President Joe Biden, along with other leaders from the trilateral AUKUS international defense partnership, announced on April 5 the group will join in an effort to develop hypersonic missiles. The pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, known as AUKUS, was announced in September 2021. Its main piece is a plan to build a fleet of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian military as part of a security effort in the Indo-Pacific region. The three leaders—Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Biden—issued an agreed statement on April 5, renewing commitment to the partnership and announcing plans for hypersonics. “We also committed today to commence new trilateral cooperation on hypersonics and counter-hypersonics, and electronic warfare capabilities, as well as to expand information sharing, and to deepen cooperation on defense innovation,” the statement reads. The announcement comes as news breaks about the United …