March 2025
inBrief: The hypersonic imperative Capabilities that are lethal, survivable, and responsive from long range, will be essential for the United States to achieve battlefield dominance in the highly contested battle space anticipated in any future conflict with major power adversaries. This is why the Department of Defense and Congress must prioritize the accelerated fielding of hypersonic capabilities.
The US ability to dominate the current and near future battlefield has been significantly degraded by the current, and projected, asymmetry in hypersonic weapons. — Mike White,
former principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense, Research and Engineering
ATLANTIC COUNCIL
Toplines •
China and Russia have seized an advantage in hypersonic capabilities, challenging the security of the US homeland and its forward bases, ultimately undermining deterrence of great-power war and eroding US assurance of its allies and partners.
•
Hypersonic vehicles fly and maneuver at greater than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5) and often much faster. Long-range hypersonic weapons offer the potential to strike fleeting targets deep within an adversary nation and avoid ever-more-sophisticated air and missile defenses.
•
The US Department of Defense and Congress must make the acceleration of current-generation hypersonic weapon and counter-hypersonic defense programs a national priority while investing in the next generation of affordable capabilities, including the underlying workforce, T&E, S&T, the supply chain, and the broader industrial base.
What are hypersonic capabilities? As a general rule, hypersonic vehicles fly a significant portion of their trajectory at speeds in excess of five times the speed of sound (Mach 5, or about 3400 miles per hour (mph) at altitude). Note that many hypersonic vehicles fly at speeds well above Mach 5. The manned X-15 experimental hypersonic aircraft flew at just below Mach 7. Ballistic missiles reenter Earth’s atmosphere between Mach 10 and Mach 20, depending on their range. The space shuttles reentered from Earth orbit around Mach 25.
1
Urgent investment needed to address unacceptable asymmetry There has been a recent focus on the development of long-range, hypersonic weapons that maneuver high within the atmosphere leveraging speed, a survivable altitude corridor, and lethality to change the dynamic on the battlefield. Unfortunately, potential US adversaries have seized the initiative to develop, field, and use this new class of weapons to help create an asymmetry that challenges US and allied battlefield dominance. The United States must not let that asymmetry persist.