Hypersonic WeaponsHypersonic Missiles Are Fueling Fears of a New Superpower Arms Race

By Christoph Bluth

Published 28 November 2021

Hypersonic missiles are often defined as missiles launched by a rocket into Earth’s upper atmosphere at speeds of Mach 5 and above (five times the speed of sound or 6,174 kilometers (3,836 miles) per hour), before maneuvering towards a target. Several countries already have intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that travel just as fast – or even faster – but these cannot change trajectory once launched. The new generation of hypersonic missiles are equipped with glide vehicles that approach their targets at high speed in the final phase of flight.

According to media reports from Washington, the Biden administration wants to engage China in talks on arms control and non-proliferation. The US president, Joe Biden, and Chinese leader, Xi Jinping discussed the issue during their recent virtual summit.

The issue has not previously been high on the agenda in talks between the two countries, but China’s recent test of a hypersonic missile that can attack multiple targets in flight have lent a new urgency to US defense thinking.

At the same time, Russia’s recent test of a Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile from a submarine in the north of the country has focused US military planners on the prospect of America falling behind its two superpower rivals in what some are seeing as a new arms race.

New Generation of Missiles?
Hypersonic missiles are often defined as missiles launched by a rocket into Earth’s upper atmosphere at speeds of Mach 5 and above (five times the speed of sound or 6,174 kilometers (3,836 miles) per hour), before maneuvering towards a target. Several countries already have intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that travel just as fast – or even faster – but these cannot change trajectory once launched. The new generation of hypersonic missiles are equipped with glide vehicles that approach their targets at high speed in the final phase of flight.

Russian president Vladimir Putin announced as long ago as 2007 that his country had developed a completely new technology for ballistic missiles, which he referred to as “hypersonic missiles”. And from 2015, Russia has been testing new glide vehicles, called Avantgard, that are mounted on intercontinental missiles and can reach speeds of 7,000 km/h when approaching their targets. Putin said this was a means to counter US missile defense systems, developed after the withdrawal by the Bush administration from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001.

The latest Chinese tests involved not only a hypersonic glide vehicle, but possibly a “fractional orbital bombardment system” that enables the release of various payloads in flight prior to entering the atmosphere, enabling multiple targets to be reached that can be very far apart from each other.

If successful, this would give China a new capability to approach the US mainland from the south. That matters, because American early-warning systems and missiles defenses are primarily oriented towards tracking ballistic missiles entering the atmosphere from a northerly direction, based on the expected path of Russian ICBMs.