We are far beyond a “Sputnik moment”

In 1957, when the Soviet Union launched the world’s first tiny artificial satellite Sputnik into orbit, it was interpreted across the American political spectrum as a national security emergency.

In August 2021, China tested a space superweapon demonstrating a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) that orbited a Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGV) around the earth, which then de-orbited to simulate an attack on a terrestrial target.

According to Dr. Peter Pry, a recognized expert on national security, homeland security and U.S. nuclear strategy, we are at another inflection point so critical that we have already passed into a paradigm more dangerous than a new “Sputnik moment.” The defense and political establishments acknowledge that the FOBS/HGV combination is a major threat and “game changer,” but 64 years after Sputnik, the United States is deeply divided politically and unable to muster the will for massive investment in STEM education and mobilization of its scientists, engineers, and mathematicians as it did in the Cold War.

Pry argues that the main culprit behind this division is the “Antinuclear-Media Complex,” composed of the antinuclear and arms control communities, academics, usually leftist politicians, and biased mass media. He notes that this set “make many errors of fact and analysis, propound Russian and Chinese propaganda, and not infrequently belong to organizations originally founded as fronts for disinformation by Soviet intelligence agencies.”

The report also provides a drill-down on several additional “technological surprises” released by our enemies and adversaries in recent years, including Super-EMP weapons, First-Strike ICBM’s and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Pry also provides graphical depictions of HGV and missile trajectories which illuminate the significance of this technological leap.

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