China, Russia, and Iran have hypersonic missiles. And that changes everything.
This is a transcript, for the video found here:
Bullets:
China is the world leader in the development and deployment of hypersonic missile systems.
Russia and Iran also have successfully built and recently used hypersonic platforms in conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The United States is racing to close the gap, and hopes to build systems for some Army units next year.
But the problem is that no air defense platforms can intercept inbound hypersonic munitions.
This is the reality that confronts career politicians and military officers in Western countries: an armed conflict against any country with hypersonic missiles invites catastrophic losses to ground bases and naval fleet assets.
Those risks will be deemed unacceptably high, and in the event of potential conflict in the Western Pacific or Persian Gulf will likely result in disengagement and withdrawal of American naval forces.
Report:
Good morning.
Hypersonic missiles are a new arms race, and our analysts have known for years that China is already way ahead. Now we know that Russia and Iran also have successful hypersonic missile programs.
And the emphasis in Congress and at the Pentagon, is how we’re going to close this gap, and catch up in and develop our own hypersonic systems. But that is missing the point. The point is that China, Russia, and Iran have hypersonic missiles—lots of them. And that’s all that matters, because they cannot be intercepted.
China is the world leader in the development, testing, and deployment of hypersonic missiles, ahead of Russia, and the United States doesn’t have any. The Air Force and Army hoped to have them in the field a few years ago. But the Air Force changed their minds on what they wanted and started all over, and the US Army’s program has been delayed, by years. In the case of the US Navy, they shut one of their programs down completely—their plans were for a hypersonic anti-ship missile, but halted the program because of cost and industrial base factors. In other words, we don’t have the supply chains or industrial capability to build them, and if we did, they would still cost too much.
These programs though are for offensive hypersonic missiles. The United States and NATO countries don’t have any, and can’t build them even if we knew which ones could work. Meanwhile, China has hundreds of them. We know now that Russia also has them—the Oreshnik is a hypersonic missile which was used for the first time late last year in Ukraine. Russia has just announced that the Oreshnik’s are now in mass production.
Russia has another class of hypersonic missile, called the Kinzhal. We’ve covered this issue before, that the production of missiles of all kinds—ballistics, cruise, hypersonics—are far ahead of Western countries’ production of interceptor missiles. In June, Russia—just one month, and one country—Russia built 195 strategic missiles. This is how the West stacks up. For 2025, 600 interceptors from Lockheed Martin, 30 from Japan. Germany is at zero until late next year. And at least two interceptors are needed to engage a single inbound, so none of this math works at all.
Here's how things stand in Iran. The Iranians have 3 hypersonic missile platforms, which pose big problems for Israel, and for American and allied forces in the Middle East. They enhance Iran’s ability to project power across the region, and shifts the balance of power there. Iran has a credible deterrent against military intervention.
It’s now believed that Iran used hypersonic munitions against Israel last month. Observers noticed the speed and course corrections and concluded that some of them must have been hypersonic. Detection and intercept were impossible, by IDF forces.
And that’s the point. There is no defense against these weapons. The Air Force and the Navy and the Army no doubt wish they were at parity with China and Russia, and the Ukrainians and the Israelis no doubt wish they had hypersonic missiles they could be throwing the other way. But the problem is that nobody can defend against them.
Hypersonic missiles fly at least five times the speed of sound, can change their direction mid-flight, and so just sail right through existing air defenses. And what keeps Pentagon war planners awake at night, is what that all means for American aircraft carriers and Navy ships. The Navy is how the United States projects power. There are defenses against drones, cruise, and some ballistics, but hypersonics are a different story. Reaction time goes to a fraction, compared to everything else, and we’ve learned in Ukraine and Israel that they can’t be intercepted at all.
Those realities lead to only one conclusion: in a conflict against a country with hypersonics, we’re going to lose aircraft carriers. The American fleet in the Western Pacific, most notably, is increasingly at risk. In a war with China, “we should expect to lose some carriers”, just as it would be in going to war with any great power. The question is, are the objectives we’re trying to meet, going to be worth that cost? In the view of the American public and its political leadership.
To ask that question, is to answer it. Any American president who loses a single aircraft carrier, let alone several—he and his party won’t win an election again in forever. Every single officer of flag rank in theater is going to be replaced, same day, and military academies across the entire world will be studying for the next 10 centuries, asking that very same question. These career officers and politicians sent a slow-moving surface fleet with tens of thousands of sailors and Marines, into a kill box, knowing that they were defenseless. So what was the objective exactly, and was it worth it?
So, no, we should not “expect to lose some carriers.” Here’s what will happen instead, if things go too sideways with China.
The geniuses in the Defense Department will look at a map like this one here. The Dongfeng 17 is a hypersonic design that we already know about, and it has an effective range of 2,000 kilometers. That’s the green circle. On a globe it’s a circle. We’ll take that green line, add another hundred kilometers or two to be safe, and tell our fleet commanders that if they have any surface asset get anywhere close to that green line, they’ll be relieved of command, on the spot. Same thing over in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, in the case of Iran. It’s a big problem that these BRICS countries have the supply chains, have the industrial plant, have assembly lines for hypersonic missiles—while the G7 and NATO countries do not have any of that. But it’s a bigger problem that hypersonics can’t be stopped at all, and everybody knows it.
This is Beihai, Guangxi province. Be good.
Resources and links:
Economic Times, Is it a dragon? Iran’s mysterious hypersonic Fattah missile, flying at 15 times the speed of sound, goes viral
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/new-updates/is-it-a-dragon-irans-mysterious-hypersonic-fattah-missile-flying-at-15-times-the-speed-of-sound-goes-viral/articleshow/121944717.cms
Swamped? The Math of Ukraine’s Missile Crisis
https://cepa.org/article/swamped-the-math-of-ukraines-missile-crisis/
Bloomberg, China Leads the US, Russia in Hypersonics, Pentagon Analyst Says
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-12/china-leads-the-us-russia-in-hypersonics-pentagon-analyst-says?sref=fSOf3OlP
Bloomberg, China Leads the World in Hypersonic Technology
China now leads the world in nuclear and conventional hypersonic missiles, U.S. intelligence warns
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/mar/12/china-now-leads-world-nuclear-and-conventional-hyp/
How much of a threat are Chinese hypersonic missiles to US Navy ships and sailors?
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/navy-china-hypersonic-missiles/
Testing Top of Mind as U.S. Lags China In Hypersonics Race
BREAKING: U.S. Hypersonic Programs Using Last Century’s Engineering Techniques
Navy Axes Its Hypersonic Anti-Ship Cruise Missile Plans
https://www.twz.com/air/navy-axes-its-hypersonic-anti-ship-cruise-missile-plans
US Army aiming for next hypersonic missile test in December
The Strategist, A progress report on hypersonics—doubtful US weapons for the Western Pacific
Russia has used its hypersonic Oreshnik missile for the first time. What are its capabilities?
Russia to mass produce hypersonic ballistic missile to compete with US weapons, Putin says
https://nypost.com/2025/06/26/world-news/russia-to-mass-produce-hypersonic-ballistic-missile-putin/
Missiles of China
https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/china/
Those hypersonic missiles are one of the things cooling USA's ambitions to go toe-to-toe in a 'hot' war with Russia, Iran or China.
❤ Love too You & Yours Mr. Walmsley, Stay Healthy, Happy & Clever! 😃