Marshall Billingslea, May 2020

Billingslea is President Trump’s Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control and will presumably be in charge of Washington’s team in negotiating a new START treaty.

An outstanding example of American arrogance and ignorance, to say nothing of the implication that the only actual negotiation expected will be over how loudly the negotiatees say “Yes Master”. Hardly likely to entice anyone to the table, let alone China.

The Soviet Union went down for many reasons which can be pretty well summed up under the rubric that it had exhausted its potential. Its economy was staggering, nobody believed any more, it had no real allies, it was bogged down in an endless war. Buried in there somewhere was the expense of the arms race with the USA. Billingslea evidently believes that it was that last that was the decisive blow. Believing that, he thinks that the USA can do it again.

A snappy comeback immediately pops into mind: staggering economy, loss of self confidence, allies edging away, endless wars – who’s that sound like?

But there is a bigger problem than his arrogance and that is his ignorance. Washington likes to think that its intelligence on Russia is pretty good but actually it’s pretty bad – and the proof is that it is always surprised by what Moscow does next. Intelligence is supposed to reduce surprises, not increase them.

What Billingslea is ignorant of is the difference between the Russian Federation and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And he probably isn’t alone in this ignorance in Washington: yes they know it’s not communist any more – some of them do anyway – but that’s just the outward difference. The USSR was an exceptionalist state. As the 1977 USSR Constitution said:

the Soviet state, a new type of state, the basic instrument for defending the gains of the revolution and for building socialism and communism. Humanity thereby began the epoch-making turn from capitalist to socialism.

There’s a heavy cost to being an exceptionalist state – everything everywhere is your business, you are obligated to interfere all over the world, in the USSR’s case, any government that called itself socialist was entitled to assistance. The Soviet Union’s military was not just for self-defence, it was for power projection, assistance to allies and it sought full-spectrum dominance. Or, if not dominance in every imaginable sphere of warfare, at least capability. If Washington or NATO did something the USSR and the Warsaw Pact had to respond – no challenge could go unanswered. You can “spend into oblivion” a country with so expansive a self-awarded mission, especially one with a flaccid economy. And Washington tried to do so and, and I agree that the arms race made some contribution to the dissolution of the USSR and its alliance.

But Moscow has learned its lesson. Being the standard-bearer of the “bright future” brought it nothing; propping up socialist governments that deserted the moment the tanks went home brought it nothing. Exceptionalism was a bust for Russia and the Russians. It won’t do it any more. And that implies a much more modest military goal: defence. And defence is always cheaper than offence.

Moscow doesn’t have to match the U.S. military; it just has to checkmate it.

Washington can interfere in Africa as much as it wants, Moscow doesn’t care – and if it should care, it’s demonstrated in Syria how effective a small competent and intelligently directed force can be. Washington can have all the aircraft carriers it wants; Moscow doesn’t care as long as they keep away – and if they don’t keep away, they have plenty of Kinzhals. Washington can build a space force (complete with cammo uniforms) if it wants to; Russia doesn’t have to – it just has to shoot down what attacks it. Checkmate in one defined area of the globe is much easier and much cheaper than “full spectrum dominance”.

Full spectrum dominance is the stated goal of the U.S. military: supremacy everywhere all the time.

The cumulative effect of dominance in the air, land, maritime, and space domains and information environment, which includes cyberspace, that permits the conduct of joint operations without effective opposition or prohibitive interference.

In practice it’s unattainable; it’s like looking for the end of the rainbow: every time you get there, it’s moved somewhere else. The countermove will always be cheaper and simpler. The USA will bankrupt itself into oblivion chasing down supremacy over everything everywhere. Take, for example, China’s famous carrier killer missile. Independently manoeuvrable hypersonic powerful warhead; here’s the video. Does it exist? Does it work? Maybe it does, maybe it only works sometimes. Maybe it doesn’t work today but will tomorrow. But it certainly could work. How much would Washington have to spend to give its carrier battle groups some reasonable chance against a weapon that was fired thousands of kilometres away and is coming in at Mach 10? Certainly much less than it would cost China to fire five of them at that one carrier; only needs one hit to sink it or put it out of action. Who’s going to be spent into oblivion here?

Which brings me to the next retort to Billingslea’s silly remark. Before the U.S. spends Russia and China into oblivion, it must first spend to catch up to them. I’ve mentioned the Chinese carrier killer, Russia also has quite a number of hypersonic weapons. Take the Kinzhal, for example. Fired from an aircraft 1500 kilometres away, it will arrive at the target in quite a bit less than 10 minutes. When will its target discover that it’s coming? If it detects it 500 kilometres out (probably pushing the Aegis way past its limits) it will have three or four minutes to react. The Russian Avangard re-entry vehicle has a speed of more than Mach 20 – that’s the distance from Moscow to Washington in well under five minutes. How do you stop that? Remember that Russia actually has these weapons whereas all the U.S. has is a “super-duper missile“. Not forgetting the Burevestnik and Poseidon neither of which the U.S. has, as far as is known, even in its dreams. So, Mr Billingslea, before you get the USA to the point of spending Russia and China into oblivion, you’ve got to spend a lot to catch up to where they already are today and then, when you get to where they are today, even more to get to where they will be then and still more – much more – to block anything they can dream up in all of the numerous “spectrums”. Who’s heading for oblivion now?

In conventional war the U.S. military does not have effective air defences: this should be clear to everyone after the strikes on the Saudi oil site and the U.S. base. U.S. generals are always complaining about the hostile electronic warfare scene in Syria where the Russians reveal only a bit of what they can do. Russia and China have good air defence at every level and excellent EW capabilities. They do because they know that the U.S. military depends on air attack and easy communications. They’re not going to give them these advantages in a real war, Something else for Mr Billingslea to spend a lot of money on just to get to the start state.

The U.S. military have spent too many years bombing people who can’t shoot back, kicking in doors in the middle of the night and patrolling roads hoping there’s no IED today. Not very good practice for a real war or an arms race.

China and Russia, because they have given up exceptionalism, full spectrum dominance and all those other fantasies, only have to counter the U.S. military and only in their home neighbourhoods. That is much cheaper and much easier. What’s really expensive, because unattainable, is chasing after the exceptionalist goal of dominance in everything, everywhere, all the time. That’s a “tried and true” road to oblivion.

They’re just laughing at him in Moscow and Beijing.

“There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet plagues and wars take people equally by surprise”

– Albert Camus, “The Plague”

Camus’ novel of a lethal contagion in the North African city of Oran is filled with characters all too recognizable today: indifferent or incompetent officials, short sighted and selfish citizens, and lots of great courage. What not even Camus could imagine, however, is a society in the midst of a deadly epidemic pouring vast amounts of wealth into instruments of death.

Welcome to the world of the hypersonic weapons, devices that are not only superfluous, but which will almost certainly not work. They will, however, cost enormous amounts of money. At a time when countries across the globe are facing economic chaos, financial deficits and unemployment at Great Depression levels, arms manufacturers are set to cash in big.

Hypersonic weapons are missiles that go five times faster than sound—3,800 mph—although some reportedly can reach speeds of Mach 20—15,000 mph. They come in two basic varieties, one powered by a high-speed scramjet, the other – launched from a plane or missile—glides to its target. The idea behind the weapons is that their speed and maneuverability will make them virtually invulnerable to anti-missile systems.

Currently there is a hypersonic arms race going on among China, Russia and the US, and, according to the Pentagon, the Americans are desperately trying to catch up with its two adversaries.

Truth is the first casualty in an arms race.

In the 1950s, it was the “bomber gap” between the Americans and the Soviets. In the 1960s, it was the “missile gap” between the two powers. Neither gap existed, but vast amounts of national treasure were, nonetheless, poured into long-range aircraft and thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The enormous expenditures on those weapons, in turn, heightened tensions between the major powers and on at least three occasions came very close to touching off a nuclear war.

