United States, United Kingdom and Australia will cooperate to develop hypersonic weapons

The United States, Britain and Australia said on Tuesday that they will begin collaborating together on hypersonic weapons and “electronic warfare capabilities,” as part of their new AUKUS alliance aimed at countering China.

The three countries said the joint initiatives will reinforce existing efforts to deepen cooperation in numerous areas that they already agreed upon when they formed the new defensive pact last September.

“We committed today to start a new trilateral cooperation on hypersonic and counter-hypersonic, and electronic warfare capabilities, as well as to expand information exchange and deepen cooperation in defense innovation,” they said in a joint statement.

“These initiatives will add to our existing efforts to deepen cooperation on cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and additional underwater capabilities.”

“As our work progresses in these and other critical defense and security capabilities, we will seek opportunities to engage close allies and partners.”

Russia, China, the United States and North Korea have launched test hypersonic missiles, and Tuesday's announcement came just weeks after Moscow said it had launched them for the first time in its war in Ukraine.

Hypersonic missiles, like traditional ballistic missiles that can launch nuclear weapons, can fly at more than five times the speed of sound.

While ballistic missiles fly high in space in an arc to reach their target, a hypersonic weapon flies on a low trajectory in the atmosphere, potentially reaching a target faster.

Crucially, a hypersonic missile is maneuverable, like the much slower cruise missile, often subsonic, which makes it much harder to track and defend.

Russia is seen as the most advanced nation in this field, while China is also aggressively developing technology, according to the US Congressional Research Service (CRS).

In October, the Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, confirmed that China had conducted tests with a hypersonic weapon as part of its effort to develop space and military technologies.

Milley said in a television interview that the Chinese essay was a “very significant event, the test of a hypersonic weapon, and it is of great concern.”

The budget requested by the Pentagon for 2023 includes $4.7 billion for research and development of hypersonic weapons. Plans include having a hypersonic missile battery installed by next year, a missile to launch from the sea in 2025 and a cruise missile by 2027.

France, Germany, Australia, India and Japan have been working on hypersonics, and Iran, Israel and South Korea have done basic research on the technology, CRS said earlier.

The United States, Britain and Australia launched their historic security pact last September, along with Canberra scrapping a multi-million dollar submarine deal with France that angered Paris.

The pact, known as AUKUS, was proclaimed at that time as a pact that allowed the three allies to share advanced technologies.

(With information from AFP and AP)

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