The Pentagon’s chief of research and engineering says the military is capable of defending against missile attacks from China and Russia — should the country choose to invest in the necessary systems.
Countering the vast missile arsenals of major adversaries is technologically possible, according to Michael Griffin, but national policy hasn’t historically considered it a priority.
“Today’s systems are designed to counter rogue states,” the defense undersecretary said during a talk at the Hudson Institute Tuesday. “If you want more, you can buy more. We’ve chosen not to do that.”
An apparent botched nuclear missile test in Russia last week has brought increased attention to the missile issue as the Pentagon shifts its focus to countering the dangers China and Russia pose.
For nearly two decades, American officials assumed the greatest missile threat came from countries such as North Korea or Iran. As Russia and China continue to expand and invest in their missile stockpiles, there are concerns that the United States has fallen behind.
Hypersonic missiles have been the area of greatest concern. These advanced weapons are significantly faster and more agile than other missiles, making them capable of avoiding conventional missile defense systems. Griffin explained that hypersonics operate in a middle space between the areas of air defense and missile defense. They are 10 to 20 times “dimmer” than other missiles, meaning by the time they are picked up by radar, it’s often too late to take them out.
Russia and China are both believed to have made significant advances in hypersonics that the U.S. has not.
“We chose not to weaponize it,” Griffin said. “From a policy perspective, you know, we didn’t think the world needed a new class of weapons.”
To defend against them, Griffin, a former NASA administrator, said the country needs a new space-based detection system that would operate in a low orbit. Today’s higher orbit satellites are too high up, while the number of forward-deployed long-range radars on the ground needed to counter the threat would be impractical.
“President Trump, quite correctly, enunciated the need for such a layer and yet our budget didn’t show it,” Griffin said. The administration decided to focus on producing offensive missile capabilities as a deterrent instead.
Griffin and his colleagues plan to push for funding for the detection system in next year’s budget.
Russia’s botched test made international headlines last week. The incident, which occurred Thursday off the country’s northern coast, caused a nuclear explosion, spiking radiation in the area by 200 times the normal level. Some experts and intelligence officials think it was the result of a failed test of Russia’s new ‘Skyfall’ missile, which is believed to be powered by a small nuclear reactor.
Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled the missile in March 2018, claiming that it renders defense systems “useless.”
Trump weighed in on the issue Monday. “The United States is learning much from the failed missile explosion in Russia,” he tweeted. “We have similar, though more advanced, technology. The Russian ‘Skyfall’ explosion has people worried about the air around the facility and far beyond. Not good.”
When asked about this technology by a reporter from Russian state media, Griffin said at the event, “I don’t have any comment on that.”
