The United States Prepares to Deploy Hypersonic Weapons: What are Key Questions Shaping a Way Ahead?

The United States had a significant lead on hypersonic weapons when I worked for Secretary Wynne during his time as head of defense acquisition and then as Secretary of the USAF. But successify Administratons turned away from this technological program and fifth generation framing of new concepts of operations, to pursue insurgency and the land wars in the Middle East.[1]

The path to operational hypersonic weapons in the United States has been neither swift nor straight. What began as a promising technological frontier during the Bush administration has evolved into a critical national security imperative, shaped by shifting strategic priorities, bureaucratic challenges, and the relentless advance of peer competitors.

But like any new defense technology, for its significance and impact to realized, requires putting the new tools or platforms through the spectrum of use by the ready force or the “fight tonight” force. I have traced such an evolution over the years with regard to several new platforms, notably the Osprey and the F-35 but many others as well including European developed and built systems.

The technology shapes changes in concepts of operations, and concepts of operations change the nature of the technolocy as new iterations are shaped due to how that new tool or platform fits into current operations.

It will be no different with regard to hypersonic weapons. So as they come to the force, where do they initially fit into U.S. military operational strategy,

It will be no different with regard to hypersonic weapons. So as they come to the force, where do they initially fit into U.S. military operational strategy?

The Coming of Hypersonic Weapons to the Integrated Distributed Force

Ever since the Trump 1 Administration focused on what they termed the return of “Great Power” competition, the U.S. military has been in throes of working ways to distributed their force in the Pacific, embedded with allies, but integratable to deliver the desired deterrent and combat effects.

Under the current U.S. Indo-Pacom chief, Admiral Paparo, there has been accelerated focus on this approach. Hypersonic weapons enter the operatonal picture from this standpoint: How does prompt strike add the distributed but integratable force to be more lethal and survivable?

Admiral Paparo clearly sees the network of allies and partners as enabling the distributed force posture necessary to deter China, while the visible presence of distributed U.S. forces reciprocally strengthens those alliances by demonstrating U.S. commitment to regional security.

While force distributed interconnected with enhanced allied defense capabilities, whether enhancing their capabilities of being porcupines or of contributing to collective longer-range reach, is foundational, such an approach only enhances the need for speed in terms of having longer range conventional capabilities that can reach out and touch the adversary’s initial projection force and affect their decision cycle.

In my view, the combination of an enhanced embedded distributed force with prompt strike delivered by bombers and high-speed missiles becomes the urgent deployment priority to work seamlessly with a deterrence or war winning approach.

Distributed deployment provides for enhanced survivability and interlocking presence capability to place a strong defensive grid over the areas of interest.

What it does not do in and of itself is to deliver the prompt strike which would disrupt the adversary’s initial projection of power. That is where in my view deploying the B-21 bomber and the early deployment of hypersonic missiles comes into play.

In his testimony Admiral Paparo underscores the importance of “persistent mass of fires” through both upgrading existing systems and transitioning to advanced platforms like Virginia-class submarines with payload modules and B-21 Raider aircraft.

He has highlighted the importance as well of the hypersonic threat from China and Russia. But of course, a distributed force attenuates using these capabilities effectively but if your own distributed forces have access to such weapons, the threat envelope to the adversary increases dramatically.

Admiral Paparo has emphasized their strategic importance, stating he “favors speeding up the fielding of U.S. hypersonic missiles” for both the Army and Navy. He explained that these systems are needed to “close in time any actor’s kill chain,” warning that “If your adversary can strike you five times faster than you can strike your enemy, it incentivizes first strikes.” He emphasized that “The coin of the realm in the 21st century is speed. Who does things faster wins.[2]

He specifically mentioned that “fielding U.S. hypersonic missiles is critical to countering the asymmetry of Chinese hypersonic missiles.”[3]

Combining an ability to “fight at the speed of light” with a distributed force embedded in a grid of partner and allied defense efforts will significantly enhance the capabilities of the “fight tonight force” in the Indo-Pacific.

