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A new hypersonic ballistic missile called "Fattah" with a range of 1400 km, unveiled by Iran, is seen in Tehran.
Iran unveils hypersonic missile
The Islamic Republic of Iran claims to have developed its first hypersonic missile. At a showy military ceremony usually reserved for North Korean and Russian despots, President Ebrahim Raisi said that the new weapon proved that Iran’s “deterrent power has been formed.”
Crucially, the Iranians claim that the mid-range weapon capable of striking Gulf states can fly at 15 times the speed of sound. For context, a weapon is defined as hypersonic if it travels at between 5-25 times the speed of sound.
Tehran claims that no missile defense system can intercept its new weapon – dubbed Fattah, meaning “conqueror” in Farsi – but that depends on a range of factors, including the missile’s maneuverability. Many Gulf states use the Patriot missile defense system that are apt at targeting ballistic missiles on an unmoving trajectory. Israel, for its part, also has its own suite of missile defenses for these types of weapons.
To be sure, Iranian officials showed no proof on Tuesday that Fattah had been successfully fired, and they’ve claimed in the past to have had a similar weapon that hasn’t yet materialized.
The US and China are reportedly working on their own hypersonic arsenals, though Russia appears to already have developed them. (Ukraine, for its part, claimed in May to have shot them down with a Western-delivered Patriot battery.)
The timing of this grand reveal – that will put the US, Israel, and Gulf states on edge – is strange, coinciding with Iran reopening its diplomatic mission in Saudi Arabia after a years-long feud.A firefighter works at a site of a vehicle parking area hit by Russian missiles in Kyiv.
Did Ukraine shoot down a barrage of Russian hypersonic missiles?
Ukraine's military on Tuesday announced it had thwarted a Russian missile attack on the capital, Kyiv, shooting down 18 projectiles that were targeting the city. The Russians have stepped up airstrikes in recent weeks in anticipation of Ukraine's much-awaited spring counteroffensive.
But what's special this time is that among the downed volleys were six Kinzhal (dagger) hypersonic missiles, which travel at 10 times the speed of sound and can theoretically escape conventional air defenses. (Military nerds disagree on whether the Kinzhals are actually hypersonic or just have the capacity to go that fast.)
Read our primer on hypersonic weapons here.
Earlier this month, Ukraine bragged about destroying a single Kinzhal with a Patriot air defense system supplied by NATO. This was denied by the Kremlin, which has a penchant for hyping its military capabilities and showing off its missile muscle when things are not going well on the battlefield.
Still, if true, shooting down not one but six hypersonic missiles all at once would demonstrate that the Patriots are doing their job — and that Ukraine can now effectively defend itself against one of Russia's "superweapons."
Service members of pro-Russian troops seen on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine.
Watching the War: Turkey ups peace hopes, Zelensky wants Israeli help, Mariupol siege drags on, hypersonic missiles
A glimmer of hope. Russia and Ukraine are close to reaching an agreement on four key points in peace talks brokered by Turkey, the Turkish foreign minister said on Sunday. The Russians want Kyiv to drop plans to join NATO, demilitarize and declare itself neutral, lift restrictions on the use of the Russian language, and “de-nazify.” In exchange, Moscow would presumably observe a cease-fire and withdraw its troops to the positions they held before the February 24 invasion. Sounds promising, but Vladimir Putin could simply be buying time to regroup his forces and is unlikely to compromise without a big win that he can sell to the Russian people. Although Ukraine agreeing to never join NATO falls into that category, that won't go down well with Ukrainians, the majority of whom want to join the alliance — especially after being attacked by Russia.
Will Israel pick a side? Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday appealed to Israel for military aid against Russia. Zelensky, who’s Jewish and whose grandparents fought the Nazis in World War II, drew comparisons between what Putin is doing to Ukraine and Adolf Hitler’s “final solution” of exterminating Jews at the end of World War II (which drew the ire of some Israeli MPs). So far, though, Israel has opposed the war but has been unwilling to sanction Russia, opting instead to try to mediate between both countries.
War of attrition in Mariupol. Ukraine claimed on Sunday that Russian forces had bombed a school where some 400 people were sheltering in Mariupol, the southeastern port city that’s been encircled by the Russians for almost three weeks. The attack follows this week’s missile strike on a theater and is the latest example of the Kremlin targeting civilians to force the local population to surrender. Controlling Mariupol would allow Russian forces in the east and west to link up, but Western military analysts now believe that even if the city is taken, urban guerrilla warfare might strain the Russians so much that they won't be able to make much progress on other fronts in a war of attrition. Russia's 5 a.m. deadline to surrender Mariupol in order for residents to get safe passage out of the city.
