Expert says US, NATO cannot develop hypersonic weapons for 20 years
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According to the executive officer for Applied Vehicle Techonlogy at the NATO Science and Technology Organization, the development of such weapons will need another 2 decades at least.
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A hypersonic missile in North Korea on January 5, 2022 in a photo provided by the North Korean government (AP)
According to Defense News, the United States and NATO will be unable to create and deploy operational hypersonic weapons for at least another 20 years, if not longer, due to a significant technological gap.
Kerstin Huber, Executive Officer for Applied Vehicle Technology at the NATO Science and Technology Organization, told Defense News that the development process for the arms, which are now operational in Russia and China, will not happen before another two decades.
Read more: Russia begins tactical nuclear weapon preparation and training
During the Eurasatory 2024 defense conference in Paris, Huber told Defense One that The weapons were still decades away from actual deployment, and their development needed to be done collectively by Alliance members rather than the US alone,
Hypersonic weapons travel at Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound - well over 3,000 miles per hour - and, unlike ballistic missiles, are maneuverable, making them nearly hard to intercept in flight. They also create extremely high temperatures, necessitating the use of sophisticated ceramics and other difficult-to-design and build exotic materials.
According to Huber, Australia has greater room to test the weapons than the US, and European nations can supply critical resources like scientists and modeling skills.
US falls behind Russia, China hypersonic race
The National Interest highlighted in 2023 the weakness of the US in developing offensive hypersonic weapons, as well as in confronting them.
According to the outlet, the United States urgently needs to develop and deploy both offensive and defensive hypersonic weapons capabilities, because it is falling behind as China and Russia have both tested and deployed hypersonic missiles, while the United States is conducting its first successful hypersonic missile test in December 2022.
However, the US has not deployed any hypersonic weapons to date, and the existing US missile defense systems are not yet capable of shooting down adversaries' hypersonic weapons, leaving the US highly vulnerable at this time, NI wrote.
It is noteworthy that Washington conducted three “failed” hypersonic missile tests in 2021, according to Defense News.
In a 2023 study, the US Congressional Budget Office admitted that numerous test failures in recent years had slowed the country's progress toward producing new weapons.
