A Senate Armed Services hearing turned heated this week when Sen. Angus King, chairman of the Strategic Forces subcommittee, laid into John Hill, deputy assistant defense secretary for space and missile defense, about why the Biden administration’s 2025 missile defense budget request falls far short on funding to maintain readiness against the growing threat of hypersonic missiles from adversaries — namely Russia.
“We have no defense for hypersonic missiles, yes or no? Mr. Hill? Any defense on hypersonic missile?” Mr. King asked during one exchange. If Russia launches a hypersonic missile traveling 6,000 mph and “you are the commander of an aircraft carrier in the Greenland gap … what do you do?” he asked.
Mr. Hill responded: “We have some systems in the terminal stage, but we need more. You are correct … our hypersonic defenses are inadequate. SM-67 is in the Navy’s terminal range Patriot … No argument, we need to focus on hypersonic defenses.”
Mr. King, Maine independent, stressed that “this is next-year kind of stuff. I don’t get the budget.”
Russia has advanced its hypersonic missile development and deployment in recent years. Ukrainian researchers claimed in February that Russian forces had hit Kyiv with a hypersonic Zircon missile.