Russia's new fuel allows cruise missiles to exceed Mach 5

Russia’s new hypersonic missiles would pose little direct threat to the United States or her allies

The Cold War may be over, but don’t tell Russia. They’ve just taken the lead in a brand new hypersonic arms race with a fuel that allows cruise missiles to fly 5x the speed of sound.

The fuel would allow specially designed cruise missiles to top 6,126 kilometers per hour (or Mach 5). And these hypersonic munitions could potentially upset the global military order by evading early warning systems and striking their targets before enemies have time to react. Forget stealth. The future is breakneck speed.

Russia and India had previously collaborated on a supersonic cruise missile known as BrahMos, capable of reaching Mach 3, or around 3,675 kilometers per hour. But this is a giant step beyond.

“The recipe has been created and the energy accumulated in this fuel will enable our vehicles to exceed Mach 5,” General Dmitry Bulgakov, Russia’s deputy defense minister told the TASS news agency.

The United States’ trump card in the hypersonic arms race is the Navy’s electromagnetic railgun, capable of launching a hyper-velocity projectile from 0 to Mach 7 in less than a second. But they haven’t joined the hypersonic missile club just yet, and while the US, China, Russia, and India have all announced plans for hypersonic missiles, the former USSR figures to beat them all to the punch (excepting Russia, of course).

Read: Navy's electromagnetic railgun launches projectiles up to Mach 7

According to The Moscow Times, the United States and China are working on “boost-glide” hypersonic missiles, while Russia will co-develop a hypersonic cruise missile with India (emphasis mine).

Cruise missiles “fly under their own power to their target and can fly low to evade early warning radar systems,” making them a particularly dangerous threat.

As with China’s weapons developments, Russia’s new hypersonic missiles would pose little direct threat to the United States or her allies, as the chance of open warfare between two of the world’s leading military powers is limited. But the threat lies in these advanced weapons systems falling into the hands of rogue regimes or extremists. And our international rivals are often less selective about their client nations than we are.