[bactrian]

“However, Aboulafia noted, such a capability could also be considered a destabilizing development if a U.S. adversary decided to react preemptively to such an aircraft’s existence.”

In other words China and Russia may contemplate fighting WW3 now rather than waiting to be leap frogged. Fun.

[melling]

China is already working on hypersonic weapons. They aren’t waiting for anyone.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a14512512/c...

[bactrian]

China is always “working on” whatever the US is. Issue comes down to timing.

[adventured]

Similar to Russia. The increasing gap there of course is that Russia can't keep up with the US and China on investment, they're going to increasingly fall behind except in a few isolated segments of defense tech. Russia is becoming a second tier military power, if they're not already (that is, closer to Germany, India, France etc. than the US and China).

The US and China are now spending $1+ trillion per year on their militaries. The combined sum will likely eclipse the entire value of Russia's annual economic output in the next 15-20 years.

[outworlder]

Is it just a budget game, though? How efficient is each country with their budget?

US spending one trillion dollars, and China spending one trillion dollars, it doesn't guarantee that they will be technologically matched.

It does not have to be symmetric. You only have to spend as much as you need to nullify an adversary's capability. Ex, one does not need to manufacture an aircraft carrier to counter one, you just need to take it out of action.

[gaius]

China is always “working on” whatever the US is.

Well, by definition, since half the components probably originate there.