The fact that leading countries are engaged in the development of hypersonic weapons has been known for a long time. However, it is now that conversations have left the category of futurology and become reality: in January 2017, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the completion of work on a hypersonic missile. The adjective "hypersonic" means that such a rocket is capable of developing a speed significantly higher than the speed of sound in the atmosphere (ie, more than Mach 4.5 or 5508 km / h).
What is the danger of this new type of weapon for the whole world?
This characteristic makes the task of repelling an attack of a hypersonic missile by any means of anti-missile defense very difficult or even impossible. Most modern air defense systems simply do not have such speed characteristics.
Moreover, hypersound significantly reduces the speed of decision making, which, given the closed command of strategic forces in the first person of the state, reduces the possibility of an effective retaliatory strike.
The guarantee of the protection of the territory of the state, as well as the possibility of inflicting a response, is the missile defense system. It includes detection, warning and anti-missile systems, the task of which is to destroy a threat before it hits a target.
In addition to the well-known missile defense system on the territory of the United States and NATO countries, Russia, China, Japan and Israel have modern systems. Despite the tremendous advances in the development of interceptor missiles, modern technologies are still powerless against hypersonic weapons.
With traditional nuclear ballistic missiles, everything was very clear: the flight trajectory of the ICBM warheads is calculated, after which a command is given for reflection, and several interceptor missiles are concentrated in the specified area. At the same time, the attacked country could launch a nuclear missile in response. Speeds exceeding 5508 km / h simply leave computers and command centers no time to react. This undermines the ability to repel the threat and retaliate: the two main components of any state's nuclear shield.
If earlier the main developments in the field of strategic nuclear weapons concerned an increase in damaging factors and multiple warheads (MIRV), now the main struggle of design minds is over the speed of delivery. The ability to penetrate a missile defense shield will make huge nuclear arsenals unnecessary: they were created on the basis that some of the missiles would be shot down.
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It is the invulnerability of the missile that makes hypersonic weapons so dangerous: there are no ways to protect civilians and strategic objects. Moreover, with the emergence of such a technological advantage, the deterrent factor inherent in traditional nuclear weapons disappears. Combined with hypersonic technology, strategic nuclear weapons will trigger a new arms race and make the world even more unstable.
The idea of the priority of hypersonic armament of strategic nuclear forces is confirmed by the plans of the Ministry of Defense: it is planned to equip the Irkutsk missile division with the latest solid-propellant nuclear missile RS-26 "Rubezh", and the complete rearmament of missile forces with new hypersonic missiles will be completed by 2021.
Missiles with hypersonic engines will make useless the missile defense system deployed in NATO countries: the flight of the Rubezh missile and the promising Sarmat, passing at high speed and along a constantly changing trajectory, cannot be calculated by any super-powerful computer.
In this regard, countries possessing such weapons will be practically sure that they will be able to launch a nuclear strike with hypersonic carriers without a guaranteed retaliatory strike. The enemy just won't have time to do anything … in theory.