In the current hypersonic arms race, “hype” is the operational word. “The development of hypersonic weapons in the United States,” says physicist James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, ”has been largely motivated by technology, not by strategy. In other words, technologists have decided to try and develop hypersonic weapons because it seems like they should be useful for something, not because there is a clearly defined mission need for them to fulfill.”

They have certainly been “useful” to Lockheed Martin, the largest arms manufacturer in the world. The company has already received $3.5 billion to develop the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (Arrow) glide missile, and the scramjet- driven Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (Hacksaw) missile.

The Russians also have several hypersonic missiles, including the Avangard glide vehicle, a missile said to be capable of Mach 20. China is developing several hypersonic missiles, including the DF-ZF, supposedly capable of taking out aircraft carriers.

In theory hypersonic missiles are unstoppable. In real life, not so much.

The first problem is basic physics: speed in the atmosphere produces heat. High speed generates lots of it. ICBMs avoid this problem with a blunt nose cone that deflects the enormous heat of re-entering the atmosphere as the missile approaches its target. But it only has to endure heat for a short time because much of its flight is in frictionless low earth orbit.

Hypersonic missiles, however, stay in the atmosphere their entire flight. That is the whole idea. An ICBM follows a predictable ballistic curve, much like an inverted U and, in theory, can be intercepted. A missile traveling as fast as an ICBM but at low altitude, however, is much more difficult to spot or engage.

But that’s when physics shows up and does a Las Vegas: what happens on the drawing board stays on the drawing board.

Without a heat deflecting nose cone, high-speed missiles are built like big needles, since they need to decrease the area exposed to the atmosphere Even so, they are going to run very hot. And if they try to maneuver, that heat will increase. Since they can’t carry a large payload they will have to very accurate, but as a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists points out, that is “problematic.”

According to the Union, an object traveling Mach 5 for a period of time “slowly tears itself apart during the flight.” The heat is so great it creates a “plasma” around the craft that makes it difficult “to reference GPS or receive outside course correction commands.”

If the target is moving, as with an aircraft carrier or a mobile missile, it will be almost impossible to alter the weapon’s flight path to intercept it. And any external radar array would never survive the heat or else be so small that it would have very limited range. In short, you can’t get from here to there.

Lockheed Martin says the tests are going just fine, but then Lockheed Martin is the company that builds the F-35, a fifth generation stealth fighter that simply doesn’t work. It does, however, cost $1.5 trillion, the most expensive weapons system in US history. The company has apparently dropped the scramjet engine because it tears itself apart, hardly a surprise.

The Russians and Chinese claim success with their hypersonic weapons and have even begun deploying them. But Pierre Sprey, a Pentagon designer associated with the two very successful aircraft—the F-16 and the A-10—told defense analyst Andrew Cockburn that he is suspicious of the tests.

“I very much doubt those test birds would have reached the advertised range had they maneuvered unpredictably,” he told Cockburn. “More likely they were forced to fly a straight, predictable path. In which case hypersonics offer no advantage whatsoever over traditional ballistic missiles.”

While Russia, China and the US lead the field in the development of hypersonics, Britain, France, India and Japan have joined the race.

Why is everyone building them?

At least the Russians and the Chinese have a rationale. The Russians fear the US anti-missile system might cancel out their ICBMs, so they want a missile that can maneuver. The Chinese would like to keep US aircraft carriers away from their shores. But anti-missile systems can be easily fooled by the use of cheap decoys, and the carriers are vulnerable to much more cost effective conventional weapons. In any case hypersonic missiles can’t do what they are advertised to do.

For the Americans, hypersonics are little more than a very expensive subsidy for the arms corporations. Making and deploying weapons that don’t work is nothing new. The F-35 is a case in point, but nevertheless, there have been many systems produced over the years that were deeply flawed.

The US has spent over $200 billion on anti-missile systems and once they come off the drawing boards, none of them work very well, if at all.

Probably the one that takes the prize is the Mark-28 tactical nuke, nick named the “Davy Crockett,” and its M-388 warhead. Because the M-388 was too delicate to be used in conventional artillery, it was fired from a recoilless rife with a range of 2.5 miles. Problem: if the wind was blowing in the wrong direction the Crockett cooked its three-man crew. It was only tested once and found to be “totally inaccurate.” So, end of story? Not exactly. A total of 2,100 were produced and deployed, mostly in Europe.

While the official military budget is $738 billion, if one pulls all US defense related spending together, the actual cost for taxpayers is $1.25 trillion a year, according to William Hartung of the Center for International Policy. Half that amount would go a long way toward providing not only adequate medical support during the Covid-19 crisis, it would pay jobless Americans a salary

Given that there are more than 31 million Americans now unemployed and the possibility that numerous small businesses—restaurants in particular—will never re-open, building and deploying a new generation of weapons is a luxury the US—and other countries—cannot afford. In the very near future, countries are going to have to choose whether they make guns or vaccines.

Hypersonic weapons close in on their targets at a minimum speed of Mach 5, five times the speed of sound or 3,836.4 miles an hour. They are among the latest entrants in an arms competition that has embroiled the United States for generations, first with the Soviet Union, today with China and Russia. Pentagon officials tout the potential of such weaponry and the largest arms manufacturers are totally gung-ho on the subject. No surprise there. They stand to make staggering sums from building them, especially given the chronic “cost overruns” of such defense contracts — $163 billion in the far-from-rare case of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Voices within the military-industrial complex — the Defense Department; mega-defense companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Boeing, and Raytheon; hawkish armchair strategists in Washington-based think tanks and universities; and legislators from places that depend on arms production for jobs — insist that these are must-have weapons. Their refrain: unless we build and deploy them soon we could suffer a devastating attack from Russia and China.

The opposition to this powerful ensemble’s doomsday logic is, as always, feeble.

The (Il)logic of Arms Races

Hypersonic weapons are just the most recent manifestation of the urge to engage in an “arms race,” even if, as a sports metaphor, it couldn’t be more off base. Take, for instance, a bike or foot race. Each has a beginning, a stipulated distance, and an end, as well as a goal: crossing the finish line ahead of your rivals. In theory, an arms race should at least have a starting point, but in practice, it’s usually remarkably hard to pin down, making for interminable disputes about who really started us down this path. Historians, for instance, are still writing (and arguing) about the roots of the arms race that culminated in World War I.

The arms version of a sports race lacks a purpose (apart from the perpetuation of a competition fueled by an endless action-reaction sequence). The participants just keep at it, possessed by worst-case thinking, suspicion, and fear, sentiments sustained by bureaucracies whose budgets and political clout often depend on military spending, companies that rake in the big bucks selling the weaponry, and a priesthood of professional threat inflators who merchandise themselves as “security experts.”

While finish lines (other than the finishing of most life on this planet) are seldom in sight, arms control treaties can, at least, decelerate and muffle the intensity of arms races. But at least so far, they’ve never ended them and they themselves survive only as long as the signatories want them to. Recall President George W. Bush’s scuttling of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Trump administration’s exit from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in August. Similarly, the New START accord, which covered long-range nuclear weapons and was signed by Russia and the United States in 2010, will be up for renewal in 2021 and its future, should Donald Trump be reelected, is uncertain at best. Apart from the fragility built into such treaties, new vistas for arms competition inevitably emerge — or, more precisely, are created. Hypersonic weapons are just the latest example.

Arms races, though waged in the name of national security, invariably create yet more insecurity. Imagine two adversaries neither of whom knows what new weapon the other will field. So both just keep building new ones. That gets expensive. And such spending only increases the number of threats. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, U.S. military spending has consistently and substantially exceeded  China’s and Russia’s combined. But can you name a government that imagines more threats on more fronts than ours? This endless enumeration of new vulnerabilities isn’t a form of paranoia. It’s meant to keep arms races humming and the money flowing into military (and military-industrial) coffers.

