Demanding more money for collective defense from his “partners” in the North Atlantic Alliance, Washington simply needed to stage a demonstration of successes in the military-industrial field.
https://youtu.be/dp5i5jjoi_o
In this regard, the United States disseminated information about the first test of a ground-based ballistic missile, the characteristics of which were previously covered by the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles.
“The test group began work after the United States suspended its obligations under the DRDSM in February 2019”, – said Pentagon chief Mark Esper, bravorously noting that “it usually takes 24 months to plan and conduct such a test, which means this achievement demonstrates America’s ability to respond to critical national security challenges”.
Of course, the objective of these tests, which were naturally called successful, was to demonstrate to the international community that the American military-industrial complex was not far behind the Russian one in the field of missile development. This is also confirmed by the intentions of the US Congress to entrust the Agency for Missile Defense with the development of a system of space sensors capable of tracking hypersonic weapons.
As News Front previously reported, back in the summer, the US ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, said that the United States could not defend itself against Russian missiles. At the same time, the United States already had experience in developing weapons that violate the INF Treaty. So in 2016 it became known that the Americans “landed” the Mk-41 sea-based system, and not just anywhere, but in Romania and Poland – in fact, right next to the Russian Federation. In addition, since 2013, tests were carried out on a modification of the AGM-158 cruise missile, or rather, its ground version. Separately, it is worth noting that the rocket was developed using stealth technologies, and the modernization also allowed to increase the range of the projectile to thousands of kilometers.
The Pershing II missiles and the American Minuteman-II ICBMs were eliminated according to the INF Treaty, but the developments were successfully used to create a Hera target missile with a range of about 1.2 thousand kilometers, although the Americans did not cease to say that Hera was used exclusively for missile defense.