China has pulled ahead of Russia in developing ultra-fast hypersonic missiles that can evade traditional defenses and has successfully tested weapons that can hit U.S. bases in the Pacific, a top scientist at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) told Congress last week.
China, Russia, and the U.S. are all developing hypersonic missile systems in a race to be the first to have a definite advantage over other nations, which may not be able to defend against the weapons.
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“Amid the backdrop of strategic competition, the events of the past several years demonstrate in no uncertain terms that our competitors are developing capabilities aimed to hold the U.S. homeland at risk,” Paul Freisthler, the chief scientist at the DIA’s Directorate for Analysis, said during a meeting of the House Armed Services Committee.
The DIA is the Pentagon’s network of spies and intelligence gatherers that support the American military. Freisthler is a scientist whose job is to analyze and assess the threats of the Pentagon’s perceived enemies. “Hypersonic weapons, designed to evade U.S. sensors and defense systems, pose an increasing and complex threat due to the availability of both nuclear and conventional capabilities, challing flight profiles, and maneuverability,” he told Congress.
Hypersonic weapons are typically missiles that fly between 5 and 25 times the speed of sound. The worry is that the weapons are so fast and so maneuverable that they can avoid America’s air defense systems. Russia has used the weapons against Ukraine during its war there and Kyiv has said it has no defense against them.
But Freisthler told Congress that China is farther along developing hypersonics than Russia. “While both China and Russia have conducted numerous successful tests of hypersonic weapons, and have likely fielded operational systems, China is leading Russia in both supporting infrastructure and number of systems,” he said.
According to Freisthler, China has conducted successful tests of hypersonic weapons with estimated ranges of 1,000 miles. He said this would allow China to hit U.S. targets in the western Pacific. “China is pursuing an intercontinental-ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle payload and has conducted several flight tests since 2014, including a test in July 2021 that circumnavigated the globe.”
Freisthler also said that China was developing high-speed engines, or scramjets, which would enhance its current capabilities. Scramjets work by partially fueling themselves by sucking in the air around them and combusting it. The U.S. successfully tested a hypersonic air-breathing weapon in January. The Air Force also recently unveiled a morphing MUTANT missile it hopes will be capable of knocking hypersonics out of the sky.
The U.S. is working on its own hypersonic weapons, but a Congressional Budget Office report published in February said the process is expensive and complicated. This new class of weapon often overheats, will cost billions of dollars to produce, and often moves slower than traditional ballistic missiles.
Despite that, the Pentagon has continued to sound the alarm about Russia and China’s progress with the weapons. “My goal in this hearing is to help Congress and the Nation better understand the threats we face as a nation,” Freisthler said. “DIA aims to support this committee in identifying opportunities to respond to these challenges.”
