Shortly after the Russian attack on Ukraine, the USA abandoned the planned test of an ICBM. At the beginning of August, the start bursts due to tensions with China. Now Washington is firing the cruise missile towards the sea.
The US says it has successfully tested an ICBM over the Pacific. The Minuteman III rocket, which can theoretically be equipped with nuclear warheads, was launched overnight from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and flew around 6750 kilometers to Kwajalein Atoll in the southern Pacific, the US Air Force said. The test was therefore expressly not a reaction to “current world events”.
The Air Force originally wanted to test the missile in March, but initially decided not to do so due to heightened tensions with Russia as a result of the war of aggression in Ukraine. The Pentagon statement at the time said it wanted to show that the US had no intention of engaging in actions “that could be misunderstood or misconstrued.” The US is a responsible nuclear power.
A second date in early August was also postponed, this time due to tensions with China. After the visit of US top politician Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, China’s army held its largest military maneuvers in the waters around the island and also launched missiles.
The Minuteman is a product of the Cold War. The first launch of the Boeing-made cruise missile was in 1959. Five years later, a Minuteman II was tested for the first time. First and second generation missiles are now no longer in service with the US armed forces. The Minutemann III should remain in the arsenal until 2030. Several thousand of them were made by 1977. The US regularly tests the accuracy and reliability of its ICBMs.
