Yawn. Not Again ...

 Yet another "hypersonic" report, this time by Atlantic Council. Yeah, it is when you cannot deny the truth anymore. 

The imperative for hypersonic strike weapons and counterhypersonic defenses

One can talk about "imperative" whatever one wants but unless those sinecure-abusing former D.C. bureaucrats answer how did this happen, they will not understand anything--they will continue to treat symptoms, not the illness which cannot be treated therapeutically anymore. And even surgery might be too little, too late. 

The United States, which for years had a lead in research related to hypersonic technologies, has been late in recognizing and embracing the military significance of hypersonic systems, which coupled with rapid advancements by US adversaries has created an asymmetry that is growing and that has the potential to jeopardize future US and allied deterrence and battlefield dominance. With an eye toward addressing that asymmetry, there has been good progress in the United States over the past seven years or so relative to developing a family of first-generation hypersonic strike systems for air, land, and sea launch. However, it is important to note that these systems are just now getting to the point of being ready for fielding. 

Hm, so can anyone explain how come that the US "for years had a lead in research related to hypersonic technologies", yet still ended up lagging not by years, by generation of hypersonic weapons behind China, let alone Russia? Answering this question may help to understand why the US is so behind and the gap is growing.

1. We have to start with the WW II and America's aversion to losses. The US cannot take losses, period. As a result, in the WW II the relative ease (when compared to a cataclysm of the Eastern Front) with which the US Army fought in Europe since 1944, and relatively (stress on relatively) light losses in personnel on the Pacific Theater, a lot was attributed to a operations of American air power as represented by what today is known USAF and naval aviation. While in the Pacific this was true to a large extent, Europe was a completely different affair, where while enormously important, the real role of combat aviation was in being a part of what today would be called Joint Force. That is why Red Air Force finished WW II being the largest tactical-operational air force in the world. It was honed for the support of the vast land armies with their massive armor and automotive components, because wars are won on the ground. 

Remarkably, a person who really grasped it earlier than any USAF airmen was legendary Chester Nimitz, a man representing the mightiest Navy in history, who at hearings in US Senate in 1946 stated what amounted to blasphemy for aviators--that "historically navies acted in support of actions on LAND." But American fascination with air power precluded American establishment from understanding ramifications of cruise missile technology, especially with the emergence of solid state electronics and signal processing. The US simply was late at the starting gun, especially with its view that one can still fly the aircraft into the enemy territory, win the dog fight and then bomb the objective. It looked good for WW II, by 1980 this looked preposterous. So, the United States is left today with obsolete subsonic anti-shipping UGM/RGM/AGM-84 Harpoon and obsolete subsonic BGM-109 TLAM. And, no, there is still no REAL hypersonic weapon in the pipe-line except alleged "weapon" of LRHW which is not even in IOC. 

2. The other issue, of course, is a perverted procurement policy by Pentagon and coterie of corrupt lawmakers who have no grasp of modern warfare and have zero experience with strategic planning as is done by General Staffs. The US doesn't have one, it has services, ready to eat each-other for their share of budget pie, it has JCS which is a strange structure which has no operational control over US Forces, whose command is delegated to Combat Commands who have a very faint understanding of what Joint Force is and how it fights. As the result, the US Armed Forces are stuck in the rut of services' delusions and as the result failed to recognize a tectonic shift both in warfare and in the Correlation Of Forces and Means (COFM) until it became too late. AND it is too late. 

So when Atlantic Council calls on this, as one of the "imperatives":

1. Create a munitions czar to oversee weapons development and procurement

Problem statement

The US military services are platform-centric, with weapon programs often having lower priority than development and procurement of current and next-generation platforms. These platforms are notoriously expensive, with delays measured in years and consistent cost overruns totaling billions of dollars. Services historically defund weapons programs to pay for these overruns, while also slow-rolling advanced weapons activities that might in any way compete politically with the advanced platform budget allocations.

Recommendation

The DOD should create a direct reporting program manager (DRPM) for weapons, a “weapons czar,” reporting directly to the deputy secretary of defense, and elevate the principal director for hypersonics to be a direct report to that DRPM, with responsibility and authority for defining the vision, strategy, and execution plans for all high-speed weapons programs, including defense against adversary high-speed weapons, in close coordination with the DRPM handling the proposed “Golden Dome” missile shield. The weapons czar should have authority over advanced weapon budget allocations and be held accountable for program execution.   

I have news for all those in the Atlantic Council--not gonna work, period. The reason it is not going to work is simple--the United States lost the ability to maneuver resources long time ago--the economic and political systems do not support any kind of a dramatic scientific and industrial breakthroughs. In the Wall Street driven Military-Industrial Complex the MAIN requirement for such a maneuver cannot be satisfied--state ownership of strategic industries. No, not money, one can print or issue whatever number of  dollars, it is not going to help. By far not all serious problems are solved by pouring money onto the problem. And I am not even talking about the OTHER thing where the US lost the race by a severe knockout--Air Defense. The US IS NOT competitor anymore. Unless, of course, one believes that mythical Golden Dome is capable to intercept M=13+ 3M22M (Zircon M) or M=27+ Avangard. 

And so, the Conclusion to this "report":

Potential adversaries, particularly China and Russia, are creating an increasingly contested environment that severely challenges US battlefield dominance. A central element of this challenge is their fielding of a variety of high-speed and hypersonic strike systems designed to attack US and allied forces at long range and with overwhelming speed.

To ensure US battlefield preeminence, the Pentagon must develop and field capabilities to enable execution of an integrated comprehensive layered defeat strategy that leverages kinetic and nonkinetic means to defeat adversary capabilities. As part of this strategy, it is imperative for the United States to develop and field its own hypersonic strike weapons in substantial numbers to enable US forces to operate effectively and survive on the modern battlefield by defeating adversary high-end capabilities in a battlefield timescale of relevance. 

Sounds (reads) so familiar: blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah. And yes, The US is not even in the first generation of hypersonic weapons, Russia is in second one and we can only imagine what comes next, including maybe something like ... S-600, or 700? Who knows. In conclusion--Admiral Nakhimov's weapons suite. 

Those green thingies are UKSK 3C14 VLS all 100 of which could be loaded with hypersonic weapons which performed brilliantly in actual combat.