How Are China’s Hypersonic Missiles Changing the Future of Warfare?

A Chinese research team claimed that they had simulated a successful attack on a U.S. aircraft carrier group using hypersonic missiles, raising new concerns about the vulnerability of American naval power in the Pacific.

The study, published in May 2023 by scientists from the North China University of Technology, described how 24 hypersonic missiles launched from the Gobi Desert in East Asia could overwhelm and destroy a U.S. carrier strike group that was approaching a disputed island in the South China Sea.

The missiles, which can travel faster than five times the speed of sound and maneuver unpredictably, were deployed in a sophisticated three-wave strategy that aimed to deceive and defeat the carrier’s intensive defense systems.

The researchers said their simulation, which they repeated more than 20 times, showed with complete certainty that China’s new hypersonic missiles could annihilate any surface vessel of U.S. troops, including the formidable USS Gerald Ford, the latest and most advanced aircraft carrier in the world.

The simulation was based on the Dongfeng-27, one of a series of hypersonic missiles that China has been developing and testing in recent years.

The Dongfeng-27 (DF-27), also known as the “aircraft carrier killer,” was first mentioned in the Chinese Ministry of Defense’s military power report in 2021, and is believed to have a range of 5-8,000 kilometers, comparable to intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In February 2023, a leaked Chinese report stated that the missile was designed to enhance China’s ability to deter U.S. targets outside the second island chain, which represents the eastern maritime boundary of the Philippine Sea.

 

Advanced Weapons

Hypersonic missiles are considered one of the most advanced and challenging weapons in modern warfare, as they combine speed, maneuverability, and stealth.

They can evade radar detection and interceptors, as well as avoid obstacles such as mountains or buildings.

They can also change their direction to low-altitude trajectories while maintaining their speed, reducing the time for the enemy’s early warning and response.

China is not the only country pursuing hypersonic technology, but it has made significant progress in this field.

It has recently introduced the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) into service, which can fly at speeds ranging from 5-10 Mach and perform “highly complex maneuvers” to dodge enemy defenses.

The DF-ZF vehicles can theoretically hit targets in South Korea and Japan, including U.S. aircraft carriers and bases in the region.

Russia has also joined the race for hypersonic weapons, a new class of missiles that can fly faster than five times the speed of sound and evade any existing defenses.

Last year, the Kremlin released video footage of a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle, which it claimed was deployed in the Orenburg region in the southern Urals.

The weapon, called Avangard, was first unveiled by President Vladimir Putin in 2018, who described it as “invincible” and compared it to a “meteor” or “fireball.”

He said it could perform sharp maneuvers that would make it “completely immune to interception by any air defense and missile defense weapons.”

Russia has repeatedly said it is developing such weapons to counter U.S. air and missile defenses in the future.

Hypersonic weapons are designed to fly at low altitudes and change direction unpredictably, making them hard to detect and track by conventional sensors and radars.

U.S. defense officials have acknowledged that both ground and space-based sensor networks are inadequate to deal with this threat. Some experts have suggested that space-based sensors could offer a potential solution, but only in the future.

 

Lack of Defense

The emergence of new technology gives an advantage to its innovators, as history has shown. As was the case when, for example, tanks first appeared in World War I, they gave the British a decisive edge, but it did not take long for anti-tank weapons to emerge.

However, the United States is still trailing behind its rivals, China and Russia, in this field. There are several projects underway for the Navy, the Air Force, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is developing a glider vehicle called Falcon HTV-2 that is expected to reach a speed of 22,000 kilometers per hour. But none of these technologies are operational yet.

This means that the United States, or any other country in the world, does not have a deterrent or a robust defense against these missiles.

This poses a dilemma, considering the two main advantages of this type of attack: short flight time, which reduces the time for response, and unpredictable trajectory, which creates uncertainty about the intended target of the weapon.

These factors increase the risk of miscalculation or unintended escalation in case of conflict.

The latter point is especially worrisome, as unintended escalation could result from ambiguity about the objectives of incoming missiles or from the inability to distinguish between a conventional and a hypersonic nuclear weapon due to lack of time.

This means that hypersonic missiles could trigger a nuclear war between two powers, such as China and the United States or Russia and NATO, because of misjudging the nature of the hypersonic strike.

The advent of hypersonic missiles, which can fly faster than the speed of sound and evade conventional defenses, has raised the stakes for a potential nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia.

Experts warn that such weapons could trigger a devastating chain of events if one side mistakes a hypersonic attack for a nuclear strike and retaliates with its own nuclear arsenal.

Unlike ballistic missiles, which follow a predictable trajectory and can be intercepted by anti-missile systems, hypersonic missiles are highly maneuverable and stealthy, making them hard to track and stop.

They also have shorter flight times, leaving less room for diplomatic intervention or de-escalation in a crisis.

The lack of international agreements or norms on the use of hypersonic weapons adds to the uncertainty and risk of miscalculation.

The Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, illustrates how a tense standoff can escalate into a catastrophe without clear communication and verification mechanisms.

Hypersonic missiles are not a silver bullet that can win a war on their own, but they will undoubtedly change the nature of warfare in the coming years. Other countries, such as Australia, Iran, North Korea, South Korea, Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan, are also pursuing programs to develop this type of weapon.

The world is bracing for a new kind of battle where strikes happen in an instant, and no one knows what fate these new missiles will bring us, especially as China’s winds blow from the east.