One-Dimensional National Security

Such arms races come from the narrow, militarized definition of “national security” that prevails inside the defense and intelligence establishment, as well as in think tanks, universities, and the most influential mass media. Their underlying assumptions are rarely challenged, which only adds to their power. We’re told that we must produce a particular weapon (price tag be damned!), because if we don’t, the enemy will and that will imperil us all.

Such a view of security is by now so deeply entrenched in Washington — shared by Republicans and Democrats alike — that alternatives are invariably derided as naïve or quixotic. As it happens, both of those adjectives would be more appropriate descriptors for the predominant national security paradigm, detached as it is from what really makes most Americans feel insecure.

Consider a few examples.

Unlike in the first three decades after World War II, since 1979 the average U.S. hourly wage, adjusted for inflation, has increased by a pitiful amount, despite substantial increases in worker productivity. Unsurprisingly, those on the higher rungs of the wage ladder (to say nothing of those at the top) have made most of the gains, creating a sharp increase in wage inequality. (If you consider net total household wealth rather than income alone, the share of the top 1% increased from 30% to 39% between 1989 and 2016, while that of the bottom 90% dropped from 33% to 23%.)

Because of sluggish wage growth many workers find it hard to land jobs that pay enough to cover basic life expenses even when, as now, unemployment is low (3.6% this year compared to 8% in 2013). Meanwhile, millions earning low wages, particularly single mothers who want to work, struggle to find affordable childcare — not surprising considering that in 10 states and the District of Columbia the annual cost of such care exceeded $10,000 last year; and that, in 28 states, childcare centers charged more than the cost of tuition and fees at four-year public colleges.

Workers trapped in low-wage jobs are also hard-pressed to cover unanticipated expenses. In 2018, the “median household” banked only $11,700, and households with incomes in the bottom 20% had, on average, only $8,790 in savings; 29% of them, $1,000 or less. (For the wealthiest 1% of households, the median figure was $2.5 million.) Forty-four percent of American families would be unable to cover emergency-related expenses in excess of $400 without borrowing money or selling some of their belongings.

That, in turn, means many Americans can’t adequately cover periods of extended unemployment or illness, even when unemployment benefits are added in. Then there’s the burden of medical bills. The percentage of uninsured adults has risen from 10.9% to 13.7% since 2016 and often your medical insurance is tied to your job — lose it and you lose your coverage — not to speak of the high deductibles imposed by many medical insurance policies. (Out-of-pocket medical expenses have, in fact, increased fourfold since 2007 and now average $1,300 a year.)

Or, speaking of insecurity, consider the epidemic in opioid-related fatalities (400,000 people since 1999), or suicides (47,173 in 2017 alone), or murders involving firearms (14,542 in that same year). Child poverty? The U.S. rate was higher than that of 32 of the 36 other economically developed countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Now ask yourself this: how often do you hear our politicians or pundits use a definition of “national security” that includes any of these daily forms of American insecurity? Admittedly, progressive politicians do speak about the economic pressures millions of Americans face, but never as part of a discussion of national security.

Politicians who portray themselves as “budget hawks” flaunt the label, but their outrage over “irresponsible” or “wasteful” spending seldom extends to a national security budget that currently exceeds $1 trillion. Hawks claim that the country must spend as much as it does because it has a worldwide military presence and a plethora of defense commitments. That presumes, however, that both are essential for American security when sensible and less extravagant alternatives are on offer.

In that context, let’s return to the “race” for hypersonic weapons.

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet

Although the foundation for today’s hypersonic weaponry was laid decades ago, the pace of progress has been slow because of daunting technical challenges. Developing materials like composite ceramics capable of withstanding the intense heat to which such weapons will be exposed during flight leads the list. In recent years, though, countries have stepped up their games hoping to deploy hypersonic armaments rapidly, something Russia has already begun to do.

China, Russia, and the United States lead the hypersonic arms race, but others  including Britain, France, Germany, India, and Japan – have joined in (and more undoubtedly will do so). Each has its own list of dire scenarios against which hypersonic weapons will supposedly protect them and military missions for which they see such armaments as ideal. In other words, a new round in an arms race aimed at Armageddon is already well underway.

There are two variants of hypersonic weapons, which can both be equipped with conventional or nuclear warheads and can also demolish their targets through sheer speed and force of impact, or kinetic energy. “Boost-glide vehicles” (HGVs) are lofted skyward on ballistic missiles or aircraft. Separated from their transporter, they then hurtle through the atmosphere, pulled toward their target by gravity, while picking up momentum along the way. Unlike ballistic missiles, which generally fly most of the way in a parabolic trajectory — think of an inverted U — ranging in altitude from nearly 400 to nearly 750 miles high, HGVs stay low, maxing out about 62 miles up. The combination of their hypersonic speed and lower altitude shortens the journey, while theoretically flummoxing radars and defenses designed to track and intercept ballistic missile warheads (which means another kind of arms race still to come).

By contrast, hypersonic cruise missiles (HCMs) resemble pilotless aircraft, propelled from start to finish by an on-board engine. They are, however, lighter than standard cruise missiles because they use “scramjet” technology.  Rather than carrying liquid oxygen tanks, the missile “breathes” in outside air that passes through it at supersonic speed, its oxygen combining with the missile’s hydrogen fuel. The resulting combustion generates extreme heat, propelling the missile toward its target. HCMs fly even lower than HGVs, below 100,000 feet, which makes identifying and destroying them harder yet.

Weapons are categorized as hypersonic when they can reach a speed of at least Mach 5, but versions that travel much faster are in the works. A Chinese HGV, launched by the Dong Feng (East Wind) DF-ZF ballistic missile, reportedly registered a speed of up to Mach 10 during tests, which began in 2014. Russia’s Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, or “Dagger,” launched from a bomber or interceptor, can reportedly also reach a speed of Mach 10. Lockheed Martin’s AGM-183A Advanced Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), an HGV that was first test-launched from a B-52 bomber this year, can apparently reach the staggering speed of Mach 20.

And yet it’s not just the speed and flight trajectory of hypersonic weapons that will make them so hard to track and intercept. They can also maneuver as they race toward their targets. Unsurprisingly, efforts to develop defenses against them, using low-orbit sensors, microwave technology, and “directed energy” have already begun. The Trump administration’s plans for a new Space Force that will put sensors and interceptors into space cite the threat of hypersonic missiles. Even so, critics have slammed the initiative for being poorly funded.

Putting aside the technical complexities of building defenses against hypersonic weapons, the American decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty and develop missile-defense systems influenced Russia’s decision to develop hypersonic weapons capable of penetrating such defenses. These are meant to ensure that Russia’s nuclear forces will continue to serve as a credible deterrent against a nuclear first strike on that country.

The Trio Takes the Lead

China, Russia, and the United States are, of course, leading the hypersonic race to hell. China tested a medium-range new missile, the DF-17 in late 2017, and used an HGV specifically designed to be launched by it. The following year, that country tested its rocket-launched Xing Kong-2 (Starry Sky-2), a “wave rider,” which gains momentum by surfing the shockwaves it produces. In addition to its Kinzhal, Russia successfully tested the Avangard HGV in 2018. The SS-19 ballistic missile that launched it will eventually be replaced by the R-28 Samrat. Its hypersonic cruise missile, the Tsirkon, designed to be launched from a ship or submarine, has also been tested several times since 2015. Russia’s hypersonic program has had its failures – so has ours — but there’s no doubting Moscow’s seriousness about pursuing such weaponry.

