Hypersonic missiles are game-changers. The U.S. military is pouring resources into the superfast weapons but has struggled to develop them.
By Sharon Weinberger
Nov. 1, 2023
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The weapon Beijing launched over the South China Sea traveled at speeds of more than 15,000 miles an hour as it circled the globe. Flying at least 20 times the speed of sound, it could reach anywhere on earth in less than an hour.
A display of military vehicles carrying a DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile and a DF-17 hypersonic missile at an exhibition in Beijing in October 2022. Photo: Florence Lo/Reuters
The summer 2021 test flight ended with the missile striking near a target in China, but it sent shock waves through Washington.
Vehicles carried hypersonic missiles during a military parade in Beijing in 2019. Photo: Thomas Peter/Reuters
Peter Champelli/The Wall Street Journal
The approximate speed and trajectory, in pink, of a hypersonic glide vehicle weapon, compared with a non-hypersonic cruise missile and a ballistic missile.
The approximate speed and trajectory, in pink, of a hypersonic glide vehicle weapon, compared with a non-hypersonic cruise missile and a ballistic missile.
For more than 60 years, the U.S. has invested billions of dollars in dozens of programs to develop its own version of the technology. Those efforts have either ended in failure or been canceled before having a chance to succeed.
Washington, having spent recent decades focusing on fights with terrorists and insurgencies, is once again pouring resources into hypersonics.
Chinese military vehicles carrying the DF-17 hypersonic ballistic missile in a parade in Beijing in 2019. Photo: Xinhua/EPA/Shutterstock
The Pentagon’s 2023 budget includes more than $5 billion for the weapons. The U.S. is also tapping the private sector—including Silicon Valley venture capitalists—to help develop them to a degree rarely attempted in the past.
The Stratolaunch Roc, the world's largest operating aircraft, during a flight in Mojave, Calif. It will soon be used to launch hypersonic test vehicles. Photo: Philip Cheung for The Wall Street Journal
The spending is part of America’s struggle to re-establish dominance in key military technologies as it enters a new era of great-power competition.
A fighter jet takes off at a training exercise at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. Photo: Roger Kisby for The Wall Street Journal
The U.S. is straining to keep up with China in an array of military technologies, ranging from artificial intelligence to biotechnology.
Photo: Roman Pilipey/EPA/Shutterstock
Moscow’s work on hypersonics is also a concern for the Pentagon, even if Russia’s weapons are mostly based on Cold War research and not as sophisticated as those China is now developing.
Photo: Russian Defense Ministry/AP
Moscow has developed weapons that can threaten NATO forces in Europe, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted Avangard, a hypersonic weapon that can reach the U.S.
An exposition showing the Avangard hypersonic missile system in Moscow. Photo: Reuters
The Pentagon’s problems with developing hypersonics run up and down the decision chain, from failed flight tests and inadequate testing infrastructure to the lack of a clear, overarching plan for fielding the weapons. The situation is raising alarms among some former officials.
Hypersonics, in the hands of powers such as China or Russia, have the potential to alter the strategic balance that has long undergirded U.S. defense policy.
A Russian Iskander-K missile launches during a training. Photo: Russian Defense Ministry/AFP/Getty
While the U.S. military may still be the most powerful in the world, hypersonic missiles could help an adversary challenge that superiority by evading U.S. early warning systems designed to detect attacks on North America, or striking U.S. naval assets, including aircraft carriers, as well as key bases abroad.
Even the most advanced U.S. warship in the South China Sea could be defenseless against a hypersonic attack.
A Chinese Navy J-11 fighter jet is recorded flying close to a U.S. Air Force RC-135 aircraft in international airspace over the South China Sea, according to the U.S. military, in a still image from video taken December 21, 2022. Photo: U.S. Indo-Pacific Command/Reuters
Over the past decade, China has conducted hundreds of flight tests of this new generation of weapons.
Photo: Jason Lee/Reuters
Beijing already has hypersonic weapons ready to deploy in its arsenal, as does Moscow, which has used them against Ukraine.
Remnants of a Kh-47 Kinzhal Russian hypersonic missile warhead shot down by Ukraine’s military. Photo: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
Pentagon and intelligence officials haven’t released estimates of how many they think China and Russia have.
Photo: Eva Hambach/AFP/Getty
The U.S., which has conducted just a fraction of the number of China’s flight tests, has yet to deploy any actual hypersonic missiles.
Stratolaunch’s aircraft at the Mojave Air & Space Port in October 2022. Photo: Philip Cheung for The Wall Street Journal
Produced by
Siemond Chan
Photo Editor:
Ariel Zambelich
Cover photo:
Philip Cheung
for The Wall Street Journal
