US President: “We will destroy any missiles launched from hostile countries”

"The United States will adjust its stance to counter cruise missile and hypersonic missile attacks. We will destroy every missile launched by hostile countries, even accidental launches by some major powers,"AFPquoted US President Donald Trump yesterday announced at the Pentagon.

The remarks came after Trump released the Missile Defense Review (MDR), a long-awaited analysis of the US missile defense network. One of the top concerns cited was the rapid development of hypersonic missiles by Russia and China, which could help them penetrate the US missile shield.

MDR proposes deploying multiple sensor satellites to detect threats to the United States early, as well as researching space weapons to shoot down missiles as soon as they leave the launch pad, an idea that was proposed in former US President Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" initiative in the 1980s.

"Space is the key to the next step of missile defense. Space-based sensors will help detect, warn and classify missiles early, increasing the ability to deal with them," a senior official in the Trump administration said on January 17, but affirmed that the Pentagon has only studied the feasibility of space weapons and has not decided whether to pursue this solution or not.

Trump requested the MDR report from the US Missile Defense Agency in 2017, amid rising tensions between Washington and Pyongyang following a series of North Korean ballistic missile and nuclear tests. This was the first time the US had conducted an assessment of its anti-ballistic missile capabilities since 2010.

US-North Korea relations have warmed in the past year, especially after the summit between Kim Jong-un and Trump in Singapore. However, MDR still considers North Korea a serious threat and stresses that the US "needs to remain vigilant".