Hypersonic Missiles Arms Race: What You Need to Know

Hypersonic missiles can travel faster than five times the speed of sound. Russia and China have invested heavily in different types of hypersonic missiles capable of carrying both nuclear and conventional warheads. The United States has also invested in its hypersonic missile technology. What are hypersonic weapons capable of, and what dangers do they pose to international stability? Is another arms race under way?



About James Acton
Acton holds the Jessica T. Mathews Chair and is co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The Carnegie Endowment advances international peace by leveraging its global network to shape debates and provide decisionmakers with independent insights and innovative ideas on the most consequential global threats and opportunities.


#HypersonicMissile #ArmsRace #Russia #Nukes #China#foreignpolicy #CarnegieEndowment

[pctong]

Hypersonic weapon is when both your wife and mother in law yelling at you at the same time when you try to watch a football game on TV.

[robertoguerra]

When can I get pizza delivered from Italy in 30 minutes?

[tenzin]

Unfortunately this reminds me of someone who said “We as a human knows more of war and killing than peace and living…” We struggle to say hi to our next neighbors but have missiles to kill unknown families in 10, 000kms away.

[godwinyuson]

Just checking this one because of Russia and Ukraine war.

[Vasileski]

Me: Guys why can't we all just get along and build a better world...
Great Powers: HYPERSONIC MISSILE GO WHOOSH!!!

[alexwitek]

I didn't know Beijing was in Russia thanks for the cool map at 0:16

[stefangabor]

I now understand why everyone is rushing to deploy satellites in space. How else would you guide your missiles? However, the one who wins would be the one with the best hackers.

[georgebushaway]

Instead of reaching for the stars and creating spaceships and Stellaris, they want the world to burn...

[orome]

So glad you had the not drawn to scale warning. You had me worried there for a minute.

[DettmersNate]

Imagine this for a second, you’re an alien on some other planet and you see the earth testing all these missiles from there….

[DJ_BUCKNAKED]

The way powerful men measure their manhood without actually whipping them out.

[gogubordel]

Finally someone recognizing that it's basic physics that's speculated, like gravity on descent and thrust by mini explosions touching atmosphere and lack of friction on ascent -possibly shutting down fuel outside those "touches" to save it, these vertical waves being intended only to continuously accelerate and not to fool chasers, this being only a side effect. The 10 Mach + speeds are achieved on the last portion of trajectory only -when they "disappear" from radar. Indeed once accurately established in a powerful computer on ground, the optimal trajectory depending on the distance to the target, a fixed table of such trajectories is loaded with a simple interpolation logic, so once the target coordinates are loaded the optimal trajectory is easily established by interpolating existing data and some random but fixed zigzag added at the end. To get this data however some homework must be done: correct physical phenomena and parameters introduced in the flight simulator software -on ground, by many corrective experiments done with much cheaper 10/20 times smaller rockets, some AI and numeric algebra algorithms used for faster results. Even Putin admitted that any country having cruise/ballistic missiles can soon have it, like Pakistan or Egypt. It will be very sad to realize later that war in Ukraine lasted more than 6-9 months, while most countries having cruise/ballistic missiles could have had it in 2-3 months sparing a million civil lives, as now Putin has the upper hand and tries to take the maximum profit while still can.

[Internetbutthurt]

I realize this is over 12 months old but the Russians have had hypersonic weapons DEPLOYED in military units for at least a year. They have also finished testing a defense system, S500, capable of defending against hypersonic missiles.

[blackly]

"So is the untied states falling behind? Well not really."
Translation*
"Yes. A little"

[ButchersNailsEnjoyer]

Man i love being caught in the middle of arms races where the ones who make and launch the weapons are the only ones who are protected from these weapons

[Raydude]

Me searching hypersonic missile during the Ukraine-Russia war

[tooey]

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

-Albert Einstein

[eee]

We should have a peaceful world free of such weapons

[MrDlt]

Thank God they displayed 'Not drawn to scale' I was concerned someone had hundreds of guided missiles; each the general size of Britain. 🙄

[gregchristianson]

I think it's great that the world gets along so well.