The Pentagon is looking to engineer self-guiding hypersonic weapons with emerging levels of autonomy to quickly adjust course in flight as needed, adapt to emerging targets and avoid defensive threats. Of course, humans would make the necessary command and control decisions when it comes to the use of lethal force, per existing Pentagon doctrine. Yet enabling missiles traveling at hypersonic speeds to draw upon advanced sensors and guidance technology could, for instance, enable an attack to rapidly adjust to an enemy countermeasure, destroy an approaching interceptor or even alter its trajectory to avoid any impediments to attack. This kind of technical focus, mentioned by the Pentagon's Principal Director for Hypersonics Michael White, seeks to build upon fast emerging progress in the area of autonomy. "So you can think of autonomy and hypersonics being integrated in the way you fly vehicles and the things you might do with those vehicles," White told reporters according to a Pentagon transcript.