The Targeting Enterprise Awaiting Hypersonic Missiles

There tends to be a notion that a viable space network is necessary to use hypersonic missiles accurately and that this is in the process of development. What this overooks is the extant targeting enterprise which already can guide the use of hypersonic missiles.

The MQ-4C Triton UAV and F-35 Lightning II aircraft present exceptional potential for integrated hypersonic missile defense and strike operations across the Indo-Pacific theater. Through persistent surveillance, advanced sensor fusion, and networked kill chains, these platforms can compress engagement timelines against hypersonic threats while enabling next-generation strike capabilities. This integration capability exists today and is being operationally validated, offering INDOPACOM forces a critical advantage in an increasingly contested hypersonic threat environment.

The MQ-4C Triton’s AN/ZPY-3 Multi-Function Active Sensor radar provides 360-degree coverage while surveying 2.7 million square miles in 24 hours from altitudes exceeding 50,000 feet. This X-band AESA system offers critical advantages for hypersonic detection by operating above traditional radar horizon limitations that constrain ground-based sensors. The platform’s 30+ hour endurance enables persistent monitoring of key launch corridors and approach routes across the Pacific.[4]

Triton’s multi-intelligence sensor suite extends beyond radar to include electro-optical/infrared systems, electronic support measures, and the new IFC-4 configuration adding enhanced SIGINT/ELINT capabilities. These sensors automatically correlate targets through onboard processing, providing both wide-area surveillance and precise target identification critical for hypersonic threat characterization.[5]

The F-35’s sensor fusion architecture complements Triton’s persistent surveillance through its proven ballistic missile detection capability at ranges exceeding 800 miles. The Distributed Aperture System (DAS) provides 360-degree infrared coverage and has demonstrated missile launch detection and ground track extrapolation – capabilities directly applicable to hypersonic threats.⁷ When combined with the AN/APG-81 AESA radar’s ultra-high-resolution modes, F-35s can provide engagement-quality tracking data for fast-moving, maneuvering targets.[6]

Both platforms integrate seamlessly into JADC2 architecture through proven datalinks and demonstrated operational concepts. F-35s have successfully provided targeting data to Patriot batteries, Aegis systems, and other platforms during recent exercises, while Triton demonstrated persistent targeting capabilities during Northern Edge 2023. This sensor-to-shooter integration enables distributed engagements where Triton detects and F-35s engage, or vice versa.[7]

Getting Ready to Go: The C2 Challenge

The fundamental challenge hypersonic weapons pose to command and control lies in their compression of decision timelines. Where traditional cruise missiles might provide hours of warning and deliberation time, hypersonic weapons compress engagement windows to under a relatively few minutes from detection to impact. This temporal compression creates decision superiority requirements or the need to observe, orient, decide, and act faster than any adversary.

This acceleration fundamentally challenges traditional military command structures built around hierarchical decision-making and careful deliberation. The Pacific theater’s vast distances, which already strain communication links and command relationships, become even more problematic when commanders must make critical decisions in compressed timeframes while managing distributed forces across multiple time zones.

Machine-to-machine data transfer becomes essential because hypersonic engagement timelines leave little margin for communication latency or human decision delays. Automated sensor cueing where Triton’s high-altitude surveillance extends detection ranges beyond traditional radar horizons while F-35’s stealth enables closer engagement positioning represents a technical solution. But it also represents a fundamental shift toward pre-programmed responses rather than human-in-the-loop decision-making.

And when we add in space sensing capability we are looking at an interactive payload operational decision space which needs to operate at the speed of light/ And the coming of hypersonic weapons requires this decision space to make militarily useful and meaningful decisions rather than being the 21sst century equivalent of the German rocket attacks on Britain in World War II.

This temporal compression forces a critical examination of the tension between centralized control and distributed authority. Traditional command structures assume sufficient time for consultation with higher headquarters, verification of threats, and coordinated responses. Hypersonic weapons eliminate this luxury, creating what might be called the “devolution imperative” or the necessity of pre-delegating decision authority to commanders at the point of interest who can respond within the compressed timelines these weapons demand.

