Commentary The recent Chinese tests of suborbital hypersonic glide vehicles is a wake-up call to U.S. defense planners. In July and August, China reportedly carried out tests of a hypersonic orbital missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. In recent days, there has been a flurry of press reports stating that these tests “shocked” the U.S. military and intelligence community, and were likely associated with an evolving Chinese weapon that is similar to the Soviet concept of Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS). This could be a second “Sputnik moment” courtesy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in less than three months, with the first being the disclosure that China began the construction of a potential intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silo site in Hanginn Banner, Inner Mongolia, as a precursor to a breakout deployment of 300 new nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Soviets’ launch of the first orbiting satellite in 1957 was …