The US leadership is alarmed – and that’s why everything has to happen very quickly now. In cooperation with Japan, they want to develop a defense strategy against hypersonic weapons as quickly as possible. This is what Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Minister Lloyd Austin agreed on with their Japanese counterparts earlier this month. The joint statement cites the reason to be „a rapid and opaque military expansion that jeopardizes the regional strategic balance.“ Everyone knows who this refers to: China – and Beijing’s successful test of a hypersonic missile, in particular.