The concept of distributed operations, already being pursued through the Navy’s distributed maritime operations and the Air Force’s agile combat employment, takes on new urgency in the hypersonic age. But distribution of forces requires distribution of authority. Local commanders who best understand their immediate tactical situation must be empowered to make decisions that previous generations of officers would have referred to higher headquarters.

This devolution creates profound implications for strategic coherence. How do distributed commanders ensure their individual decisions align with broader strategic objectives when there is no time for consultation? How do higher headquarters maintain strategic coherence when tactical decisions with strategic implications must be made at machine speed? These questions become particularly acute in the Pacific, where distributed forces might operate across vast distances with varying communication capabilities.

Mission command is the way the United States will provide subordinate commanders with clear intent and broad authority to achieve objectives using their best judgment. But hypersonic weapons push this concept to its logical extreme, requiring pre-planned response authorities for scenarios that may unfold too quickly for real-time human judgment.

The command-and-control challenges become even more complex when considering the information warfare dimensions that hypersonic weapons enable. These systems function not merely as kinetic strike platforms but as enablers of what Indo-Pacific Command calls information effects or the integration of informational and physical power into core organizing principles for all operations.

The speed and precision of hypersonic weapons create new possibilities for strategic messaging through actual capability demonstration rather than rhetoric. When combined with the persistent surveillance capabilities of platforms like Triton, hypersonic weapons enable demonstrative deterrence or the ability to track, target, and theoretically engage adversary assets in real-time as a form of strategic communication.

This capability creates new command and control requirements. Commanders must not only consider the kinetic effects of hypersonic employment but also the information effects or how such employment might be perceived by adversaries, allies, and domestic audiences. The distinction between demonstration and escalation becomes critical, requiring command structures sophisticated enough to manage both physical and informational battlespaces simultaneously.

Decision-Making, Deterrence and the Nuclear Threshold

Perhaps the most profound implications of hypersonic weapons deployment concern their effect on nuclear threshold calculations and crisis stability. These weapons create a paradox: while they provide conventional alternatives to nuclear escalation, their speed and penetration capabilities might paradoxically lower the nuclear threshold by creating credible first-strike scenarios that didn’t previously exist.[8]

The precision and conventional nature of hypersonic weapons theoretically offer graduated response options that can achieve strategic effects while maintaining escalation control. Political decision-makers gain military options that provide measured responses rather than binary choices between inaction and major escalation. A distributed force equipped with hypersonic capabilities can threaten time-sensitive targets without requiring the forward deployment of vulnerable assets or the escalation risks associated with nuclear employment.

However, this conventional precision creates its own escalation risks. The ability to rapidly target command and control nodes, nuclear forces, or critical infrastructure might incentivize preemption rather than deterrence. If adversaries believe their strategic assets are vulnerable to rapid conventional hypersonic strikes, they may feel compelled to “use or lose” their capabilities early in a conflict, potentially escalating to nuclear employment before their command structures can be degraded.

The speed differential that Admiral Paparo identified — “if your adversary can strike you five times faster than you can strike your enemy, it incentivizes first strikes” — applies equally to nuclear decision-making. Nations facing hypersonic-armed adversaries may adopt more aggressive nuclear postures, including launch-on-warning doctrines or pre-delegation of nuclear authority, to avoid decapitation strikes.

Hypersonic weapons’ speed and maneuverability create complex attribution challenges that could destabilize nuclear command and control. A hypersonic weapon approaching strategic targets might be indistinguishable from a nuclear-armed system until impact, potentially triggering nuclear responses based on mistaken threat assessment.

This ambiguity problem becomes particularly acute when considering the distributed nature of hypersonic deployment. Weapons launched from multiple platforms across different geographic locations create complex threat pictures that may be difficult to assess accurately within the compressed timelines these systems create. The distinction between conventional and nuclear payloads may be impossible to determine until after impact, forcing nuclear-armed nations to make worst-case assumptions that bias toward escalation.