Though it’s common to read that both Russia and China are significantly ahead in this arms race, the United States has been no laggard. It’s been interested in such weaponry — specifically HGVs – since the early years of this century. The Air Force awarded Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne a contract to develop the hypersonic X-51A WaveRider scramjet in 2004. Its first flight test — which failed (creating something of a pattern) – took place in 2010.

Today, the Army, Navy, and Air Force are moving ahead with major hypersonic weapons programs. For instance, the Air Force test-launched its ARRW from a B-52 bomber as part of its Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW) this June; the Navy tested an HGV in 2017 to further its Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) initiative; and the Army tested its own version of such a weapon in 2011 and 2014 to move its Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) program forward. The depth of the Pentagon’s commitment to hypersonic weapons became evident in 2018 when it decided to combine the Navy’s CPS, the Air Force’s HCSW, and the Army’s AHW to advance the Conventional Prompt Global Strike Program (CPGS), which seeks to build the capability to hit targets worldwide in under 60 minutes.

That’s not all. The Center for Public Integrity’s R. Jeffrey Smith reports that Congress passed a bill last year requiring the United States to have operational hypersonic weapons by late 2022. President’s Trump’s 2020 Pentagon budget request included $2.6 billion to support their development. Smith expects the annual investment to reach $5 billion by the mid-2020s.

That will certainly happen if officials like Michael Griffin, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for research and engineering, have their way. Speaking at the McAleese and Credit Suisse Defense Programs conference in March 2018, he listed hypersonic weapons as his “highest technical priority,” adding, “I’m sorry for everybody out there who champions some other high priority… But there has to be a first and hypersonics is my first.” The big defense contractors share his enthusiasm. No wonder last December the National Defense Industrial Association, an outfit that lobbies for defense contractors, played host to Griffin and Patrick Shanahan (then the deputy secretary of defense), for the initial meeting of what it called the “Hypersonic Community of Influence.”

Cassandra Or Pollyanna?

We are, in other words, in a familiar place. Advances in technology have prepared the ground for a new phase of the arms race. Driving it, once again, is fear among the leading powers that their rivals will gain an advantage, this time in hypersonic weapons. What then? In a crisis, a state that gained such an advantage might, they warn, attack an adversary’s nuclear forces, military bases, airfields, warships, missile defenses, and command-and-control networks from great distances with stunning speed.

Such nightmarish scenario-building could simply be dismissed as wild-eyed speculation, but the more states think about, plan, and build weaponry along these lines, the greater the danger that a crisis could spiral into a hypersonic war once such weaponry was widely deployed. Imagine a crisis in the South China Sea in which the United States and China both have functional hypersonic weapons: China sees them as a means of blocking advancing American forces; the United States, as a means to destroy the very hypersonic arms China could use to achieve that objective. Both know this, so the decision of one or the other to fire first could come all too easily. Or, now that the INF Treaty has died, imagine a crisis in Europe involving the United States and Russia after both sides have deployed numerous intermediate-range hypersonic cruise missiles on the continent.

Some wonks say, in effect, Relax, hi-tech defenses against hypersonic weapons will be built, so crises like these won’t spin out of control. They seem to forget that defensive military innovations inevitably lead to offensive ones designed to negate them. Hypersonic weapons won’t prove to be the exception.

So, in a world of national (in)security, the new arms race is on. Buckle up.

tomdispatch.com

The Elysee Palace protocol was implacable. Nobody in Paris would be allowed to steal the spotlight away from the host, President Emmanuel Macron, during the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day marking the end of World War I.

After all, Macron was investing all his political capital as he visited multiple World War I battlefields while warning against the rise of nationalism and a surge in right-wing populism across the West. He was careful to always place the emphasis on praising “patriotism.”

A battle of ideas now rages across Europe, epitomized by the clash between the globalist Macron and populism icon Matteo Salvini, the Italian interior minister. Salvini abhors the Brussels system. Macron is stepping up his defense of a “sovereign Europe.”

And much to the horror of the US establishment, Macron proposes a real “European army” capable of autonomous self-defense side by side with a “real security dialogue with Russia.”

Yet all these “strategic autonomy” ideals collapse when you must share the stage, live, with the undisputed stars of the global show: President Donald  Trump and President Vladimir Putin.

So the optics in Paris were not exactly of a Yalta 2.0 conference. There were no holds barred to keep Trump and Putin apart. Seating arrangements featured, from left to right, Trump, Chancellor Angela Merkel, Macron, his wife Brigitte and Putin. Neither Trump nor Putin, for different reasons, took part in a “walking in the rain” stunt evoking peace.

And yet they connected. Sir Peter Cosgrove, the governor general of Australia, confirmed that Trump and Putin, at a working lunch, had a “lively and friendly” conversation for at least half an hour.

No one better than Putin himself to reveal, even indirectly, what they really talked about. Three themes are absolutely key.

On the Macron-proposed, non-NATO European army: “Europe is … a powerful economic union and it is only natural that they want to be independent and … sovereign in the field of defense and security.”

On the consequences of such an army: It would be “a positive process” that would “strengthen the multipolar world.” On top of it, Russia’s position “is aligned with that of France.”

On relations with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Washington: “It is not us who are going to withdraw from the INF Treaty. It is the Americans who plan to do that.” Putin added that Moscow has not scheduled military drills near NATO borders as an attempt to appease an already tense situation. Yet Russia has “no issue with” NATO drills and expects at least a measure of dialogue in the near future.

Enter the Avangard

Vast sectors of the US Deep State are in denial, but Putin may have been able to impress on Trump the necessity of serious dialogue due to an absolutely key vector: the Avangard.

The Avangard is a Russian hypersonic glide vehicle capable of flying over Mach 20 –  24,700km/h, or 4 miles per second – and one of the game-changing Russian weapons Putin announced at his ground-breaking March 1 speech.

The Avangard has been in the production assembly line since the summer of 2018, and is due to become operational in the southern Urals by the end of next year or early 2019.

In the near future, the Avangard may be launched by the formidable  Sarmat RS-28 intercontinental ballistic missile and reach Washington in a mere 15 minutes, flying in a cloud of plasma “like a meteorite” – even if the launch is from Russian territory. Serial production of Sarmat ICBMs starts in 2021.

The Avangard simply cannot be intercepted by any existing system on the planet – and the US knows it. Here is General John Hyten, head of US Strategic Command:  “We don’t have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us.”

Iran as the new Serbia?

I wish I had been in Paris – my home in Europe – to follow these concentric World War I–related plots live. But it was no less fascinating to follow them from Islamabad, where I am now, back from the northern part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The British Empire used 1.5 million to 2 million Indian colonial subjects to fight, and die, for empire in that war. Quite a few were Punjabis, from what is now Pakistan.

As for the future, Trump is certainly aware of Russia’s hypersonic breakthroughs. Trump and Putin also talked about Syria, and might have touched on Iran, although no one at the working lunch leaked anything about it.

Assuming the dialogue continues at the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires at the end of November, Putin might be able to impress on Trump that just as Serbia catalyzed a chain of events that led great powers to sleepwalk into World War I, the same could happen with Iran leading to the terrifying prospect of World War III.

Team Trump’s obsession on strangling Iran into economic submission is a no-go, even for the Macron-Merkel-led European Union. On top of it, the Russia-China strategic partnership simply won’t allow any funny – reckless – games to be played against a crucial node of Eurasia integration.

Putin won’t even need to go hypersonic to make his case to Trump.

atimes.com

According to recent Russian media reports, the Avangard hypersonic boost-glide system, one of the new super weapons that President Putin mentioned in his address to the Federal Assembly in March, went into production last summer and will be operational with the 13th Strategic Missile Forces division by the end of 2019. It will be deployed near Yasny, a town 502 kilometers (312 mi) southeast of Orenburg in the southern Urals, by the end of 2019.

