WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), U.S. Senator Angus King, Chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, questioned Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space and Missile Defense John Hill on the Department of Defense (DoD) FY25 missile-defense budget request. Throughout the hearing, King emphatically stressed that the requested budget is far short of the necessary research and development funding needed to maintain readiness against the threat of hypersonics from foreign adversaries.

King began, “You all know me as a mild-mannered and reasonable guy, but I'm not going to be mild-mannered today. The truth is, we have no defense for hypersonic missiles, yes or no? Mr. Hill? Any defense on hypersonic missile? You are the Commander of an aircraft carrier in the Greenland gap. A hypersonic missile launch from Murmansk [travels] 6000 miles per hour. What do you do?”

Hill responded, “We have some systems in the terminal stage, but we need more. You are correct, Senator King, that our hypersonic defenses are inadequate. SM-67 is in the Navy's terminal range. Patriot, I’ll let General Gainey speak to the specifics of that. Those are examples, but no argument, we need to focus on hypersonic defenses.

“Why are we talking about 2029 and even stretching that out? This is next year kind of stuff. I don't get the budget,” King asked in response.

Hill replied, “What we faced in this year and in the budget this year, it was difficult with the Fiscal Responsibility Act we had to work with. We had to pay bills and had to go in on the personnel, salaries, health care, inflation costs. You get down to the point of what was left for discretionary things where you can control choices, you are focusing on the trades –

“That's your mission. Missile-defense readiness,” King concluded.

A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator King is recognized as an authoritative voice on national security and foreign policy issues who has also been named a “fiscal hero” by government watchdogs for responsible spending. As the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Strategic Forces — which oversees the United States’ strategic forces and missile defense — Senator King has been a steady voice on the need to address the growing nuclear capacity of our adversaries. Senator King recently expressed concern about the emerging threats of Russia and China’s development of “nightmare weapon” hypersonic missiles, which he has described as “strategic game-changers.” Last week, Senator King also pressed Navy officials about its own 2025 budget requests – focusing his attention on the dramatic cuts for directed energy research, as the technology is increasingly becoming a weapon of choice in conflicts worldwide. In another recent SASC hearing, Senator King urged the DoD to take advantage of private sector technologies or risk losing access to innovative defense technologies.

###