U.S. top generals sound alarm over China's advanced military weapons capabilities

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Top U.S. generals are sounding the alarm that China’s first strike weapons capabilities are more advanced than the weapons the United States has at its disposal and that urgent action is needed to address America’s disadvantage.

The warnings from the generals come following communist China’s hypersonic weapons test in July, which enabled it to fire a missile as it approached its target traveling at least five times the speed of sound, Rebel News reported.

China’s capabilities outmatch America’s by a long mile, the Financial Times reported.

Pentagon scientists were caught off guard by the advance, which allowed the hypersonic glide vehicle, a manoeuvrable spacecraft that can carry a nuclear warhead, to fire a separate missile mid-flight in the atmosphere over the South China Sea, according to people familiar with the intelligence. 

Speaking over the weekend, Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations said “we’re not as advanced as the Chinese or the Russians in terms of hypersonic programs,” noting that the U.S. has a lot of “catching up to do very quickly” as “the Chinese have had an incredibly aggressive hypersonic program for [the last] several years.”

“While the Pentagon has pushed the development of new hypersonic missiles, the Army isn’t slated to field its first missile until 2024,” Politico reported. “The Navy is aiming to put its own version of the missile on a destroyer in 2025 and on Virginia-class submarines in 2028.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) says they are not sure how China managed to fire a missile off of a vehicle flying at hypersonic speeds. The DARPA experts believe that China is significantly more advanced than the U.S. in terms of hypersonic technology.

 The Financial Times reported:

“Some Pentagon experts believe the projectile was an air-to-air missile,” the Financial Times added. “Others think it was a countermeasure to destroy missile defense systems so that they could not shoot down the hypersonic weapon during wartime.” 

General John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that weapons that China is developing “look like a first-use weapon. That’s what those weapons look like to me.”

CBS News reports:

For decades, the nuclear balance between the U.S. and Russia has depended on neither side having the capability to launch a successful first strike. If China is now trying to develop a first-strike capability, that balance would be in jeopardy. …

China’s round-the-world hypersonic test took place on July 27 and has been compared to the moment in 1957 during the arms race with the Soviet Union when Moscow launched the Sputnik satellite, becoming the first nation into space and catching the U.S. by surprise. 

Asked if he would compare the Chinese test to Sputnik, Hyten replied that “from a technology perspective, it’s pretty impressive. . . But Sputnik created a sense of urgency in the United States. . . The test on July 27 did not create that sense of urgency. I think it probably should create a sense of urgency.”

Earlier this year former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe said that the Biden administration would be in for a shock when finally being brought up to speed on the advancements the Chinese military has made, Rebel News reported.

Warnings over China’s technological advancements come amid growing concern over China’s rapid expansion of its entire military, including space, cyber, land, sea, and air, Rebel News reported.