No Time To Go Wobbly On Hypersonics

Artist’s concept of Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapons Concept (HAWC) missile. (File)

The push towards hypersonic military technologies has never been as pronounced as it is now. After years of being on the fringe, the capability is now receiving major pushes from the Pentagon, the US Congress — and potential adversary nations. Just as the weapons have gone mainstream, however, there is a seed of skepticism forming among Air Force leadership. In this op-ed, Mark Lewis and Richard P. Hallion argue that hypersonics need to keep doing what they are designed to do: move fast.

In August 1991, with an international coalition gathering to expel Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait facing all manner of uncertainties and challenges, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s famed “Iron Lady,” had some words of advice for President George H. W. Bush. It was, she cautioned, “no time to go wobbly.”

America’s national defense leadership should take her words to heart regarding the state of military hypersonics — dealing with weapons and systems that operate in excess of five times the speed of sound. For decades viewed with skepticism by certain elements of the weapons development community, hypersonics over the last decade have enjoyed a surprising turnaround from a state of both malignant and benign neglect and to one of energetic recovery.

As the General Accounting Office reported in March, there are more than 70 hypersonics programs across the DoD, including major development programs in the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and a newly-created Joint Hypersonics Technology Office, that among other successful efforts is sponsoring a $100M consortium of 70 major universities working on our most challenging problems. The most recent Pentagon budget allocates tens of billions of dollars for research, development, testing, and ultimately fielding of hypersonic systems at scale. Of note, these funding levels were suggested by the previous administration and endorsed by the current one, showing that support for hypersonics is not only growing but bipartisan as well. Congress has even created a Congressional Hypersonics Caucus to support this technology.

So it’s surprising, then, that recent public statements by senior Defense Department civilian and military leaders have questioned whether hypersonic weaponization should be slowed, tempered by more reflection and study. Critics question the need for these systems, the anticipated roles they might fulfill, the development and flight-testing pace of individual programs, and even whether hypersonics should be controlled by international arms agreements, lest they destabilize the post-Cold War strategic balance.

It’s worth recalling just why the United States is now vigorously pursuing hypersonic weaponization with a sense of urgency. A clue: it isn’t because hypersonic zealots just “got their way.” Rather it’s because of extraordinarily energetic (even alarming) foreign developments that—covering the gamut from maneuvering reentry systems through boost-glide weapons, and on to air-breathing scramjet cruisers—have dramatically reshaped the global threat environments in which American and allied forces might have to operate.

And beyond merely responding to threats, there has also been a collective acknowledgement, grounded in rigorous modeling and analysis, that maneuvering hypersonic weapons will be our best option for penetrating peer competitors’ future air defenses.

Despite on and off R&D efforts from organizations such as the Air Force Research Laboratory, it took years for hypersonic advocates to get a seat at the table where serious weapons procurement happens, with complacent chuckles only recently bowing to the reality and pace of foreign developments, including successful flight tests. We were reminded yet again of this reality as startling reports emerged last week of a Chinese flight test of an apparent hypersonic weapon concept that could be delivered from orbit.

Support for hypersonic technology has been building for a long time. As early as 2000, an Air Force Scientific Advisory Board study highlighted the practicality and desirability of hypersonic boost-glide and air-breathing (scramjet) missiles, and in 2006 a National Academies panel on future Air Force needs concluded that the potential value of hypersonic missiles for long-range strike warranted increased “investment in hypersonic missile propulsion, materials technologies, and sensor and seeker apertures. In 2014, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Dimitry Rogozin compared the strategic military significance of hypersonic missiles to the advent of the atomic bomb.

In 2016, following evidence of aggressive foreign research and development, a highly influential National Academies study panel (including the authors of this editorial) found that hypersonic maneuvering missiles posed profound defense challenges beyond any one “silver bullet” solution, concluding soberly that “the best defense, perhaps the only defense, against an opponent’s high-speed maneuvering weapon may be another high-speed maneuvering weapon.” A 2017 joint Defense Intelligence Ballistic Missile Analysis Committee/National Air and Space Intelligence Center survey likewise acknowledged the “emerging threat” of hypersonic glide vehicles.

Nor were American analysts the only ones concerned: a 2017 study by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) highlighted the particular threat posed by Russia’s new 3K-22 and 3M-33 Tsirkon hypersonic precision strike system, and in 2021, Britain’s prestigious Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies (RUSI) emphasized the challenges of confronting hypersonic missiles like the Tsirkon, particularly if launched in mass salvos together with other air weapons including decoys and UAVs.

So the threat is real, and it is more than just Russia and China, and time is short.

Given this, why are some critics advocating a slow-down? One major argument that popped up recently, particularly from Air Force leadership, is that there are no defined roles for hypersonic weapons in current military planning.

That’s a puzzling argument, given repeated studies have found that the speed and inherent range of hypersonic precision missiles makes them perfect candidates for time-critical targets, shattering effective command and control, suppression of enemy air defenses, strategic attack, airfield denial, maritime control, etc.—in short, the very kind of missions already performed, albeit much more slowly, with the weapons of the present. The question shouldn’t be “why do we want this,” but rather, “why wouldn’t we want this?”

Indeed, at the Air Force Association’s recent Air, Space, and Cyber Conference, Gen. Mark Kelly, the chief of Air Combat Command, bemoaned the lack of long-range missiles, noting that even modern stealth aircraft risk being found, tracked, and targeted because they have to approach so close to their targets to use their missiles. Well, guess what: moving at a mile-a-second or more, a hypersonic air-to-air or air-to-surface missile covers a great deal of distance very quickly. Problem solved.

It is encouraging that, among other developments, the Senate Armed Services Committee, in its FY22 National Defense Authorization Act, has strongly supported hypersonics, including investments in hypersonic RDT&E and prototyping. (Particularly notable is support for doing high-speed testing, which has lagged in needed attention since the Cold War.) Investing in the technology now is a must; as the most recent Chinese test has shown, there is not a moment to be lost.

It would be sad if, at this moment when the United States is trying to catch-up in hypersonics — and yes, we are playing global catch-up — that we powered back and allowed the lead other nations are enjoying to grow greater still. As the lady said: it’s no time to go wobbly.

Dr. Mark J. Lewis is the Executive Director of National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies Institute (NDIA ETI). Prior to this position, Dr. Lewis was the Director of Defense Research & Engineering in the Department of Defense, overseeing technology modernization for all Services and DoD Agencies, as well as the acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research & Engineering.

Dr. Richard P Hallion is a specialist in the evolution of high-speed flight who has been a Curator of the National Air and Space Museum, a visiting professor at the US Army War College, chief historian of the US Air Force, an advisor to the Science and Technology Policy Institute of the Institute for Defense Analyses, and a founding trustee of Florida Polytechnic University.