The race for hypersonic weapons is heading out of control. China, Russia and the US are all attempting to create weapons that travel at more than five times the speed of sound. But no matter who wins, the technology could raise instability around the world.
Hypersonic weapons move incredibly fast, but what differentiates them from traditional ballistic missiles is that all of their journey is done within the atmosphere rather than through space and they can be manoeuvred during flight. This makes it harder to defend against.
Last month US aerospace giant Raytheon announced it was preparing to test a hypersonic scramjet 鈥� a jet-powered vehicle, which moves at rocket-like speed but, unlike a rocket gets oxygen from the atmosphere.
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The test is part of the US Pentagon鈥檚 three-pronged effort to obtain hypersonic weapons 鈥� a top priority that attracts billions of dollars in funding. The other two approaches are the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon, which uses new but not publicly-known technology and the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon, which relies on repurposing existing technology.
All three weapons will be launched from aircraft, carry conventional explosives and could be in service in the early 2020s.
Russia is making swift progress too with two hypersonic weapons: the Kinzhal (Dagger), which is launched from a plane, and the Avangard, a hypersonic vehicle which is launched from a 1960s ballistic missile.
Avangard is 鈥渋nvulnerable to intercept by any existing and prospective missile defence,鈥� said Russian president Vladimir Putin, after witnessing a test in 2018. Avangard could be ready by the end of this year and Kinzhal is claimed to be already in service.
China has carried more hypersonic tests than the US in recent years, including for the Xingkong-2 missile and Jia Geng-1, believed to be a scramjet.
Arms race
鈥淒eveloping hypersonic weapons has become an end in itself, first as a kind of competitive sport, then as an arms race,鈥� says Mark Gubrud of the University of North Carolina.
Hypersonic weapons are part of a trend towards faster warfare, he says. A by US think tank RAND warned that hypersonics will compress reaction time, leading to 鈥渉air-trigger鈥� responses.
The result could be increased instability, says Justin Bronk, at defence think tank RUSI.
鈥淲hen nuclear missiles replaced bombers it was highly destabilising because they gave you minutes rather than hours and couldn鈥檛 recall them,鈥� says Bronk. That was why they figured out means of mitigating the reduced response time, like the hotline 鈥� a telephone used for instant communication between US and Soviet leaders 鈥� he says.
Recently, US president Donald Trump said he had changed his mind about launching conventional strikes on Iran with just minutes to spare. The faster pace of military operations that goes with hypersonics might reduce the time for such second thoughts.
Gubrud says a ban on hypersonic test flights, which has already been discussed by the United Nations, would close down the arms race. It would not affect existing weapons, but these could not be tested or developed further and lack of certainty about their effectiveness would make their use less likely.
鈥淯S national security would hardly suffer if plans were put on hold at least long enough to see if China and Russia would reciprocate,鈥� says Gubrud.
Bronk is more sceptical, suggesting that as with ballistic missiles, states will not negotiate until they have developed their hypersonic arsenals.
