China Revives Fractional Orbital Bombardment System, Evading US Missile Defenses

The article reports on the Senate confirmation of Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein to lead the Golden Dome missile shield program, a layered homeland defense system costing over $175 billion. It highlights the strategic challenge posed by China's revival of the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS), a Cold War-era weapon first fielded by the Soviet Union in 1969. FOBS launches a warhead into a partial orbit, allowing it to approach the United States from the South Pole, bypassing Arctic-based early-warning radars. The Soviet Union deactivated its FOBS under the SALT II treaty in 1983, but no such treaty exists today. In July 2021, China tested a FOBS with a hypersonic glide vehicle, a novel combination that makes the weapon more maneuverable and harder to intercept. The article frames FOBS as a destabilizing first-salvo weapon that undermines existing US missile defense architecture.