The plasma effects that hypersonic weapons create during flight can interfere with radar tracking and communication systems, further complicating attribution and command and control. These natural jamming effects, combined with the weapons’ inherent speed and maneuverability, create what decision compression or situations where critical choices must be made with incomplete information under extreme time pressure.

The integration of hypersonic weapons into alliance structures creates additional nuclear threshold complications. The deployment of these systems with allied forces throughout the Pacific creates shared nuclear risks that require careful management through command-and-control arrangements and strategic communication.

When Australian F/A-18s potentially carry hypersonic weapons, or when Japanese facilities support hypersonic operations, these allies become potential targets for nuclear retaliation in ways that conventional weapons might not trigger. The speed and strategic reach of hypersonic weapons mean that allied territories hosting these capabilities might face nuclear threats even in conflicts where they are not primary combatants.

Extended deterrence calculations become more complex when allies host weapons systems capable of rapidly striking adversary strategic assets. The traditional firebreaks between conventional and nuclear conflict may erode when conventional weapons achieve nuclear-like effects in terms of speed, precision, and strategic impact.

AI and Decision Making for “Fighting at the Speed of Light”

The command-and-control challenges posed by hypersonic weapons drive requirements for enhanced communication architectures capable of supporting distributed operations under contested conditions. The integration of stealth platforms like the F-35 with persistent surveillance systems like Triton requires communication systems that can maintain connectivity while preserving operational security.

These enhanced architectures must support gateway technologies or systems that enable multi-platform coordination while preserving individual platform stealth characteristics. The challenge lies in maintaining the communication links necessary for coordinated operations while avoiding the emissions that might compromise stealth platforms or reveal operational intentions to adversaries.

The solution likely requires hybrid approaches that combine traditional communication links with more advanced systems capable of supporting machine-speed coordination. Satellite communication systems, advanced data links, and artificial intelligence-enabled coordination systems all contribute to creating the communication architecture necessary for hypersonic operations.

The speed requirements imposed by hypersonic weapons also accelerate the integration of artificial intelligence into command-and-control systems. Human decision-making speeds, even when enhanced by modern communication systems, may prove inadequate for the timelines that hypersonic engagement requires.

AI-enabled systems can process sensor data, identify threats, and coordinate responses at speeds that exceed human capability. But they also raise fundamental questions about human control over critical military decisions. How do military commanders maintain meaningful oversight over systems that must make targeting decisions at machine speed? How do democratic societies ensure appropriate political control over military systems that operate too quickly for traditional oversight mechanisms?

The integration of AI into hypersonic command and control systems represents both a technical necessity and a political challenge. While these systems may be essential for effective operations in compressed timelines, they also require new frameworks for ensuring appropriate human oversight and political control over potentially escalatory military actions.

Institutional Adaptation Requirements

The successful integration of hypersonic weapons requires institutional adaptations that extend beyond technical modifications to encompass fundamental changes in military culture and organizational processes. Traditional military institutions built around deliberate planning and hierarchical control must evolve to support operations that unfold at machine speed.

This adaptation challenge affects multiple levels of military organization. Senior leadership must develop comfort with pre-delegated authorities that allow subordinate commanders to make critical decisions without traditional consultation. Mid-level commanders must learn to operate with broader authorities while maintaining accountability for decisions made under extreme time pressure. Junior leaders must develop the judgment necessary to make tactical decisions with strategic implications.

The training and education implications of these changes are substantial. How do military educational institutions prepare officers for command responsibilities that may require split-second decisions with strategic consequences? How do they develop the judgment necessary for operating in environments where consultation time is measured in seconds rather than hours? How do they maintain the analytical rigor that effective decision-making requires while operating under unprecedented time constraints?

These institutional challenges extend beyond individual preparation to encompass organizational culture and standard operating procedures. Military organizations traditionally emphasize careful planning, thorough coordination, and deliberate execution. Hypersonic operations may require more adaptive approaches that emphasize rapid response, distributed decision-making, and continuous adaptation based on real-time information.

