Hypersonic weapons offer revolutionary war-fighting capabilities, but unsettled modern flaws, operational flaws, and tactical risks may outweigh their potential benefits for the US military.
Significant questions remain about the operation of hypersonic weapons despite the US’s increased efforts to develop them in real-world scenarios, according to a report released this month by the US Congressional Research Service ( CRS ).
The US is still focused on conventionally armed systems, which demand more accuracy and cutting-edge technology than their nuclear-armed counterparts, despite reports that rivals China and Russia have operational hypersonic glide vehicles ( HGV ) in place.
No US fast weapons system has yet reached full operationality, and prototypes are still being evaluated. Criticisms question the usefulness of these deterrents and show their unclear purposes and higher costs.
However, adversaries ‘ progress in hypersonic technologies raise worries about eroding the US’s competitive advantage.
Despite receiving a significant budget increase of US$ 6.9 billion for fast study in FY2025, issues relating to detection, defense, and the viability of wide-area protection against such threats are still unresolved.
Because the weapons are designed to evade regular monitoring and interception frameworks, US missile defense systems are ineffective at repressing supersonic threats.
In response to growing Chinese and Russian threats, analysts disagree on the value of these opportunities, while the US Congress must strike a balance between strengthening fast defense and improving insulting capabilities.
This ambiguity makes the US Department of Defense’s ( DOD ) strategic calculus more complex and may necessitate new arms control measures or risk mitigation strategies.
In a 2024 Military Review post, Andreas Schmidt makes the claim that fast weapons have considerable advantages because of their great speed, agility, and survivability. They shorten the time it takes the enemy’s mechanisms and shorten the chances of intrusion because they can travel at speeds higher than Mach 5.
By operating within the environment at levels between 20 and 60 km, these arms can prevent interceptors while delivering quick and accurate impacts, according to Schmidt.
Joshua Pollack makes reference to US fast weapons tests frequently failing because of extreme development plans and immature technologies in a January 2022 Defense One article.
The DOD’s scramble to quickly design and evaluation these weapons has led to poor design, limited testing and unsatisfactory oversight, Pollack argues. Failed tests involving the AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon ( ARRW) and the US Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon ( LRHW), along with a canceled test in March 2023 due to battery issues, highlight these challenges.
Despite numerous losses, Francis Mahon and Punch Moulton argue in a January 2025 post for 1945 that adopting a” Crash Strong” technique is crucial for US weapon supremacy.
This process involves rapid tests, learning from failures and incremental improvements, and accelerating development and technological development. They claim that the US can quickly adapt and improve its fast functions by regularly testing and accepting failures, keeping it away of its closest-to-peer rivals China and Russia.
Even if the US gets its fast weapons programme up to speed, David Wright and Cameron Tracy notice in an article in the March 2024 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that extraordinary accuracy issues arise as a result of severe infrared stress and communication issues while flying.
According to the record, these problems affect targeting devices and delicate electronics. Hypersonic weapons can also be slowed down by great pull during low-altitude flight, making them easier targets for missile defence techniques.
In a RealClear Defense article, Shawn Rostker contends that the high cost of supersonic weapons, which are one-third more expensive than nuclear weapons with nimble warheads, does not support their military benefits. Cruise weapons or robots may suffice for several expeditions, Rostker says.
At the operational level, the US must integrate hypersonic missiles to counter anti-access/area-denial ( A2/AD ) strategies and ensure command-and-control resilience against adversary interference.
In a split January 2025 RealClear Defense content, Mahon and Moulton mention that hypersonic missiles essentially counter US near-peer adversaries ‘ A2/AD method.
These arms give US air and naval makes greater administrative flexibility by allowing them to negligence and destroy integrated air defense systems from a distance and defeat long-range anti-ship techniques.
However, Heather Penney mentions in a May 2023 Air &, Space Forces Magazine article that US kill chains—the sequence of steps needed to detect and attack targets —are vulnerable due to their dependence on interconnected components.
China has developed means to encrypt sensors or networks and defeat weapons at the end of the attack, potentially causing the death chain to collapse at each step.
The US must assess the necessity of nuclear-armed hypersonic weapons for strategic deterrence against advanced missile defenses while managing the risks of miscalculation and escalation.
Stephen Reny mentions in a 2020 Strategic Studies Quarterly article that the US may consider using nuclear-armed hypersonic weapons to combat advanced ballistic missile defense ( BMD) systems and restore a credible second-strike capability in relation to China and Russia’s modernizing nuclear arsenals in a 2020 Strategic Studies Quarterly article.
Nuclear-armed hypersonic weapons can bypass missile defenses, ensuring credible retaliation and maintaining global deterrence stability.
In a report from September 2021, Shannon Bugos and Kingston Reif contend that hypersonic weapons undermine strategic stability by raising the possibility of escalation and arms races.
Their maneuverability and speed lessen the response time, causing a complication in the assessment of a threat and causing more mistakes to be made. They present dangers because of the ambiguity of the target and weapon, which makes attacks on dual-use facilities mistaken for nuclear strikes.
America’s stalling US hypersonic weapons program is ultimately a race against failure—one where time, technology and strategy intersect. The US’s ability to overcome its obstacles and match the pace of its adversaries ‘ will determine how well it will impose itself in the military.
More than an arms race, hypersonic weapon competition defines today’s geopolitical contest, and the US must decide whether to accelerate, recalibrate or rethink its approach, arguably before it is too late.