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| Edited By: Vidya Sagar Reddy |Source: DNA |Updated: Sep 04, 2018, 07:10 AM IST
High end defence technologies with strategic implications are coming to the fore as a new geopolitical competition is now emerging between the US, Russia and China. Russian President Vladimir Putin is using his fierce anti-West rhetoric, China using it by testing and the US is doing it by awarding contracts to the defence industry has helped signal their preferred ways in the acquisition of hypersonic weapons.
The ongoing advances in hypersonic weapon technology could be considered a natural continuum in "revolution in military affairs" to overcome the existing air and missile defence shields. However, these are tending to disturb nuclear stability pushing the world back into the Cold War era. This is because of two reasons: the capability of hypersonic weapons to penetrate the missile defence systems and the possibility of them being armed with nuclear weapons. A hypersonic body travels at least five times the speed of sound i.e. Mach 5 or above. Mach 1 is the speed of sound which is about 1,200 km/hr. The scramjet powered platforms such as hypersonic cruise missiles are capable of travelling between Mach 5 and Mach 10 and the ballistic missile boosted hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV) can travel up to Mach 20 speed. The existing re-entry vehicles too can travel at hypersonic speeds but follow a predictable ballistic arc to their target. This makes them susceptible to spy on using terrestrial and space sensors and possible to intercept. However, the HGV glides through the atmosphere and uses suppressed, multi-path trajectories to reach its target, making surveillance and interception hard.
Given this capability, Russia has actually favoured development of hypersonic weapons rather than new ballistic missiles. Since the mission is now to deliver Russia's nuclear weapons which will go through the American missile defence system, the Russian HGV named Avangard has been made nuclear capable. China too is developing its HGV known as DF-17 as its smaller nuclear arsenal is insufficient to maintain a nuclear deterrent against the US with missile defences. It is to be noted that missile defence is not necessarily defensive in nature at the overall strategic level. Even as missile defence now gives the US "freedom from attack," it might also allow "freedom to attack" with the US thinking that it can initiate a nuclear attack and escape retaliation with the help of missile defence. Therefore, Russia and China believe that the hypersonic weapons that render existing US missile defence systems obsolete restores strategic stability.
There are two problems with this theory. The first is the American and Chinese intention to conventionally arm the hypersonic platforms. The US Prompt Global Strike weapon seeks to thwart a nuclear attack from a rogue state pre-emptively using conventional attack and China intends to employ such a weapon for anti-ship role against American aircraft carriers. Discerning the conventionally armed hypersonic weapon from a nuclear armed one is problematic. Moreover, ballistic missiles are used as boosters for both hypersonic weapons and existing re-entry vehicles carrying nuclear warheads. Therefore, the adversary might see ballistic missile launch with a conventional hypersonic weapon and assume the worst - that a nuclear strike has been initiated. The reality of this scenario is corroborated by the dilemma facing the US which considers nuclear weapons as the best response for hypersonic attacks. This would be "proportionate" to a Russian attack but could be "disproportionate" to a Chinese attack assuming it launched a conventional hypersonic attack.
Moreover, the expected American defence against hypersonic attacks is also strategically unstable. The US is contemplating space based interceptors to destroy hypersonic weapons in boost phase by targeting the ballistic missiles, leading to space weaponisation fears akin to President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). Moreover, this defence could also take out ballistic missiles with nuclear weapons and once again impose the initial strategic dilemma on Russia and China whether their weapons are survivable.
Overall, the new action-reaction cycle is inducing strategic instability. The solution for the emerging situation should be based on the same logic that prevented this problem during the Cold War. Both the superpowers obtained nuclear weapons and the nuclear triad ensured that an attack will be responded in kind. The suicidal nature of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) has ensured stability. When missile defences are re-inducing strategic instability, the US and the then Soviet Union decided to limit the number (100) of interceptors and the locations (one) for each party.
The problem now is that this understanding is breached. It is more complex given the adoption of ballistic missiles for conventional roles and possible space weaponisation. The number of actors has increased which is now leading to more potent scenarios to be envisioned. The onus now remains on the international community to act before the hypersonic weapons are commissioned in the next decade. If they do not act, decisively strategic instability will be the outcome for the world.
The author is an Associate Fellow in the Nuclear and Space Policy Initiative of Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.
