"or example, it’s in the US’ best interest for people to think (re: Govs) “US has no defense against hypersonic missiles”." This is the crux of the matter. Th

"or example, it’s in the US’ best interest for people to think (re: Govs) “US has no defense against hypersonic missiles”." This is the crux of the matter. The USA was fine letting people think the patriot system was still suffering from the early teething problems and that it was an overpriced system that couldn't take down ballistic missiles as promised (and it did perform lacklustrely during the first gulf war). Queue the donations to Ukraine successfully shooting down Russia's "unstoppable" hypersonic missiles with quickly trained troops. I really do wonder how the F-35 actually will perform in combat one day (which in a way I hope we never need to know).