The United Nations is concerned that the pursuit of these weapons by nuclear-armed states, isn’t getting enough attention, and recently issued a report on proliferation concerns.
Another recent report issued by the RAND Corporation concludes that hypersonic missiles define a new class of threat because of their speed, allowing them to “penetrate most missile defenses and to further compress the timelines for response by a nation under attack.”
Cipher Brief Expert and former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Doug Wise says, “The evidence allows you to conclude that it actually is triggering an arms race and parallel research and development activities, certainly by our adversaries, and by ourselves.
Background:
- Hypersonic weapons fall into 2 categories: Hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV) and hypersonic cruise missiles (HCM).
- Hypersonic weapons are missiles that travel at Mach 5 or higher, meaning that they travel at least five times faster than the speed of sound, or nearly one mile per second. The two types of hypersonic weapons in development are cruise missiles and glide vehicles.
- HGV, as the name implies, don’t have onboard engines. They are typically launched by a missile and released at high altitude (and high Mach number).
- Both HGV and HCM can have different ranges (short to long) and can carry different types of payloads including no explosives in which case they would use their kinetic energy to destroy their target.
- Hypersonic cruise missiles fly at altitudes of up to 100,000 feet and are powered by a propulsion system known as SCRAMJET.
- Hypersonic glide vehicles fly above 100,000 feet and are launched from the top of rockets. Once launched, they use aerodynamic forces to fly and maneuver.
- China and Russia have accelerated the development of their hypersonic capabilities. In his 2019 State of the Union address, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia’s navy would deploy hypersonic missiles to counter the United States. Russia in December 2018 successfully tested a winged glider called Avangard that reportedly can reach Mach 20.
- China in 2018 confirmed the successful testing of a waverider—a hypersonic missile that uses shock waves generated by flight as a lifting mechanism—as well as a hypersonic missile called Starry Sky 2 that flew more than 4,000 miles per hour.
- France, India, Australia and Japan are also developing military uses of hypersonic technology.
- The United States is developing hypersonic weapons for offensive and defensive purposes. In 2018, the U.S. Air Force renewed a contract with Lockheed Martin to develop the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon and the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon.
- Hypersonic weapons' speed is not the only reason they are difficult to defend against. They can maneuver in ways traditional ballistic missiles cannot, and can evade our current missile defense systems.
The New Arms Race
“The United States is already vulnerable to Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons. If Russia and China want to reduce the United States into a pile of smoking radioactive ash, they already have the capability to do so, even after absorbing a first strike from the U.S. and that is a reality we can’t change,” says James Acton, Co-Director of the Nuclear Arms Program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
James Acton, Co-Director, Nuclear Arms Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
"So, nuclear armed gliders don't create new vulnerability for the United States. That said, it is already sparking an arms race. I think we are in an arms race in hypersonics with the Russians and the Chinese. We're not pursuing nuclear armed hypersonics, we're pursuing conventionally armed hypersonics."
Advancing hypersonic technology is in a way, reshaping the battle space, say experts, and igniting a race to overcome adversaries.
“Missile defense systems were not designed to intercept HGV and HCM,” says George Nacouzi, a Senior Engineer at the RAND Corporation who also supports projects within PAF (Project Air Force) and NSRD (National Security Research Division).
George Nacouzi, Senior Engineer, the RAND Corporation
“The current U.S. ballistic missile defense system is designed to defend against intercontinental ballistic missiles. Although these ballistic missiles do fly at hypersonic speeds, they fly a predictable (ballistic) trajectory which allows defense systems to extrapolate their position in time and space and develop intercept solution after a minimal amount of tracking them (seconds to minutes). On the other hand, HGV (and of course HCM), do not fly a ballistic trajectory and defense systems are not able to predict their impact points (they can maneuver at any time) so need a completely different sensing architecture and intercept weapon to defeat them.”
There are no current missile defense systems that are deemed effective against hypersonic weapons.
“When we're talking about defense, it's critical to make a distinction between area defenses and point defenses,” says Acton.
James Acton, Co-Director, Nuclear Arms Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
“Point defenses in NFL terms are cornerbacks. They try to intercept the ball, just before it hits the ground. And as a result, a cornerback can only defend a very small area. But if the wide receiver happens to be in that area then the cornerback performs a very valuable function. So that's point defenses. They can defend small areas. The other type of defense is area defense, which again, in NFL terms, and these are your defensive linemen. They try to knock the ball just after it gets out of the quarterback's hands. It's very difficult, but if you manage to do that, you defend the whole of the down field area.”
Range of Threats and Adversaries
"I don't think Russian or Chinese nuclear armed hypersonics would be a game-changer. If Russia or China had conventional hypersonics that could reach out thousands of kilometers, that's new. It's very, very difficult today for China to launch a significant conventional attack against the U.S. homeland," says Acton.
James Acton, Co-Director, Nuclear Arms Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
“Russia has a bit more capability in that regard, particularly with sea-launch cruise missiles. But imagine that Russia and China had the capability in a conflict of reaching out and destroying stuff deep within the United States, with hypersonic weapons that... we could defend a few targets but defending wide areas would be very difficult.”
"I think that would be quite different for us, I mean, if you think about how much military infrastructure there is in the US that we'd never have to worry about vulnerability except for nuclear weapons," adds Acton. "Things like satellite up links and down links, is the thing that most immediately springs to mind. I think Russian and Chinese hypersonics that could conventionally armed, that would be a big deal if it could reach the continental United States."
Doug Wise, Former Deputy Director, Defense Intelligence Agency
"I always thought of China, when anybody mentioned hypersonic weapons, because I think the Chinese recognized right off the bat that our ability to project power was through maritime means, and they were able to deal with that maritime threat, and the hypersonic weapons, because of the inability to defend against them, seem to be - to the Chinese - the optimum weapon systems. I think they've put a lot of time and attention toward this, and I think a lot of their industrial espionage was directly focused on our hypersonic weapons in the U.S."
Future Predictions and Risks of Hypersonic Weapons
James Acton, Co-Director, Nuclear Arms Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
"Historically, DOD officials and uniformed military have talked about four different possible roles. There is counter WMD, so destroying nuclear or perhaps chemical and biological weapons before they're launched. Second one, which is probably the biggest on today is what I term defense suppression."
"So that would be kicking down the door of advanced Russian or Chinese defenses," says Acton. "These would be the first weapons that would come in, they would destroy nodes in Russia and China's defensive networks and pave the way for less survivable weapons to follow up. Third potential mission is to attack Russian and Chinese anti-satellite weapons. And the fourth one is the counter-terrorism mission, that was kind of a big deal in the 2000s for obvious reasons."
Doug Wise, Former Deputy Director, Defense Intelligence Agency
"I think Artificial Intelligence is going to be in the BMC2 (a sub-section of the Battle Management, Command, Control and Communications element of the National Missile Defense System). It's going to be in the battlefield command control. Because launch to impact can be around five to seven minutes over long distances, you need very sophisticated systems to guide it."
George Nacouzi, Senior Engineer, the RAND Corporation
"If these weapons are proliferated to the rest of the world, especially unstable regions, they will exacerbate the instability and can drive nations to attack first during times of tension since they might believe they need to use their arsenal first or lose it to an attack from hypersonic missiles. There are other concerns including the worry of decapitation attacks against critical assets, including leadership."
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