and trend analysis, believes the U.S. military is dangerously unprepared and incapable of dealing with cyberattacks in the event of war with China or Russia. “Defense Department officials are concerned about the devastating impacts that electronic and cyberwarfare could create for the U.S. Navy,” it wrote. “The ability to manipulate communications, propulsion or weapons systems of a ship through a cyber- or electronic-attack is a low-cost, low-risk alternative to fighting it conventionally, and it’s this vulnerability that potential adversaries seek to exploit.