Putin goes hypersonic. Russia announced on Saturday that it had used hypersonic missiles for the first time in combat to hit a weapons storage depot. On Sunday, it then reportedly hit a fuel depot with a similar strike. Hypersonic missiles travel at five times the speed of sound and cannot be detected or shot down by most missile-defense systems, which essentially turns Ukrainian targets into sitting ducks. What’s more, they are nuclear-capable. Still, Russia experts have downplayed the significance of their use in Ukraine, suggesting that Putin is deploying them more to show the West that he’s willing to use them rather than as something he really believes can turn the tide for Moscow.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a briefing on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Downing Street, London, Britain, January 4, 2022.
What We’re Watching: BYOB Boris, Kim Jong Un’s new toys, China will lend less to Africa
“Bring your own booze.” It’s an old story: the damaging reveal that the political elite holds the public to a different standard than it holds its own leaders to. News emerged on Tuesday — courtesy of Dominic Cummings, the UK prime minister’s former political adviser turned bitter political foe — that Boris Johnson’s private secretary had invited more than 100 people to a "bring your own booze" party at the PM’s official residence… in the middle of a coronavirus lockdown in May 2020. Johnson and his wife have not denied they were there. To be clear, this is not the same party that his staff was caught on video laughing about during another lockdown over Christmas in 2020. Is the political ineptitude even more damaging than the hypocrisy? Either way, Johnson’s government is now in real trouble. The PM faces a parliamentary grilling on Wednesday, and may not survive a leadership challenge from within his Conservative Party later this year. At a time of bitterness over his handling of COVID and consumer pain from rising prices, this was not the story Britain’s prime minister needed.
(More) hypersonic North Korea. There aren’t many things the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is good at, but its scientists do have a talent for building high-speed missiles. On consecutive days, North Korea launched what appeared to be two hypersonic missiles more advanced than the impressive weapon fired just last week, or the first hypersonic projectile Kim Jong Un tested in September. Tuesday’s version, fired into the sea about 435 miles off the country’s coastline, is estimated to have traveled at about 10 times the speed of sound and at a low altitude that makes it harder to detect than previous generations of missiles. Kim himself attended the Wednesday test in-person for the first time since the pandemic began. International reactions have been predictable; the US and Japan have condemned the launch, while China and Russia have called for an easing of sanctions to lower the diplomatic temperature. It’s an election year in South Korea, and we’re watching to see how the South Korean government responds to renewed pressure for inter-Korean talks.
China cuts Africa lending. China, Africa's top lender, is taking a closer look at its lending policy on the continent. Xi Jinping announced last November that China will cut overall lending to the continent by one-third until 2024, as many African countries risk default due to COVID-induced economic crises. In the future, Xi also wants to prioritize cash for small businesses and green projects over more big infrastructure stuff, a riskier investment that can leave Beijing holding a bigger bag when debts go unpaid. China has long been accused of luring African countries into a "debt trap" by lending them cash with no political strings attached, but with fine print that allows Chinese companies to take control of strategic infrastructure — like Uganda's Entebbe airport — if they get stiffed. What some view as "predatory" lending by Beijing also enables corruption, with Kenya's famously overpriced Nairobi-Mombasa railway as a glaring example. A defensive Beijing says that the world's poorest continent needs Chinese loans to build infrastructure, and that the IMF also gets tough on African governments. But needed or not, China’s investment strategy is becoming more cautious.Should you believe the hype(rsonic)?
Over the past few months, US officials have become increasingly alarmed about a new type of killing machines called "hypersonic weapons."
The top US General, Mark Milley, said that China's successful test of an advanced hypersonic weapon earlier this year was "very close" to a "Sputnik moment" – referring to the Soviet Union's surprise launch of the world's first artificial satellite in 1957, which raised fears that the US was lagging behind a formidable technological rival.
Should you be worried? Yes, but perhaps not for the reasons you might think.
First, what are hypersonic weapons? When people talk about hypersonic weapons today, they're generally referring to two things:
Jet-powered missiles that fly at extreme speeds. These missiles travel very close to the surface of the earth. Most of today's cruise missiles do this too, but they do not travel faster than sound. Hypersonics, by contrast, travel at a minimum of five times the speed of sound.
