North Korea just demonstrated a missile capability for which the United States has no counterpart. Worse yet, we have no defense against Kim Jong-un’s hypersonic weapon – or for that matter, similar systems now being introduced into the Russian and Chinese arsenals.

How could a Communist regime so poor it can’t feed its people obtain the world’s most advanced missile technology? The answer is that North Korea’s tyrannical government gets by, as it always has, with the help of its friends in Beijing and Moscow.

And they, in turn, have benefitted from help from us – notably, the transfer of hypersonic missile-related technology to the Russians pursuant to one of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s pay-to-play schemes. There must be accountability for such dangerous misconduct, and urgent steps taken to field credible in-kind deterrents to, and defenses against, the burgeoning hypersonic threat.

This is Frank Gaffney.