Technology Integration Imperatives

The command-and-control challenges posed by hypersonic weapons also drive specific technology integration imperatives that traditional military systems were not designed to address. The integration of artificial intelligence, advanced sensors, and high-speed communication systems becomes essential for operations that exceed human decision-making speeds.

These technology requirements extend beyond individual platform capabilities to encompass the network architectures that enable distributed operations. How do communication systems maintain connectivity across vast Pacific distances while preserving the stealth characteristics that platform survival requires? How do they coordinate responses among platforms operating under different national authorities while maintaining operational security?

The challenge becomes particularly complex when considering the reliability requirements that hypersonic operations demand. Traditional military systems are designed with redundancy and fail-safe characteristics that may not be compatible with the speed requirements that hypersonic engagement imposes. How do system designers balance reliability against responsiveness when system failures might have strategic consequences?

The window for establishing effective hypersonic capabilities while managing their associated risks is narrowing. Success requires the same institutional will that drives hypersonic weapon development combined with equally serious attention to the command-and-control adaptations necessary for their strategic integration. The weapons are ready; the command-and-control systems must evolve to match their capabilities.

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 future of strategic competition may well depend on how effectively military institutions can manage this transformation while maintaining the strategic stability that effective deterrence requires.

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 the 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.

The Crisis Management Challenge

Deployed hypersonic capabilities must clearly communicate their conventional nature to avoid inadvertent escalation. This communication cannot rely solely on diplomatic channels or public statements for it requires demonstrable operational characteristics that adversaries can observe and assess. The transparency needed to manage escalation risks must be balanced against the operational security requirements that ensure weapon effectiveness.

The challenge becomes particularly acute in crisis situations where rapid decisions may be required. How do military commanders signal defensive intent when employing weapons capable of rapid offensive strikes? How do they maintain escalation control when operating systems that compress traditional decision timelines?

Strategic communication in the hypersonic age requires new approaches that combine traditional diplomatic signaling with demonstrable operational constraints. This might include observable deployment patterns, transparent command and control arrangements, or other measures that help adversaries distinguish between defensive preparations and offensive intent.

Recent combat footage from Middle Eastern conflicts demonstrates hypersonic weapons’ shock effect and operational impact in ways that no briefing or technical specification can match. These real-world examples provide compelling evidence for capability effects while also illustrating the psychological dimensions of hypersonic employment. The visible demonstration of capability through actual deployment speaks louder than development programs, influencing both ally confidence and adversary calculations in ways that shape strategic behavior.

The deployment of hypersonic weapons also creates requirements for continuous operational learning and adaptation that traditional weapon systems have not demanded. The speed and precision of these systems mean that their employment patterns, effectiveness assessments, and tactical integration must be continuously refined based on operational experience.

This learning requirement extends beyond traditional tactics, techniques, and procedures to encompass the command-and-control adaptations that effective hypersonic employment demands. How do distributed commanders learn to coordinate hypersonic strikes across vast Pacific distances? How do intelligence systems adapt to provide targeting information at the speeds these weapons require? How do logistics systems evolve to support weapons that may be employed from multiple platforms across diverse geographic locations?

The operational learning challenge becomes particularly complex when considering the alliance dimensions of hypersonic deployment. Australian, Japanese, and other allied forces operating hypersonic-capable platforms must develop interoperable command and control procedures while maintaining their sovereign decision-making authorities. This requires collaborative learning frameworks that enable shared tactical development while preserving national command prerogatives.

The deployment of hypersonic weapons also requires enhanced crisis management protocols designed to prevent inadvertent escalation while maintaining deterrent effectiveness. These protocols must account for the compressed timelines that hypersonic weapons create while preserving the deliberate decision-making that effective crisis management requires.

Traditional crisis management assumes sufficient time for consultation, verification, and measured response. Hypersonic weapons eliminate this assumption, requiring pre-planned crisis response frameworks that can operate within compressed timelines while maintaining escalation control.

