It's all hypersonic warfare planning

The hypersonic warfare arms race between China, Russia and the United States has taken a surprising and dramatic turn, leading to fears of a dangerous lowering of the nuclear threshold. China, it was reported, carried out a successful test in August, combining Cold War ballistic missile and new super-speed technologies to demonstrate an ability to place a nuclear warhead into orbit around the planet. If true, this would introduce a new layer of uncertainty in the fragile concept of nuclear deterrence. Beijing claimed the test was only about launching a spacecraft and had nothing to do with a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. But if western intelligence agencies are right in their analysis of the August missile test, does this mean China has now taken a giant step forward in the hypersonic race and that the United States has a lot of catching up to do? The US has dithered in the past in embracing the concept of weapons capable of reaching Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) and beyond. As a result, investment and congressional backing suffered a period of fits and starts. But not any longer. The Pentagon is now fully behind the hypersonic game and has the money to make rapid progress - $3.2 billion this year and a request for $3.8 billion in 2022. However, while all three “major-power” rivals are investing heavily in hypersonic technology they appear to have different objectives in pursuing weapons that could reach speeds of Mach 27, the equivalent of more than 20,000mph. By comparison, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) can reach 15,000mph in its mid-course phase and would take around 30 minutes between, say, Moscow and Washington. Despite varying aims, China, Russia and the US are all focusing on the same two categories of hypersonic weapon technology: *A hypersonic glide vehicle launched from a rocket at more than Mach 5 on the edge of Earth’s atmosphere which then manoeuvres at will while gliding downwards to its target. This makes it more difficult, if not impossible, to track by space-based or ground-based sensors because the glide vehicle would be operating in a middle, in-between area for much of its journey in a radar-blind trajectory. Russia claims its Avangard nuclear-capable, unlimited-range hypersonic missile is already in service. *A hypersonic cruise missile, launched by aircraft, warship or submarine, which has a more limited range but reaches similar speeds with the aid of a scramjet engine (a supersonic combustion engine). It would be a devastating carrier-killer. Russia is developing such a system to be nuclear capable, called Zircon. The Pentagon has a programme called Project Mayhem aimed at developing a bigger and longer-range hypersonic cruise missile, but not nuclear. China’s test carried out in August, according to an intelligence-sourced report in the Financial Times, appeared to use a ballistic-missile nuclear-warhead delivery system espoused by the Soviet Union in the 1970s with an add-on hypersonic glide vehicle. “What I think is likely is that the Chinese have taken a hypersonic glide vehicle and mashed it with a fractional orbital bombardment system, FOBS, developed by the Soviet Union in the Cold War,” said Ian Williams, specialist in missile defence and nuclear weapons at the Washington-based centre for strategic and international studies (CSIS). “Instead of having a ballistic missile that goes up into space and down again, they’re aiming [like the Soviets did] to get the nuclear warhead launched into a low orbit and then [with the help of hypersonic glide technology] to keep it in orbit for as long as they want, “ he said. The US, however, has no such ambition. Unlike China, all of the Pentagon’s efforts are being devoted to developing conventionally-armed hypersonic weapons that are simply faster and longer-range systems for use on the battlefield. “China sees hypersonic weapons as a way of meeting their concerns about getting through US missile defences [the ground-based missile interceptors in Alaska and California]. In other words they want to hold US homeland targets at risk and make Washington hesitate to confront China if Beijing, for example, were to move against Taiwan,” Williams said. “The US by comparison does not see hypersonic missiles as nuclear weapons but as conventional systems which can take out time-sensitive targets, like, for example, if North Korea was spotted fuelling up ballistic missiles [for an attack on the US], US political leaders might have two hours to make a decision to take preemptive action. Using a Tomahawk , the 500mph land-attack cruise missile, would be too slow,” Williams said. Mike White, in charge of hypersonics programmes at the Pentagon, said recently that the aim was to have a missile that would cover 500 miles in ten minutes. “If you need to really reach out and touch somebody 1,000, 2,000, even 3,000 nautical miles away, you can do that with a hypersonic system. Our current capabilities don’t afford that ability,” he said. Sensibly, Williams said, the US was also developing ways of countering hypersonic missiles and had a programme to put small satellites into low orbit to help detect the path of incoming glide vehicles. “It’s vital to have situational awareness to see where the hypersonic vehicles are flying. If you don’t know where they are there is no time for political leaders to make a decision [about how to intercept them],” he said. With ICBMs it’s possible via missile-detection satellites to spot the burn of the rocket launch, track the missile trajectory and then calculate where it is heading and when it will arrive on target. That is not so easy when a missile travelling at many times the speed of sound is swerving around in the atmosphere and even changing direction. Russia’s interest in hypersonic weapons, Williams said, was more about “signalling and chest-thumping”. “They claim to have fielded some of these weapons but they are in insignificant numbers. They are more for a flashy show than a genuine missile threat,” he said. The Avangard missile was hailed by President Putin as a weapon capable of evading all missile defences. But even if made with the latest high-tech ceramics, it would have to survive intense heat flying in the Earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic speed for any length of time. “I don’t think the Russians have yet mastered the science,” Williams said. “Where Russia does have the edge is with its Zircon hypersonic cruise missile which the Russians see as a way of countering Nato’s conventional superiority,” he said. Other countries developing hypersonic weapons include North Korea which claims to have tested its first prototype called Hwasong-8 last month, as well as India, Australia, France, Germany, South Korea and Japan.