New U.S. weapons have China worried

by Michael Richardson

When the United States carried out a successful test recently of an advanced high-speed, long-range weapon ostensibly designed to reduce U.S. reliance on nuclear arms in a crisis, it set alarm bells ringing in China. Far from reassuring Beijing, the May 1 test of the sleek hypersonic unmanned aircraft, known as the X-51A WaveRider, has added to China’s concerns that U.S. superiority in conventional weapons may make nuclear conflict more, not less, likely.


The WaveRider flew for 3½ minutes on scramjet power, the longest such flight in history. At that speed, a flight from New York to Los Angeles could take less than 39 minutes.

While scramjet propulsion may one day be used in civil aviation and for outer space flight, the more immediate application is military. The U.S. Air Force, Army and the Pentagon’s research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), have been testing various super-fast unmanned aircraft over the past few years as part of a futuristic program called Prompt Global Strike (PGS).

DARPA has been testing an experimental arrowhead-shaped plane, the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2). It is an unmanned, rocket-launched, maneuverable craft that glides through Earth’s atmosphere at incredibly fast speeds.

The HTV-2 is designed to travel at 20 times the speed of sound, or Mach 20. This would cut the flying time between New York and Los Angeles to under 12 minutes, 22 times faster than today’s commercial airliners. DARPA says that the ultimate goal is “a capability that can reach anywhere in the world in less than an hour.”

The last flight test of the HTV-2 in April 2012 was only a partial success. After being released from its protective cover atop the rocket, it nose-dived back toward Earth, leveled out and glided above the Pacific at just over 20,900 kph for about nine minutes before the searing speed and heat caused parts of its carbon composite skin to peel away.

Initiated nearly a decade ago, after al-Qaida’s terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden eluded capture in Afghanistan, these PGS tests are intended to develop a weapon armed with a nonnuclear high explosive warhead that could strike targets anywhere in the world in an hour or less.

The U.S. Quadrennial Defense Review Report in 2006 said that the PGS weapons would hit “fixed, hard and deeply buried, mobile and re-locatable targets.” At present, the only way the U.S. could with any certainty destroy such targets in an hour or less would be to use submarine-launched long-range ballistic missiles or U.S.-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Like the PGS weapons now being tested, these rocket-assisted weapons travel at hypersonic speeds. However, they are all armed with nuclear warheads. So the result of a strike could be devastating, globally destabilizing, and out of all proportion to the terrorist or other threat.

Among early PGS plans were proposals to retrofit a small number of existing U.S. submarine-launched missiles or land-based ICBMs with conventional warheads. But Congress in Washington refused to fund these plans because of concerns that Russia and other nuclear powers would be unable to distinguish between a PGS launch and nuclear weapons launch, raising the risk of an unintended nuclear missile exchange.

Since then, the list of potential PGS targets has grown as terrorist groups and missile-armed states hostile or potentially hostile to the U.S. have increased in number.

A conference hosted by the U.S. Strategic Command last August discussed instances in which the White House might some day order a nonnuclear rapid strike. They included a sudden move by China toward destroying a critical U.S. or allied communication satellite by rocket or laser, a danger accentuated by what U.S. defense officials say was a high-altitude Chinese anti-satellite test on May 13, the third reported since 2007.

They also included a North Korean ballistic missile being readied for launch against U.S. allies Japan or South Korea, or against U.S. bases in either of those countries or on the U.S. island territory of Guam in the western Pacific. Iranian long-range missile launches, and terrorist assembly points for nuclear explosive devices or so-called dirty bombs that use conventional explosives to spread radioactive material, might be other reasons for a PGS weapon to be used.

The latest PGS tests by the U.S. worry Russia, but they worry China more because it has far fewer nuclear-tipped missiles that can reach the U.S. than Russia, and less effective systems for destroying incoming missiles than Russia. U.S. analysts estimate that China currently has a total of only a few dozen nuclear-armed ICBMs that can strike the U.S.

Writing on the China-U.S. Focus website on April 22, Major Gen. Yao Yunzhu, director of China-America Defense Relations at the Chinese Armed Forces Academy of Military Science, said that Chinese concerns stemmed from two facts:

• The ballistic missile defense systems that the U.S. and its allies had deployed, or were planning to deploy, in the Asia-Pacific region could intercept residue Chinese nuclear weapons launched for retaliation after China had been attacked, thus potentially negating the deterrence effect of the Chinese nuclear arsenal.

