Feeling hypersonic: why we should be worried about China’s new missile
Do believe the hyper. China and Russia are sprinting out in front, the US is running to catch up, while Japan, India, Australia, France, Germany, Israel, Iran, and South Korea are all limbering up on the hypersonic missile racetrack.
These Mach fantastic missiles are back in the news after the FT broke the story that China successfully tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. It entered space, orbited the globe, re-entered the atmosphere, and landed within 20 miles of its target. And it did it very, very quickly.
Basics: Hypersonic missiles can fly at between Mach 5 and Mach 20. Ordinary intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) also fly faster than the speed of sound, but they arc through space. This means seconds after a launch is detected the trajectory can be worked out, the target identified, and missile defence systems readied.
The first line of the American system are satellites with infrared sensors pointed at known ICBM locations, and high-resolution radars based in Japan and on US Navy ships, there are others in the Arctic. But hypersonic missiles fly low in the atmosphere and can travel in straight lines and manoeuvre, changing direction suddenly, a mile a second even at high speed. So, the target is not known until the missile suddenly plunges downwards. One of the current US missile defence systems (Aegis) requires roughly 10 seconds to react to a ballistic missile. In that time, a hypersonic missile could have flown 20 miles and the intercepting missile could not fly fast enough to catch up. Glue a nuclear weapon to the front of a hypersonic missile and Houston, or Washington, has a very serious problem.
The two nations with hypersonic capability, China and Russia, already have the means to reach the US with nuclear weapons via ICBMs but being able to do so with hypersonic missiles has implications. The Americans have been pursuing their own hypersonic project for almost 20 years and the budget the Pentagon wants for hypersonic R&D next year is just south of $4 billion. Next year is also when Moscow says its submariner-launched Mach 6 (possibly more) Zircon missile comes into service with the Russian navy. So, the US has a choice: pump even more money into their own versions or take the risk of slower development and spend the money elsewhere. In a way, either could be win/win for Moscow and Beijing. Playing catch up on both missile and missile defence diverts American funds from the rest of the military, while not funding hypersonic leaves Russia and China with an advantage.
The doctrine that Mutually Assured Destruction helps prevent nuclear war still applies, even if the destruction arrives more quickly, but the technological leap of hypersonic does weaken it. The short flight times, unpredictability of target, and uncertainty about whether or not the missile is carrying a nuclear warhead, all heighten the risks of unintended escalation. In Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 masterpiece Dr Strangelove the Russian and American presidents have time to talk to each other on the phone even as the bombers are in the air. It doesn’t help that the Russian president is drunk even if drunk or sober neither leader can prevent Armageddon, but the point about the time they take to try is valid. In the coming years, with multiple countries armed with hypersonic missiles, and multiple tensions between them, one or more may respond with nuclear weapons before even knowing what the target is.
Another potential consequence concerns conventional warfare and deterrence. If China is armed with hypersonic weapons, does it encourage it to invade Taiwan on the grounds that the Americans are now less likely to get involved? A similar question can be asked about Russian intentions in eastern Europe and a European response.
For the record, China denies the FT story. This week Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said: “This was not a missile it was a spacecraft”. Beijing’s story was that the launch was to test a reusable space vehicle: “This is of great significance for reducing the cost of spacecraft use”. Going right round the planet seems an odd way of saving money. Elon Musk manages to test reusable craft without going to such lengths, but then, as far as we know, he’s not involved in the 21st century’s arms race.