I generally find that the US lags in weapons technology whose biggest utility lies in countering American superweapons - carriers and stealth fighters.

I think it's quite understandable why this is the case - imagine spending hundreds of billions on carrier procurement, and simultaneously developing a weapon that more or less renders them obsolete.

The situation has changed in that there's news that the Russians and Chinese have overtaken the US in this field, as well as the Chinese started fielding similarly high-end carriers of their own, creating a legitimate target for US hypersonics.