• The U.S. was developing a series of conventional strategic strike capabilities. When deployed, they could be used to hit China’s nuclear arsenal.

Hu Yumin, a senior research fellow at the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, wrote in January that the U.S. aimed to combine PGS with its space and anti-missile technologies to “form an integrated defense system, which could render other countries’ strategic weapons, including nuclear arms, almost useless.”

Hu was clearly referring to China. He added that this could put such countries in a dilemma: Either they would lose the ability to launch a strategic nuclear counter-attack or they would have to use nuclear weapons first to avoid devastation.

Chinese concerns are recognized by some U.S. officials and analysts. With swinging cuts in military spending biting in the U.S., the most likely outcome is a modification of the PGS program.

Existing shorter-range and slower-moving U.S. cruise missiles, launched from aircraft or submarines, could be used to strike PGS targets, while expensive research and development of hypersonic weapons is put on the back burner, at least for the time being.


  • Osaka48

    While China increases its military capabilities far beyond necessary defense requirements, they should not complain about necessary defensive measures by Japan. They complain too much.

    • Ben Begonia

      China don’t want anybody upgrading their military assets while they are spending billions to upgrades theirs. Other southeast Asian nations should form a military alliance to fight China should any one of them gets attacked by China. This is the most sensible thing to do given China has more resources to spend for their arsenal.

  • shin ra

    You mean they haven’t stole the plans for this weapon yet?

    • 思德

      It’s a Christmas Miracle!

  • takers001 .

    It’s nice to know we worry someone these days. I figure the Chinese will hack our networks and get the info anyway.

  • John H.

    The USA should have this program on the front burner. China makes no bones about what is coming and who it will challenge. The race is on and we better start running. The Bear and the Dragon can only hope we continue to talk while they build up their forces.

  • disqus_SlkZSk9EPd

    Who cares what China thinks or whether this weapons system bothers them? I’m getting tired of our “worrying” or “being concerned” about what China thinks about anything. We need to watch them but not worry about them. “Trust but verify”.

  • brian strouse

    WOW New York to LA in 12 minutes

    • Frank Nance

      I believe it was 39 minutes…

  • 思德

    Who cares what Chinese hawks think. Let them be afraid. They need to be afraid, because otherwise they will brazenly trample all over southeast Asia even worse than they already are. I was happy when I saw the WaveRunner test because I knew it meant exactly what this article was saying. What the hawks should be losing sleep over: Very fast neutralization of key strategic targets of a belligerent. Follow up with J-35, F-22 and Spirit / X47 operations to clear / mop up anti-air and air-to-air capabilities. Follow up with conventional bombing operations. Game over. Blue water wouldn’t even be an issue.

    I don’t want a war with China, and I hope we are able to build ties with them wile also firmly rebuffing their shameless thievery with improved cyber abilities- and also developing conventional strategic weapons like this.

    It’s a shame, but the politicians are right- missiles being fired from a sub has become so synonymous with a nuclear strike that I’m not sure it would be wise to implement conventional warheads on ICBMs, even though it would make a lot of sense strategically.

    Let’s hope that
    A. We don’t let the Chinese steal this one.
    B. China’s government and people change significantly before they are able to make this technology on their own.

  • Ken5745

    The WaveRider can travel at “a speed of nearly 6,245 kilometers per hour (KPH)”. That is peanuts compared to a reentry vehicle traveling at a speed of 60,000 kph.

  • Bialytygrys

    The smarter Chinese analyst knows better that such weapon systems are as pointless as their fancy names. the PGS is nothing more than a fancy ICBM test vehicle, pretty much using the same technology to launch, in short it’s an overly fancy ICBM, that will not even carry the firepower of an ICBM. The Chinese are spending much smarter resources on their military, including ever vast bunker complexes, mobile ICBM systems, satellite killing capabilities, including hardening their cyber infrastructure against military aggression, are the USA taking the same steps? The USA as I know no longer possess the engineering know how or capabilities to construct vast underground caverns the way the Chinese have done. These are things that would truly matter in future warfare, not some fancy ICBM testbed masquerading as if it’s a strike bomber.

  • Taishanese

    Funny how anything regarding military and China always brings out visceral responses. But in reality, I’m more worried about Russia than China. Whatever new military technology the US comes out with, China IS narrowing the conventional gap between China and the US, both in quantity and quality. Russia, on the other hand, is not. And it is RUSSIA and NOT China that will, in the long term, need to rely on their nuclear forces since their conventional forces are no match for the US, not today, and not in the future.