A top US general has raised concerns about the hypersonic missile test conducted by China, calling it a significant technological achievement. "What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system, and it is very concerning," Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on 'The David Rubenstein Show' on Bloomberg Television. "I think I saw in some of the newspapers, they used the term Sputnik moment. I don't know if it is quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it is very close to that. So, it is a very significant technological event that occurred, or test that occurred, by the Chinese. And it has all of our attention."
The launch of a Sputnik satellite by the Soviet Union in 1957 stunned the world and fed US fears that it was falling behind technologically in an accelerating arms race in the early stages of the nuclear age. Milley's comments assume significance when read in conjunction with other recent reports—Pentagon's ex-software chief Nicolas Chaillan had earlier stated that China has already won the AI race.
Milly said that the United States is also working on hypersonic weapons, whose key features include flight trajectory, speed and maneuverability that make them capable of evading early warning systems that are part of US missile defenses.
The Financial Times this week reported that China has tested hypersonic missiles. Hypersonic missiles fly at speeds of at least Mach 5, which is five times the speed of sound. The report said that China tested the nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that circled the globe before speeding towards its target, demonstrating an advanced space capability that caught US intelligence by surprise. US President Joe Biden had expressed his concern at thet turn of events.
-Inputs from agencies
