A new governmental report about ballistic missile capabilities worldwide warns that the United States will have to work to keep an edge over its actual and potential enemies around the globe, says a new report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The report was released this month by the National Air and Space Intelligence Center in conjunction with the Defense Intelligence Ballistic Missile Analysis Committee.
Its summary zeroes in on the countries that seem to be getting attention – and not in a good way – a lot these days: Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
The threat “is increasing,” the report finds, from both long- and short-range attack weapons.
While most now are subsonic, “supersonic and hypersonic missiles will be deployed in the future,” the report said, and the fact that more missiles are being put on mobile launchers gives them a better chance of surviving in a conflict – for later use.
“Overall, the threats posed by ballistic missile delivery systems are likely to continue to increase and grow more complex. Adversary ballistic missile systems are becoming more mobile, survivable, reliable, and accurate while also achieving longer ranges,” the report said.
“Hypersonic glide vehicles delivered by ballistic missile boosters are an emerging threat that will pose new challenges to missile defense systems. Prelaunch survivability is likely to increase as potential adversaries strengthen their denial and deception measures and increasingly base missiles on mobile platforms. Countries are adopting technical and operational ballistic missile defense countermeasures….”
About Russia, the report said it, “probably will retain the largest force of strategic ballistic missiles outside the United States. The development of new ballistic missile systems is a high priority for Russia. Russian officials have claimed that a new class of hypersonic vehicle is being developed to allow Russian strategic missiles to penetrate missile defense systems.”
“Russia claims it will deploy the RS-26 Rubezh for shorter-range targets and has stated it will soon begin flight testing a new heavy liquid-propellant ICBM, called the Sarmat, to replace the aging SS-18. Russia is also offering the advanced Iskander-E SRBM for export.”
The report warned about China that it is “producing technologically advanced ballistic missiles, has sold ballistic missile technology to other countries, has deployed a large force of ballistic missiles in the vicinity of Taiwan, and is expanding the reach of its ballistic missiles to attempt to prevent foreign powers from becoming involved in any future regional conflict. China can already target the United States with a relatively small force of ICBMs, and its ICBM force is growing quantitatively and qualitatively.”
“North Korea has had two successful flights of the TD-2 SLV, has unveiled road-mobile ICBMS, has IRBMs in development, has tested a new solid-propellant SLBM and MRBM, and maintains a large SRBM inventory. The pace of North Korea’s ballistic missile flight tests has increased dramatically in recent years.”
For the rest of this report, and more, please go to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
