The U.S. Navy sent its “most advanced surface warship” to the western Pacific this week. CNN reports that this may “set the stage for the eventual deployment of U.S. hypersonic missiles to the region.”
The Navy says that this will “create a new level of battlespace complexity for potential adversaries.” This is because this ship, the USS Zumwalt, will reportedly be outfitted with a booster rocket that can fire missiles at hypersonic speed.
Why is this necessary?
Because the U.S. has ratcheted up the war talk exponentially with Russia and knows that this could lead to conflicts in Asia too. And the U.S. has continued to provoke China over Taiwan so if you’re going to provoke, you’ve got to flex too.
There may be another reason that the U.S. deployed this warship to the region: Because they needed something to do with them. The USS Zumwalt cost about $8 billion and was controversial because some in Congress wanted to use that budget to build 32 destroyers instead of three retrofitted ones.
One former Navy captain said this: “At over $8 billion each, Navy is struggling to find a mission for these presently lightly armed ships.”