Normally it takes two systems for a regiment to be combat ready by that time, but in this case that number will be increased to six. At least two regiments with six systems each are expected to be battle-ready by 2027. According to the state armaments program (GPV2027), twelve UR-100UTTKh (NATO: SS-19 Stiletto) missiles will be integrated into the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs). The deployment of the HGV might begin without additional flight tests. Eventually, the Sarmat RS-28 ICBM could be used to deliver the Avangard, potentially carrying a single, massive thermonuclear warhead with a yield exceeding two megatons.  

The boost-glide weapon can fly at speeds of over Mach 20 or about 15,300 miles per hour (four miles per second). It could reach Washington in 15 minutes even if launched from Russia. There is no way to intercept it, as it moves in a cloud of plasma "like a meteorite."  The weapon is distinctive for its ability to withstand extreme heat during the final phase of its trajectory thanks to its heat-resistant titanium casing. Its in-flight temperature reaches 1,600-2,000° Celsius.

It is impossible to predict the direction of its approach. Installed on the 200-ton Sarmat, the Avangard could be sent into the desired orbit at an altitude of 100 km from Earth using a pre-booster, gliding to its target at a speed of Mach 20 (5-7 km/s) while maneuvering with the help of stabilizers. It can make rapid course changes in the atmosphere.  Its signatures are quite different from those of traditional ICBMs. Advanced countermeasure systems increase its ability to penetrate missile defenses.

The Avangard is the first HGV in the world to have gone into production, as well as the first to travel at great altitude in the dense layers of the atmosphere while deftly maneuvering. According to General John Hyten, head of US Strategic Command, “We don't have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us.”

Serial production of Sarmat ICBMs is scheduled to begin in 2021. The UR-100N UTTKn and the Sarmat could carry multiple Avangard glide vehicles.

Other ICBNs, such as the RS-24 Yars and RS-26 Rubezh, can potentially accommodate smaller Avangard-type vehicles should the New START Treaty not be extended.  The tempo of the glide vehicle’s deployment and modernization can be expedited depending on the progress of the talks with the United States on strategic nuclear arms.  Since its trajectory renders the Avangard immune to missile-defense systems, the HGV will become a powerful argument that can be wielded at that round table.   

Long-range, high-precision hypersonic glide vehicles can be used in conventional conflicts to deliver prompt global strikes, including against those enemies who possess the air- and missile-defense capabilities to counter aerial targets, cruise missiles, and smaller- and medium-range ballistic missiles. The conventional Avangard can be used with the same efficiency as nuclear delivery vehicles, thus making escalation to a nuclear phase unnecessary under certain circumstances. The HGV does not violate the New START Treaty or any other international agreement.

The announcement of the plans to field the HGV as early as next year prove that Russia was not bluffing. This game-changing weapon not only exists, but is already in production. This is a slam dunk for the Russian defense industry and for those scholars who managed to solve the problem of how to tolerate immense heat during hypersonic flight. The US will have to play catch-up.

Photo: Russian Defense Ministry

The US is engaged in a hypersonic race with Russia, China, and Israel. Last month the Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin a contract worth up to $480 million to begin designing a hypersonic weapon prototype designated the AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW. In June, that company was awarded a $928 million contract for the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW).

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, “We are going to go fast and leverage the best technology available to get hypersonic capability to the warfighter as soon as possible.” Everything is being done to achieve this goal and, as events have shown, the ways to do it are not limited to merely creating defenses or hypersonic attack systems.

The US does not shy away from using spies to find out more about Russia’s programs. In July, Viktor Kudryavtsev, who was based at the Central Research Institute of Machine Building (TsNIIMash), which is affiliated with the Federal Space Agency, was detained and then imprisoned after being charged with espionage. A commission was formed to comb through activities at the institute, which focuses on the development of spacecraft. Russian media reported that Western security services had obtained information on new classified hypersonic technology being developed by Russian industry.

How successful are America’s efforts to take the lead in hypersonic technology going to be? The US is actually just beginning to get its feet wet in this area, while Russia already has hypersonic weapons in its inventory. At least ten Kinzhal-equipped MiG-31 fighters are operational. Each plane carries one missile, but the Tu-22M3 bomber’s armament suite includes four of them. The bomber-based Kinzhal will be tested soon. It’ll take the US at least 10-12 years to develop an interceptor. And naturally Russia won’t be sitting around idle. It’ll have much more sophisticated hypersonic weapons in its arsenal by that time.

The emergence of hypersonic weapons is a revolution that changes the entire concept of contemporary warfare. Their sheer speed renders any anti-aircraft systems obsolete. The Russian S-500 is the only air-defense system that can intercept targets flying at Mach 5.0- 6.0.

Last year, the new US $15 billion Ford-class aircraft carrier was commissioned with great fanfare, only to become a target for Russia’s Kinzhal hypersonic missiles that were fully operational and ready for combat just a few months after that ceremony took place. This is the arms race the US is already losing despite a defense budget exceeding $760 billion compared to Russia’s $50 billion. Russia spends less than a tenth of what the US does, yet produces weapons the US has no defense against. The Pentagon has been pursuing hypersonic technology for more than a decade, but has failed to achieve its goals.

The US is obviously losing the “cost-efficiency” competition overall. For instance, much has been written and said about the US Prompt Global Strike (PGS) concept, but it is Russia, not America, who was the first to acquire global, rapid, first-strike capability, as its hypersonic weapons can be armed with conventional warheads. Perhaps that’s what is prompting the US to take the arms race into space, as it appears to have lost its technological advantage in other domains and is lagging behind in hypersonic development. It has to play catch-up but there’s no way to know how it’s going to pan out. And added to that is its huge national debt — the heavy burden the US has to shoulder, unlike Russia or China.

The transition phase we are going through, passing from a unipolar global order to a multipolar one, calls for careful observation. It is important to analyze the actions taken by two world powers, China and Russia, in defending and consolidating their sovereignty over the long term. Observing decisions taken by these two countries in recent years, we can discern a twofold strategy. One is economic, the other purely military. In both cases we observe strong cooperation between Moscow and Beijing. The merit of this alliance is paradoxically attributed to the attitude of various US administrations, from George Bush Senior through to Obama. The special relationship between Moscow and Beijing has been forged by a shared experience of Washington’s pressure over the last 25 years. Their shared mission now seems to be to contain the US’s declining imperial power and to shepherd the world from a unipolar world order, with Washington at the center of international relations, to a multipolar world order, with at least three global powers playing a major role in international relations.

The Sino-Russian strategy has shown itself over the last two decades to consist of two parts: economic clout on the one hand, and military strength on the other, the latter to ward off reckless American behavior. Both Eurasian powers have their respective strengths and weaknesses in this regard. If Russia’s economy can hardly be compared to China’s, China plays second fiddle to Russia’s conventional and nuclear deterrents, and is quite some way behind Moscow in terms of hypersonic weapons. The cooperation between Moscow and Beijing aims to synergize their respective strengths.

Economic sovereignty

Both de-dollarization and the development of hypersonic weapons serve the purpose of defending both countries’ sovereignty. Economic sovereignty entails, among other things, elimination of dependence on the US dollar, the abandonment of an international banking system based on the SWIFT payment system, the inclusion and increase in the share of the yuan in the basket of international currencies, the reduction of dollar-denominated public debt, the constant accumulation of gold, and, of course, the elimination of any residual debt with international institutions that are part of the world governance model controlled and manipulated by Washington for its own interests.

