President Trump announced a major shift in U.S. defense strategy on Thursday ordering the Pentagon to rapidly expand current missile defenses and build new interceptors, space sensors, and advanced technology to neutralize foreign missiles at multiple stages of attack.
Congress is ordering the Pentagon to immediately begin construction of space-based missile interceptors to counter increasing threats from North Korea, Iran, and other countries with advanced missile technology, according to new legislation viewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Hawaii employee who sent out a false alarm about an incoming ballistic missile threat said he misheard a message played during a drill and believed a missile was actually heading toward the state, according to an official report.
The top U.S. Air Force official in the Middle East said Friday that the ballistic missile fired by Yemeni rebels and intercepted by Saudi Arabian forces late last week originated from Iran and bore “Iranian markings.”
China has disclosed the first images of secret hypersonic strike aircraft that are being developed to deliver nuclear warheads through U.S. missile defenses. State-run CCTV on Oct. 8 broadcast images of four different vehicles or missiles that U.S. intelligence agencies believe are mockups of hypersonic strike vehicles, including one known as DF-ZF.
The United States has considered the possibility of shooting down any missiles launched by North Korea, including those that do not pose a direct threat.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency and the Navy successfully conducted a missile defense test off the coast of Hawaii, MDA said in a statement on Wednesday.
North Korea on Tuesday morning Pyongyang time fired a ballistic missile that passed over Japan in its flight path, according to the South Korean military.
Chinese factory workers are suffering from their country’s campaign against South Korean consumer goods in retaliation for Seoul’s deployment of a missile-defense system to counter North Korea.
Amid growing missile threats from North Korea, American missile defenses based in Alaska, California, and Guam, as well as on Navy ships, are capable of knocking out North Korean nuclear missiles, according to military leaders and experts.
