Hypersonic Missiles Arm Race

Hypersonic missiles are strange. They are like fighter jets without pilots but they are not for flights. They are to hit the targets. They travel at a marvelous speed. They can travel at a minimum speed of five times faster than the speed of sound. It is a speed that covers a distance of around 4000 miles per hour. This is a great speed. At this speed, one can cover the distance between Beijing and New York within 100 minutes. There are some hypersonic missiles that can travel twenty times faster than the speed of sound which one can imagine how faster they are and they can hit anything anywhere in the world. Hypersonic missiles are not a new invention. The United States, Russia, and China have been working on hypersonic missile technology for years to make them more reliable, faster, and lethal. The advanced technology of hypersonic missiles has greatly changed the course of wars. Today's wars are totally different. Machines have taken the place of armies. Now it is the era of machines. Lethal machines decide the fate of wars. Normal ballistic missiles can also travel at the speed of hypersonic missiles but the main difference between them is that ordinary ballistic missiles can not change their course. It is course is fixed. It is target is fixed but this is not the case with hypersonic missiles. They can change the course as well as the target. It is not about the speed but it is about the maneuverability over a long distance across the globe.

Hypersonic missiles are of mainly three types i.e. hypersonic cruise missiles, guided ballistic missiles, and boost-glide missiles. Guided ballistic missiles are the normal kind of ballistic missiles. They go high in space and re-enter the atmosphere to travel long distances for hitting the targets. The rockets propelled the Boost glide missiles to travel at a great speed like other missiles but shortly after launch, they reenter the atmosphere of the earth for the nominated targets. They can stay in the air for thousands of miles without using their engines as they rely on aerodynamic lift. Hypersonic cruise missiles use scramjet engines for power thought-out their journey keeping them traveling at amazing great speed over long ranges. A hypersonic cruise missile burns air at supersonic speed as the missile itself forces air into its engine.

Hypersonic cruise missiles are still undergoing great research. The United States, Russia, and China are carrying out extensive research on them. But Russia is the only country in the world that seems to be close to installing its Zarkov, a short-range missile of around 300 miles.

Now let's see which country has what kinds of missiles. So, firstly we are going to look at Russia. Russia's most advanced hypersonic missile is the Avangard which is a long-range boost-glide missile that can fly twenty times faster than the speed of sound. Russia has designed it to carry nuclear warheads against the United States of America. Russia's Kinzhal is a guided ballistic missile launched from aircraft but travels at a lesser speed than Avangard over a range of one thousand and two hundred miles with both nuclear as well as conventional warheads.

China has several guided missiles. DF-26 is the longest-range missile of China that can travel two thousand and five hundred miles and reenters the atmosphere at a speed ten times faster than the speed of sound. It can deliver both types of warheads, nuclear and conventional. China's DF-17 is a new kind of boost-glide missile that was exhibited in a military parade in October 2019 having a range of about thousand and five hundred miles. It has the capability to carry nuclear and conventional warheads.

The United States of America has been trying to prove its competence in carrying out prompt conventional strikes for the last two decades. To establish this, the United States of America has turned its efforts towards developing boost-glide missiles that can deliver non-nuclear warheads over a distance of many thousands of miles ensuring the accuracy and effectiveness of such long-range missiles. The United States of America has achieved noteworthy progress. It successfully tested a hypersonic glider missile of over two thousand and four hundred miles in November 2011. But the United States of America has not yet deployed any such maneuverable hypersonic missile.

But it doesn't mean that the United States of America is behind in this lethal arms race. Its program of developing such hypersonic cruise missiles is more complex and sophisticated than Russia and China. The US is currently focusing on the development of a short-range missile system as it is technically less demanding than the long-range missile system and it is determined to deploy the hypersonic missile system as quickly as possible. 

In fact, these three big powers are leading the world in this lethal arms race. They are the main competitors and where they will take the world, no one knows. The world is at the edge of destruction. Most countries are spending huge amounts of their wealth on making lethal weapons of huge destruction. Humanity is suffering due to poverty, diseases, and hunger. Humanity is at risk but the world is filling its arsenals with lethal weapons.