This report examines the evolution of U.S. hypersonic weapons development from the Bush administration through 2025, tracing how technological promise repeatedly encountered bureaucratic obstacles and shifting strategic priorities.
The report argues that after decades of delays caused by focus on counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, American hypersonic programs have finally reached operational readiness, with Air Force systems ARRW and HACM approaching deployment.
The integration of hypersonic weapons into U.S. military strategy represents both an opportunity and a challenge that extends far beyond impressive technical capabilities. While these weapons offer significant advantages in terms of speed, range, and precision, they also create fundamental challenges for command-and-control structures and nuclear risk management that require immediate attention.
The temporal compression that hypersonic weapons create forces a reconsideration of traditional command relationships and decision-making processes. Military institutions must adapt to operating environments where critical decisions must be made at machine speed while maintaining strategic coherence and appropriate political oversight.
The nuclear threshold implications of hypersonic deployment require equally serious attention to crisis management protocols and strategic communication frameworks. While these weapons offer conventional alternatives to nuclear escalation, their speed and precision capabilities might paradoxically increase nuclear risks if not properly managed through enhanced command and control arrangements.
Success requires what might be called a “systems approach” to hypersonic integration, one that considers not only the technical capabilities of the weapons themselves but also the command-and-control adaptations, strategic communication requirements, and nuclear risk management protocols necessary for their effective employment.
This integration cannot wait for perfect solutions or comprehensive studies. As strategic competition intensifies and adversaries deploy their own hypersonic capabilities, the United States must move beyond treating these weapons as science projects and begin addressing the command-and-control challenges their deployment creates.
The technology is ready. The targeting enterprise exists. The strategic requirement is urgent. What remains is the institutional will to move from development to deployment, from science project to operational capability. The window for establishing credible deterrence in the Pacific is measured in years, not decades. The choice facing military planners and policymakers is clear: adapt command and control structures to hypersonic realities or risk deploying weapons whose speed advantages are negated by institutional limitations and escalation risks.
The transformation demanded by hypersonic weapons represents more than technological adaptation. It requires a fundamental evolution in how military forces are commanded, controlled, and employed in strategic competition. The nations that successfully navigate this transformation while managing its associated risks will hold decisive advantages in conflicts that may define the next generation of global security. Those that fail to adapt risk finding their most advanced weapons neutralized by their own institutional limitations.
For a podcast which discusses the report, see the following:
Hypersonic Weapons and Strategic Competition: From Science Project to Operational Reality
For a video discussing the report, see the following:
The Coming of Hypersonic Weapons to the U.S. Operational Force