Beijing, rather than seeking to replace the central role of the United States, seeks instead to expand its influence in existing organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

From an economic point of view, the international order is very similar to a duopoly rather than anything multipolar, without forgetting that the European Union has an important role to play should it regain some form of sovereignty by freeing itself from dependence on Washington. For Moscow and Beijing, reducing public debt is one of the best ways of achieving strong economic sovereignty. The Russian Federation has reduced its public debt in relation to GDP from 92% at the beginning of 2000 to 12.9% today. The People's Republic of China, over 20 years, has increased its public debt from 20% of GDP to around 48%. Compared to the public debt of European countries (Italy and Greece are over 120%, France 100%, the EU average is 85%), Japan (240%) and the United States (110%), Beijing and Moscow have paid particular attention to keeping their accounts in order. Another important strategy involves the steady accumulation of gold in the reserves of these two countries.

China and Russia are once again trending in an opposite direction to that of the West. Since 2005, Russia and China have accumulated huge amounts of gold, with the clear intention of diversifying their reserves. Both Moscow and Beijing are among the top 10 countries in terms of gold reserves, with an exponential increase over recent years.

Thanks to a limited public debt, huge quantities of gold, and a progressive reduction in the amount of US government bonds held, Moscow and Beijing have embarked on the path of full economic sovereignty, independent of the US dollar system and strongly protecting themselves against any future financial crises. In this respect, the creation of international financial bodies, to be added to those already existing, has the clear purpose of diluting Washington’s institutional influence over the economic affairs of the world.

A decided acceleration in this general direction was made following the exclusion of the Islamic Republic of Iran from the SWIFT system, a ringing alarm bell for the Eurasian duo. Despite their reduction of public debt and significant de-dollarization, both countries remain dependent on, and therefore vulnerable to, an economic and financial system that orbits around Washington and London. The workaround has therefore been to create two alternative bank-payment systems to SWIFT. In the case of Russia, there is the so-called system for the transfer of financial messages (SPFS), and in China, the Cross-Border Inter-Bank Payments System (CIPS). Initially conceived as a fallback in the event of exclusion from the SWIFT system, the SPFS and CIPS projects currently strongly intertwine with the energy agreements reached in 2015. Moscow’s selling of liquid natural gas (LNG) to Beijing takes place through an international payment system based on Chinese renminbi that is immediately converted into gold thanks through the innovative mechanism inaugurated at the Shanghai Gold Exchange. It is not excluded that these operations could not directly occur through the SPFS or CIPS systems in the future. Never mind the petrodollar system that is one of the main problems that China and Russia face when dealing with the international financial system. Efforts to progressively switch from USD to Yuan in paying oil commodities have been in place for years especially by Beijing.

This is an example of how countries like Russia and China have found ways of circumventing the means used to limit their sovereignty. The inclusion of the yuan in the IMF basket of world reserve currencies is associated with the Chinese strategy of supporting the renminbi for export, reducing the share of the US dollar. The strategy adopted by Moscow and Beijing seems to leave Washington unable to stop the protective measures of these two Eurasian powers.

In practice, we are already beginning to see the effects of this alternative economic world order. The sanctions imposed by Washington and her satraps on Moscow and Tehran are easily circumvented by Russia and Iran, with exchanges denominated in currencies other than the dollar (often gold), or simply through bartering.

China and Russia, with strongly diversified economies, with treasuries chock full of gold, and with minimal public debt, leave very little room for international speculators to have an effect on their domestic economies with actions that amount to financial terrorism.

Being able to minimize the impacts and risks of a new financial crisis, or resist the threats and blackmail of the international bodies steered largely by Washington and London, are the key means of being able to chart an economically independent course and ensure national sovereignty.

The military is the definitive guarantor of sovereignty

Without a clear and inviolable military sovereignty, the economic measures implemented can become ineffective in the event of war. For this reason, China and Russia continue to implement nuclear-weapons strategies, the ultimate and definitive deterrent. Moscow is at least equal to Washington in this regard, just as Beijing is at least equal to Washington in the economic field. China and the United States have an interconnected economy, but in the event of total war, Washington would suffer the greatest damage. The transfer to China of almost all American industry has a cost, and in the case of a complete rupture in relations between the two countries, Washington is well aware of its economic vulnerability to China.

In military terms, the strategy for ensuring territorial sovereignty focuses on certain key areas, namely the defense of airspace and maritime borders, and the ability to discourage any nuclear attack by guaranteeing a second-strike capability.

I have written about this in the past, noting that Russia and China have implemented complex and advanced systems in recent years to close the technological gap with the West, Moscow being at least equal to Washington in this regard, and sharing with Beijing some of its most important innovations. The sale of S-400s to China paves the way for a future joint defense of Eurasian airspace. As the process of union and cooperation between the two countries increases, their respective militaries will have the task of discouraging outside attempts to destabilize the region. This is the reason why the United States sees the sale of the S-400 systems (to Turkey, for example) as a red line not to be crossed. The ability to prevent access to one's airspace upsets one of Washington's principal doctrines of war. Without air supremacy and the ability to operate in an uncontested airspace, the American way of war is severely hobbled, it becoming practically impossible for the United States to impose its will militarily.

The second military focus for the Eurasians concerns the defense of their maritime borders, reflecting Moscow and Beijing’s need to keep the US Navy a good distance from their shores. The development of anti-ship weapons has been a priority for Beijing in recent years, as has been the development of islets in the South China Sea to ensure a constant protection of its borders, given the aggressive presence of the US Navy. Beijing aims to create areas of denial for the US military. Initially keeping US forces about 180 miles from their coast, the future intention is to push them even further back, to a distance of about 700 miles, thus obtaining an effective anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) space that prevents any amphibious assault or a maritime blockade of China’s sea lines of communication.

In the same way that de-dollarization represents an economic nuclear weapon in the hands of Russia and China, the development of hypersonic weapons is the linchpin of the Sino-Russian alliance’s ability to defend its territorial sovereignty. I wrote two very detailed articles on these amazing weapons, and so did my colleagues at the Strategic Culture Foundation. It is an exciting topic because for the first time in years, Washington has faced the accomplished fact of its geopolitical adversary’s impressive technological progress. Hypersonic weapons have no present weaknesses, and Moscow is the only country in the world capable of producing and using them. With this new capability, the range of action of the Russian Federation reaches unprecedented levels.

Hypersonic weapons have the crucial advantage of being able to hit mobile or fixed targets with unprecedented speed and power. The ability to obliterate in a matter of minutes a US Navy carrier group or ABM systems in Romania and Poland undoubtedly has a sobering effect on the US military. This is to leave aside the fact that the future S-500 system will have anti-satellite capabilities as well as ballistic-missile defense, and the new SS-28 Sarmat will not be able to be stopped by any current or future ABM system.

With the use of hypersonic weapons (some already operational) and the sophisticated S-400 and S-500 systems, US naval and air power is being strongly challenged. With nuclear weapons, even the Russian first- and second-strike capabilities become impossible for the US to overcome.

It is only a matter of time before hypersonic technology is brought to bear by the People's Republic of China, probably with Moscow’s crucial assistance. The level of mutual trust and cooperation has never been so high between the two countries, and it is natural for them to collaborate militarily and economically, spurred by their common opponent.

Conclusion

The challenge for Russia and China is complex and ongoing. The transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world order is occurring as we speak, enabled by economic and military sovereignty. The challenge for these two Eurasian countries will be to increase their military and economic power, and correct the obvious imbalances in the current world order, without destroying it.

If this strategy proves successful, it will only be natural to start offering other countries the opportunity to hop onto the Eurasian train, enabling those willing to shift their military, economic and diplomatic leaning from the Atlantic to the Eurasian world. Given the momentous significance of India and Pakistan’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as permanent members, it would seem that Moscow and Beijing are on track to eliminating the central role of the United States in international relations in favor of a multilateralism that will benefit everyone.

The pace of the weapon’s development takes one’s breath away. Few people knew about the Avangard’s existence just a few months ago, yet after a series of successful tests the vehicle has already reached the production phase!

