Commentary The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is engaged in a massive deception operation to move the United States to commit much of its defense budget to acquiring a new, nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system at a time when Beijing has moved to far more powerful hypersonic strategic weapons. Beijing has attempted to play down the relatively successful test in August of its new globe-circling, orbital hypersonic delivery system for nuclear weapons out of concern that Washington may reorient its defense research and spending to counter or match the capability. The CCP would rather see the United States continue to concentrate its limited funding on developing a new version of “yesterday’s technology,” the ICBM replacement for the U.S. Air Force Minuteman III system. Even by mid-2020, the budget for this program had reached $95.8 billion, part of a comprehensive replacement of the U.S. nuclear force estimated to cost more than …