These frameworks likely require enhanced intelligence capabilities that can rapidly distinguish between different types of hypersonic threats, improved communication systems that can coordinate responses across distributed forces, and pre-planned response options that provide alternatives to immediate escalation.

The development of such protocols represents a critical requirement for managing the nuclear risks that hypersonic weapons create. Without effective crisis management frameworks, the speed and capability of these weapons might contribute to inadvertent escalation rather than enhanced deterrence.

The Pacific theater’s geographic characteristics add additional complexity to crisis management protocols. The vast distances involved mean that crisis response decisions may need to be made by distributed commanders operating across multiple time zones with varying communication capabilities. How do crisis management protocols maintain coherence when distributed forces must respond to hypersonic threats within their individual operational areas? How do senior commanders maintain strategic oversight when tactical crisis response decisions must be made at machine speed?

These questions become particularly acute when considering scenarios involving multiple allied nations. Crisis management protocols must account for the possibility that hypersonic threats might target allied territory or forces, requiring coordinated responses that respect national sovereignty while maintaining alliance effectiveness. The speed of hypersonic weapons may not permit traditional consultation processes, requiring pre-negotiated response authorities and coordination mechanisms.

Intelligence and Warning Challenges

The deployment of hypersonic weapons also creates significant challenges for intelligence and warning systems that traditional missile defense architectures were not designed to address. The speed and maneuverability of these weapons compress not only engagement timelines but also intelligence collection and assessment processes.

Traditional intelligence warning cycles assume sufficient time for collection, analysis, and dissemination of threat information. Hypersonic weapons compress these cycles to the point where automated systems may need to make threat assessments and coordinate responses without human analysis. This automation requirement raises fundamental questions about the reliability of machine-based threat assessment and the risk of false positives that might trigger inappropriate responses.

The challenge extends beyond technical capabilities to encompass the organizational processes that support intelligence operations. How do intelligence organizations adapt their assessment and dissemination procedures to support operations that may unfold faster than traditional analytical processes? How do they maintain assessment quality while operating under the time constraints that hypersonic threats impose?

The distributed nature of hypersonic operations compounds these intelligence challenges. Threats may emerge from multiple locations simultaneously, requiring intelligence systems capable of tracking and assessing complex threat patterns in real-time. The integration of space-based sensors, high-altitude surveillance platforms like Triton, and distributed tactical sensors creates an intelligence architecture of unprecedented complexity that must operate at machine speed while maintaining human oversight.

The Path Forward

The integration of hypersonic weapons into U.S. military strategy represents both an opportunity and a challenge that extends far beyond their 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.

The solution requires what might be called a “systems approach” to hypersonic integration or 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 the 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.

[1] Robbin Laird,”Hypersonic Weapons in Limbo: A Winding Road from Bush to Biden,” Second Line of Defense, August 10, 2025.

[2] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/apr/10/admiral-warns-lawmakers-unprecedented-aggression-chinese-military/

[3] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/apr/10/admiral-warns-lawmakers-unprecedented-aggression-chinese-military/

[4] https://datasheets.globalspec.com/ds/northrop-grumman/an-zpy-3-multi-function-active-sensor-mfas/f4b1add5-5c2c-47b6-a564-491a64a03b4a

[5] https://www.northropgrumman.com/what-we-do/aircraft/triton/mq-4c-triton-takes-flight

[6] https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/air/11199-f-35-the-elevated-sensor

[7] https://militaryembedded.com/unmanned/sensors/mq-4c-triton-tests-long-range-targeting-in-northern-edge-2023-exercise; for more detail on the material introduced in this section, see the following: https://defense.info/re-shaping-defense-security/2025/06/hypersonic-defense-and-strike-integration-in-the-pacific/

[8] For one of the leading experts on nuclear deterrence, Paul Bracken, views on this challenge, see the following: https://defense.info/re-thinking-strategy/2023/12/the-relationship-between-nuclear-weapons-and-the-new-war-machines/