Republicans on Capitol Hill blame President Joe Biden’s “weakness” for China and Russia’s recent provocative missile tests.
China tested a globe-circling hypersonic missile over the summer that shocked U.S. defense officials. Meanwhile, Russia launched a missile days ago that destroyed a satellite, sending more than a thousand pieces of debris scattered across space.
China’s new missile “went around the world, dropped off a hypersonic glide vehicle that glided all the way back to China, that impacted a target,” Gen. John Hyten, the outgoing vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CBS News.
Russia’s test, a repeat of a 2007 Chinese operation, was the first time the country has shown the capability to strike a satellite using an Earth-based missile, according to the Washington Post.
MISSILE TESTS BY RUSSIA AND CHINA SHOULD BE ‘WAKE-UP CALL’ FOR BIDEN, EXPERTS SAY
GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, blamed Biden’s “weakness on the world stage” for both China and Russia conducting such military tests within the first year of his administration.
China’s leader Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin “know that President Biden won’t stop them,” the Alabama congressman said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “When Biden abandoned our allies in Afghanistan he set the tone for his administration and Putin and Xi are betting that he won’t stand up for Ukraine or Taiwan. While China and Russia are wielding hypersonics the United States is still developing them – in fact it was reported earlier this year that Biden delayed test of our hypersonics to appease Putin.”
While Russia’s test was “recklessly conducted,” according to Department of State spokesman Ned Price, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby reiterated during a briefing on Tuesday that China remains the country’s “pacing challenge.”
“The most immediate concern is the debris itself, which is now floating out there and could become a hazard, including to the International Space Station. So, there’s concerns about the debris itself. And obviously, you know, writ large, we watch closely,” Kirby said during Monday’s briefing. “The kinds of capabilities that Russia has — seems to want to develop, which could pose a threat not just to our national security interests, but the security interests of other spacefaring nations.”
The U.S. is still a “year or two” away from fielding its own hypersonic weapon, reports Gillian Bussey, director of Department of Defense’s Joint Hypersonics Transition office, according to Air Force Magazine.
Bussey explained the Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon would be the first U.S. hypersonic system “that was actually be deployed and … ready for use,” while the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike System is not far behind.
Rep. Doug Lamborn told the Washington Examiner he’s “really concerned that we have to stop these signs of weakness” because “if they sense weakness on the part of President Biden and this administration, they’re only going to keep pushing more.”
The Colorado lawmaker also speculated the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan played a role in China and Russia’s decision to rock the boat.
“Afghanistan was a hugely demoralizing thing for our allies because it showed that — it raised questions as to whether the U.S. will cover — have the backs of allies,” Lamborn said. “And it emboldened our adversaries by making them think that we don’t have the resolve to see something through or we make poor decisions in how we execute major changes of policy.“
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GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who recently traveled to the Indo-Pacific to get a better understanding of China’s military presence in the region, also referenced the importance of the National Defense Authorization Act as a key component in the U.S. military’s position against foreign powers.
“The grim reality of China and Russia’s race for a hypersonic missile is that they might evade our detection systems, incentivizing a first strike,” he told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “This is why we have to pass the NDAA, which prioritizes boosting our missile defense capabilities and developing our own hypersonic to counter this threat.”
