21ST CENTURY WARFARE: Hypersonic Weapons: Tactical Uses and Strategic Goals.

Are these weapons and their employment simply an evolution of existing missiles? Or a revolution that threatens to upset the balance of power? The answer still depends on decisions yet to be made. Russia appears closest to fielding hypersonic missiles, as it aspires to deploy the Avangard glide vehicle before the year is out. The United States has ambitious goals for accuracy and precision, but its most viable programs are not expected to reach operational capability until 2022. Meanwhile, China has been characteristically vague on their hypersonic weapons while still letting it be known that they are firmly committed to their development.

For now, it seems hypersonic weapons’ predominant value is to give user countries a Clausewitzian capability (i.e., reaching a limited culminating point of victory quickly and decisively) in support of a Sun Tzu-inspired strategy (i.e., to win without fighting).

Everybody seems to think that a big enough knockout blow in the opening stage of a war will lead to rapid victory. But modern history — the Schlieffen Plan, Barbarosa, Pearl Harbor, Korea 1950, 9/11, “shock and awe” over Iraq — indicates otherwise.