No other country is yet able to produce hypersonic weapons — only Russia.

Launched from Russian territory, the Avangard can reach Washington in 15 minutes. No one in the world has a weapon with a speed exceeding Mach 20 or about 15,300 miles per hour (four miles per second). The Avangard also stands out for its ability to withstand extreme heat during the final phase of its trajectory. The use of composite materials enables it to resist temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Celsius. The Russian media reported on July 17 that the Avangard will be upgraded with a heat-resistant titanium casing. It also boasts special protection from lasers, in addition to its unique flight trajectory, with rapid course changes in the atmosphere as well as signatures quite different from traditional intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Advanced countermeasure systems increase its ability to sidestep missile defenses.

The Avangard sits atop an ICBM. After launch, the 5.4 meter-long vehicle travels part of its flight path through the denser layers of the atmosphere at an altitude of several dozen kilometers. The yield of its nuclear warhead ranges from 150 kilotons to 1 megaton of TNT, but in truth the glider needs no warhead at all, as its sheer speed is enough to destroy any target in a kinetic kill.

The Avangard is extremely hard to spot and next to impossible to engage. This makes it an ideal weapon against an enemy’s strategic capabilities and key infrastructure sites. The boost-glide vehicle undeniably extends the Russian armed forces’ capabilities. “We don't have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us,” said General John Hyten, head of US Strategic Command, speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee in March.

The new Burevestnik 9М730 nuclear-powered long-range cruise missile was tested on July 19 as well A coastal missile battery launched it out toward the ocean. This is the start of a long series of tests to reach its initial operational capability. Fired from bombers and submarines, the weapon has an intercontinental range and can be equipped with a nuclear warhead. The INF Treaty does not cover the Burevestnik, as it uses air and sea platforms. The missile boasts almost unlimited range, low visibility and altitude, supersonic speed, and a limited radar cross-section, allowing it to hit targets everywhere in the world on short notice and with little warning.

On July 20, the Defense Ministry released a statement claiming Russia had successfully test-fired the new 40N6Е air-defense missile at the Sary Shagan firing range in Kazakhstan. The interceptor will be used by S-400 and S-500 systems to provide them with long-range (400 km) capability. It has an altitude of 185 km — enough to hit a high-orbit satellite. There are plans for the missile to enter service with the S-400s in late summer. The S-500 Prometey is expected to be added to the arsenal in 2020. That missile can travel at a speed of 5 km per second, flying 185 km in 41 seconds. Once the 40N6Е is operational, it will provide the S-500 with the capability to defend Moscow without nuclear warheads.

The Ministry also released a video showing a test of the Kinzhal air-to-surface missile launched from a Tu-22M3 strategic bomber (not a MiG-31 fighter as before), raising the combined range of the platform and the missile up to 3,000 km.

An array of new weapons has already been tested in July. The Peresvet high-powered laser weapon system and the Poseidon underwater nuclear drone have also been through trials according to reports. The operational tempo of the development and tests fires the imagination. Many countries are working on their own programs to create new generations of weapons, but Russia is the only one to have such systems already up and running. Although its defense budget is only 1/10th the size of the Pentagon’s, Russia has taken the lead in weapons development. Moscow’s defense programs are much more effective, offering more bang for the buck.

Russia is not only an advanced military power to be reckoned with, it’s the world leader in military technology. During the July 16 summit in Helsinki, the US and Russian presidents agreed to revive the dialog on arms control. There has been a widespread belief in the American Congress that Russia needs those negotiations more than the United States and that Washington could get concessions here and there in exchange for its mere consent to talk about the issue. Events have proved otherwise. American self-confidence has taken a hit. The US needs to make progress in arms control even more than Russia.

The United States, China and Russia have in recent years increased their efforts to equip their armed forces with such highly destructive missiles and vehicles seen in the previous article. Putin’s recent speech in Moscow reflects this course of direction by presenting a series of weapons with hypersonic characteristics, as seen with the Avangard and the Dagger.

As confirmed by US Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Dr. Michael Griffin:

We, today, do not have systems that can hold them [hypersonic weapons] at risk…and we do not have defenses against those [hypersonic] systems. Should they choose to deploy them we would be, today, at a disadvantage.

Further confirmation that the US is lagging in this field came from General John Hyten, Commander of US Strategic Command:

“We don't have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us, so our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat.”

The development of hypersonic weapons has been part of the military doctrine that China and Russia have been developing for quite some time, driven by various motivations. For one thing, it is a means of achieving strategic parity with the United States without having to match Washington’s unparallelled spending power. The amount of military hardware possessed by the United States cannot be matched by any other armed force, an obvious result of decades of military expenditure estimated to be in the range of five to 15 times that of its nearest competitors.

For these reasons, the US Navy is able to deploy ten carrier groups, hundreds of aircraft, and engage in thousands of weapon-development programs. Over a number of decades, the US war machine has seen its direct adversaries literally vanish, firstly following the Second World War, and then following the collapse of the Soviet Union. This led in the 1990s to shift in focus from one opposing peer competitors to one dealing with smaller and less sophisticated opponents (Yugoslavia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, international terrorism). Accordingly, less funds were devoted to research in cutting-edge technology for new weapons systems in light of these changed circumstances.

This strategic decision obliged the US military-industrial complex to slow down advanced research and to concentrate more on large-scale sales of new versions of aircraft, tanks, submarines and ships. With exorbitant costs and projects lasting up to two decades, this led to systems that were already outdated by the time they rolled off the production lines. All these problems had little visibility until 2014, when the concept of great-power competition returned with a vengeance, and with it the need for the US to compare its level of firepower with that of its peer competitors.

Forced by circumstances to pursue a different path, China and Russia begun a rationalization of their armed forces from the end of the 1990s, focusing on those areas that would best allow them the ability to defend against the United States’ overwhelming military power. It is no coincidence that Russia has strongly accelerated its missile-defense program by producing such modern systems as Pantsir and S-300/S-400, which allows for a defense against ballistic attacks and stealth aircraft. Countering stealth technology became an urgent imperative, and with the production of the S-400, this challenge has been overcome. With the future S-500, even ICBMs will no longer pose a problem for Russia. In a similar vein, China has strongly accelerated its ICBM program, reaching within a decade the ability to produce a credible deterrent with their equivalent of the Russian SS-18 Satan or the American LGM-30G Minuteman III, possessing a long range and multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRVs) armed with nuclear warheads.

After sealing the skies and achieving a robust nuclear-strategic parity with the United States, Moscow and Beijing begun to focus their attention on the US anti-ballistic-missile (ABM) systems placed along their borders, which also consist of the AEGIS system operated by US naval ships. As Putin warned, this posed an existential threat that compromised Russia and China’s second-strike capability in response to any American nuclear first strike, thereby disrupting the strategic balance inherent in the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD).

For this reason, Putin has since 2007 been warning Russia’s western partners that his country would develop a system to nullify the American ABM system. In the space of a few years, Russia and China have succeeded in this task, testing and entering into production various hypersonic missiles equipped with breakthrough technologies that will strongly benefit the entire scientific sector of these two countries, and against which the US currently has no counter.

Currently there are no defenses against hypersonic attacks; and given the trend of employing ramjet/scramjet engines on new generations of fighter jets, it seems that more and more countries will want to equip themselves with these game-changing systems. Russia, to counter America’s naval superiority, has already entered into service the Zircon anti-ship missile, and already plans an export version with a range of 300 kms.

India and Russia have long been working on the Brahmos, which is yet another type of hypersonic missile that could in the future be launched from the Su-57. Although it is a relatively new technology, hypersonic weapons are already causing more than a headache for many Western military planners, who are only coming to realize just how far they are lagging behind their competitors.