Hypersonic glide vehicles, which have no engines of their own. They are carried high up into the atmosphere by another rocket and then released to glide, like hypersonic paper airplanes, until they strike their targets.
These weapons can be armed with nuclear warheads, and their main, terrifying new feature – besides their speed – is their maneuverability.
Unlike most of today's missiles, which travel along a predictable trajectory after launch, hypersonics can zig and zag. In baseball terms, it's the difference between a long throw from an outfielder, which you can line up and catch, and a knuckleball that dances through the atmosphere like a butterfly before destroying your aircraft carrier.
So far, only three countries have advanced hypersonic weapons programs. China and Russia have successfully tested, and likely deployed, hypersonics, some of which are nuclear capable. They say that these programs are a direct response to US missile defense systems, which Washington has been building for more than twenty years. The United States itself is also developing hypersonic missiles, with a focus on non-nuclear ones which actually have to be more precise. So far the US has deployed nothing. India, France, Australia, Germany, and Japan all have earlier stage hypersonic programs as well.
Why are people worried about these weapons? Some have pointed out that hypersonic weapons can easily evade missile defense systems. This is because their flight patterns are more unpredictable, and because their low altitudes make them harder to detect than ICBMs, which trace big high ballistic arcs that can be seen from thousands of miles away .
But the truth is that a missile defense system like the US' already fails 6 out of 10 times even in highly controlled tests with ICBMs. In other words, the existing Russian and Chinese arsenals of ICBMs are more than sufficient to overwhelm any missile defenses. Still, the US insistence on continuing to build missile defense capabilities is one reason why the Russians and Chinese are so keen to develop evasive new hypersonic weapons in the first place.
As a result, nuclear deterrence is still based on the idea of mutually assured destruction. "We can't stop you from hitting us. But we can hit you back and destroy you, so don't do it."
There are, however, two big worries with hypersonics.
They make catastrophic miscalculations much more likely. Because they arrive so much faster and more unpredictable than conventional ballistic or cruise missiles, they give officials and generals less time to assess a threat and decide on an appropriate response. That not only increases the stakes – and risks – in the heat of the moment, it also makes wary countries more likely to strike first so that they don't get caught off-guard by a hypersonic attack, nuclear or not.
Also, there are no global rules for hypersonic weapons. Current arms control treaties have nothing to say about them. Like other frontier military technologies – such as artificial intelligence weapons or cyberattacks – there are no limits on testing or deployment, no understandings about proportional retaliation, and no mechanisms in place to exchange information about who has what weapons and where.
The New START pact between Russia and the US, for example, is the last significant strategic arms control agreement in the world: it doesn't cover hypersonics. Even if it did, China has not signed it.
Looking back. The world lived through decades of duck-and-cover fear before exploring sensible nuclear arms control deals, and even that took a near-miss like the Cuban missile crisis.
Looking ahead. We are still only in the earliest days of the hypersonic weapons era. Will it take a new missile crisis to get world leaders to make rules for these things?
Nuclear arms control: perspective from arms control expert Kelsey Davenport
Arms control expert Kelsey Davenport joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to talk about the world's long fascination with nuclear weapons and how close we still remain to all-out nuclear war. Today's nuclear threat is not about who has the most nukes, it's about who has the smartest ones. Davenport addresses the question: Do nuclear weapons keep us safe?
Watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer:
Nuclear nonproliferation has worked so far, but watch out for those questioning it — arms control expert
Nuclear nonproliferation treaties have been a success at stopping the atomic club from growing further by discouraging new membership, but nuclear weapons expert Kelsey Davenport says the slow pace of disarmament "is causing some states to begin to question that bargain." Although it's unlikely that nuke-curious countries will actually get the bomb because it costs too much time, money and resources, Davenport told Ian Bremmer on GZERO World that she believes that simply questioning the benefits of nonproliferation creates a real risk that must be "monitored and mitigated."
Watch the episode: Nuclear weapons: more dangerous than ever?
Nuclear weapons: more dangerous than ever?
In recent years, as nuclear disarmament worldwide has slowed to a crawl, world powers are engaging in a new kind of arms race: a technological one. Today's nuclear threat is not about who has the most nukes, it's about who has the smartest ones. Arms control expert Kelsey Davenport joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to talk about the world's long fascination with these horrible weapons and how close we still remain to all-out nuclear war.
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