The U.S. Military’s Plan to Counter Russia’s New Hypersonic Missiles; Space Based Lasers and the Resurrection of a Reagan Era Weapons Program

In March 2018 Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled all new nuclear capable missile platforms which would form the next generation his country’s strategic nuclear arsenal. The missiles revealed included the Sarmat (Satan 2) hypersonic missile and the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, both platforms with complementary roles far eclipsing any analogous platforms fielded anywhere else in the world - including in the arsenals of the United States, Europe and China. With the Sarmat capable of travelling at speeds of Mach 10 and carrying multiple warheads, and the Mach 20 Avangard carrying a single high payload warhead, both missiles were considered by the U.S. military to be well beyond the capabilities of American made surface to air missile batteries to intercept. These platforms left any potential Russian adversaries extremely vulnerable to nuclear annihilation in the event of a total war in a way no other nuclear delivery system had done before.

While the United States’ current air defence systems, including THAAD, AEGIS, AEGIS Ashore, GMD among others, are wholly incapable of intercepting missiles at speeds of Mach 4 even according to the most optimistic of analysts, the U.S. military may yet have a means of providing some form of defence against Russia’s hypersonic nuclear delivery vehicles. Indeed, the ability of existing U.S. systems to intercept even relatively basic non hypersonic missiles remains highly questionable. While intercepting missiles at hypersonic speeds is well beyond the capabilities of any existing missile defence forces, a strategy based on neutralising missiles shortly after launch before they can reach such speeds could well prove feasible. These targets are far slower, larger and easier to target. Lacking any other options to counter Russian hypersonic missiles, with missile defences capable of intercepting platforms at Mach 10 on reentry unlikely to be developed for decades to come if not indefinitely, this may well be the only means for the U.S. to neutralise Russian missiles.

U.S. attempts to develop a space based anti missile system capable of intercepting ballistic missiles while they are still in Russia’s atmosphere could well draw on experience from the Cold War era Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), a defence program announced by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 which stipulated the deployment of space based anti missile systems. While plans for the space based weapons program never fully materialised, a modern version of the SDI could well give the U.S. military the reach it needs to both promptly detect a missile launch and to destroy it using space based lasers before the missile leaves Russian airspace. Angelo Codevilla, one of the architects of the original SDI, proposed this as a solution and viable response to Russia’s latest deterrent capabilities. He has advocated for the use of orbital optical sensors and space based lasers working in unison to destroy missiles. “Both systems must be used to detect and destroy ICBMs during the boost phase — before multiple nuclear warheads separate from their rockets — to be effective,” he stated. With all other means of intercepting ballistic missiles effectively useless against the latest Russian hypersonic missiles, it is likely that the U.S. military will invest heavily in developing capabilities to neutralise Russian missiles before they reach the upper atmosphere or leave Russian airspace.