The Defense Department has announced the successful launch of a hypersonic missile – as part of an effort to advance U.S. military capabilities amid threats from China and Russia.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said earlier this week that defense technology producer Lockheed Martin’s version of the U.S. Air Force Hypersonic Airbreathing Weapon Concept “capped a program that accomplished all of its initial objectives.”
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Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine marks the end of the West’s Era of Illusions. It was an era in which Western elites obsessed about solving climate change because the climate crisis was far more dangerous than issues of war and peace and the stability of the international system. They even convinced themselves that climate change causes war, so climate change policy could double as national security policy; and, for many years, the annual round of kumbaya UN climate talks was the apogee of international relations.
In a BBC World Service interview, presidential climate envoy John Kerry expressed concern about the amount of greenhouse gas being emitted from the war in Ukraine. Kerry was just getting warmed up with a string of platitudes that show him as a deluded climate relic, unable to come to terms with the reality that Putin has imposed on the world. “Equally importantly,” Kerry complained, “you’re going to lose people’s focus,” as if the first invasion of a sovereign European country since the Second World War is an annoying distraction. Hopefully, Kerry continued, Putin would realize that Russia’s land is thawing, and the people of Russia are at risk.
Kerry concluded with an expression of pure self-deception, saying he hopes Putin “will help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate.” Stay on track? Russia has never hidden its intention to avoid cutting its emissions. Russia’s second Nationally Determined Contribution, submitted in November 2020 under the Paris climate agreement, is to limit its 2030 emissions to “no more than 70% of 1990 levels.” The document is careful to avoid pledging to cut or reduce emissions. The 1990 baseline year was the last one before the collapse of the highly inefficient and heavily polluting centrally planned Soviet economy. Thus, the 70% limit actually enables Russia to increase its emissions by 34% – and that’s before taking account of any changes in forestry and land use that would allow Russia to claim credit for negative emissions.
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North Korea acknowledged Monday having test-fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of striking the U.S. territory Guam.
South Korea and Japan first reported Sunday that the Hwasong-12 missile had been launched – making it the seventh nuclear-capable missile having been launched since 2017 by the rogue nation.
The North Korean state news said the missile was fired as a test and took a high trajectory to avoid flying over neighboring countries. The projectile flew just under 500 miles before landing in the sea between Japan and the Korean Peninsula.
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A group of Ohio Legislators in an open letter Thursday called on Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan to select Ohio as the location for a new missile defense site and complex. The Continental United States Interceptor Site (CIS) is the only ground-based segment of the total U.S. defense system. It is currently run by the Department of Defense; Missile Defense Agency and is a major component of the “Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD)” segment, which is part of the overall Ballistic Missile Defense System. This system is responsible for protecting the nation from missile attacks, potentially launched by countries like “Iran and North Korea.” The overall missile defense system of the United States consists of three major segments: the Boost Defense Segment (BDS), the Midcourse Defense Segment (MDS), and the Terminal Defense Segment (TDS). Each focuses on different phases of a potential missile attack on the continent. BDS focuses on the detection and interception of a missile at the earliest possible moments, long before it reaches the apex of its launch trajectory. MDS focuses on the interception of a missile at the midpoint of its trajectory. TDS is last line defense for stopping a missile attack; when the missile is past the midpoint…
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President Trump urged China’s president in a phone call Wednesday to use “all available levers” to pressure North Korea to halt its “provocations,” a day after Pyongyang tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile. Mr. Trump emphasized to Chinese President Xi Jinping “the determination of the United States to defend ourselves and our allies from the growing…
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The U.S.-made Patriot missile defense system has shot down more than 100 missiles fired from Yemen at Gulf Arab states since 2015, Defense News revealed Wednesday. The missiles were likely fired by Yemeni Houthi rebels over the last two years at Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in retaliation for the Gulf states’ support of…
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