It will take a while for the US to close the hypersonic technological and scientific gap with China and Russia. Lockheed Martin has been awarded a contract to this end. In the meantime, the two Eurasian powerhouses are focusing on their overland integration via the Belt And Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasian Union, a strategic arrangement that denies the US and NATO the ability to easily intervene in an area so far inland, compounded by its inability to control the airspace, and ultimately outnumbered on the ground in any case.

The objective of the Russians and the Chinese is the realization of a highly defended (A2/AD) environment on their coasts and in their skies, which are buttressed by hypersonic weapons. In this way, Russia and China possess the means to disrupt the maritime logistical chain of the US Navy in the case of war. In addition, the A2/AD would be able to stop US power projection, thanks to HGV weapons able to sink aircraft carriers and target specific land-based ABM systems or logistic-chain hubs.

It is a defensive strategy that could potentially halt US Naval power projection as well as its ability to control the skies, two linchpins in the way the US plans to fight its wars. No wonder think-tanks in Washington and four-star generals are starting to sound the alarm on hypersonic weapons.

The last point applies to weapons systems designed to operate at hypersonic speed. Let us start with the simple and pragmatic definition offered by The National Interest of hypersonic vehicles and weapons:

A hypersonic vehicle is one that moves through the atmosphere at a minimum speed of five times that of sound, or Mach 5. A hypersonic cruise missile travels continuously through the air employing a special high-powered engine. A hypersonic glide vehicle [HGV] is launched into space atop a ballistic missile, after which it maneuvers through the upper reaches of the atmosphere until it dives towards its target. Both vehicle types can carry either conventional or nuclear weapons.

As we can see, we are speaking here about technological developments that require money and scientific structures of the highest level to achieve such significant and complex results. The difficulty of implementing systems of such complexity is very well explained by Defense Review:

One of DR’s primary questions about the Russian and Chinese HAA/HGV [Hypersonic Attack Aircraft/Hypersonic Glide Vehicle] tech is whether or not the vehicles generate a plasma field/shield around it that can effectively camouflage the vehicle and/or disrupt an incoming high-powered laser beam, and thus avoid both detection and destruction during its flight. Russian scientists and military aircraft designers/developers have been experimenting with plasma field generation tech since the late 1970’s, so one would think they’re pretty far along by now. Oh, and let’s not forget China’s recent development of a new ultra-thin, lightweight “tunable” UHF microwave radar-absorbing stealth/cloaking material for both manned and unmanned combat aircraft and warships. The hits just seem to keep on coming. Its enough to drive a military defense analyst to drink.

Another area of complexity concerns the communication between the hypersonic flight carrier and and its land-based components, especially if the re-entry vehicle is to be maneuvered remotely.

The fundamental component in performing a hypersonic flight naturally lies in the engines, used to reach speeds higher than Mach 7. There are ongoing studies by all of these countries concerning scramjet engines, essential for the purposes of producing hypersonic weapons. By employing a scramjet engine, and mixing it with other technologies (jet engine or ramjet), one would enable the aircraft and missiles to reach hypersonic speeds, as Beijing’s Power Machinery Research Institute explains:

The turbo-aided rocket-augmented ram/scramjet engine (TRRE), which uses rocket augmentation to aid the transition into the supersonic and hypersonic flight regimes, could be the world's first combined cycle engine to fly in 2025, paving the way for hypersonic -space planes and single-stage space launchers.

DARPA also explains the US point of view on this particular area of research:

Advanced Full Range Engine program (AFRE) which is intended as a reusable hypersonic engine that combines an off-the-shelf jet engine with a dual mode ramjet engine.

War Is Boring definitively clarifies the concept using simpler words:

Turbojet? Ramjet? Scramjet? A turbojet spins a lot of blades to compress and heat incoming air. A ramjet moves so fast that the engine is already hot and compressed enough to ignite the fuel. A scramjet – short for "supersonic combustion ramjet" – is just that, a ramjet where the incoming air is moving at supersonic speeds.

The world of hypersonic weapons is divided into four types: hypersonic cruise missiles, which are surface- or air-launched; hypersonic glide vehicles, brought to high altitude by missiles or jets, re-entering the atmosphere at very high speeds while maneuvering, and able to hit targets with conventional or nuclear bombs; hypersonic attack aircraft, which are vehicles that fly at hypersonic speeds and are capable of taking off and landing, and are therefore useful for surveillance purposes but potentially also for attack; and finally, hypersonic anti-ship missiles.

Let's examine them one by one, listing the current respective stages of research, development and testing of the countries in question.

The first type of hypersonic weapons are the easiest to understand. Simply put, these are cruise missiles with scramjet engines that are capable of accelerating to hypersonic speeds.

Hypersonic cruise Missiles (excluding anti-ship weapons available below) United States (testing phase)

• High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW), based on the Boeing X-51

Russia/India (testing phase)

• BrahMos-II is a hypersonic missile currently under development in India and Russia

The most discussed weapon is the hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). What exactly a HGV is can be explained as follows:

HGVs are unmanned, rocket-launched, maneuverable aircraft that glide and "skip" through the earth's atmosphere at incredibly fast speeds. Compared to conventional ballistic systems, HGV warheads can be much higher, lower altitudes and less-trackable trajectories. The defense systems approach leaves less time to intercept the warhead before it drops its payload.

Glide Weapon/Hypersonic Glide Vehicle:

United States (experimental phase)

• For years, the US has worked on missiles that can be used as a Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) weapon, which is a rocket glider that can reach speeds of 20,921 kilometers per hour, or Mach 20, and then uses a scramjet/ramjet engine to perform maneuvers. Currently, the United States is in the research and development phase of experimenting with an Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) known as the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2)

Russia (entering into service in 2019)

• KH-47M 2 Kinzhal (Dagger). An air-launched, modified Zircon missile launched from a MiG-31.

• Avangard /YU-74.

China (test phase)

• DF-17/DF-ZF/WU-14 – Hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) medium-range system, with a range of between 1,800 and 2,500 kilometers.

As we can see, Russia is almost ready to start mass production of their HGVs, while the US is still in the early phase of experimentation, and China is already undertaking numerous tests.

The most complicated factor with hypersonic technology concerns the Hypersonic Attack Aircraft (HAA), equipped with scramjet engines and able to attain hypersonic speeds, but with the added benefit of being able to take off and land. They are to be unmanned and can be used for surveillance or attack purposes.

Hypersonic Attack Aircraft

United States (unknown phase)

• No known projects, much speculation about tests and scientific research. For example, the US military created in 1996 a program called SHAAFT. Now the US Military is working on a number of prototypes:

• X-51 WaveRide

• NASA's X-43A

• SR-72

Russia (testing phase)

• YU-71 Russia

China (testing phase)

• TENGYUN is a hypersonic aircraft powered during the first stage by a turbine rocket combined cycle (TRCC) engine, which then launches a reusable second-stage rocket to reach the stratosphere.

Because scramjet technology, on which HAA systems rely, is still in its early phases of development, this weapon system is unlikely to see the light of day any time soon.

Anti-ship missiles accelerate to hypersonic speed, allowing them to hit naval groups. As described below, this is because of a scramjet motor that gives such missiles their power:

Anti Ship Missiles are believed to be a maneuvering, winged hypersonic cruise missile with a lift-generating center body. A booster stage with solid-fuel engines accelerates it to supersonic speeds, after which a scramjet motor in the second stage accelerates it to hypersonic speeds.

Anti Ship Hypersonic Missiles:

United States (Currently only possesses sub-sonic missiles)

• AGM-158C LRASM (sub-sonic)

Russia (operational)

• 3M22 Zircon

China (testing phase)

• Modified Dong Feng 21

In the next article I will explain how Russia and China Gained a Strategic Advantage in Hypersonic Technology and why this could be a game changer in future war scenarios.