The hypersonic missile race is an unnecessary boondoggle for US

Last year, a group of high-ranking former military personnel and weapons company executives issued an ominous warning in an Atlantic Council report. U.S. adversaries, they said, were making rapid advances in hypersonic missile technology, “posing a severe challenge to US battlefield dominance.”

“Now is the time to act decisively to close the hypersonic gap and defend the nation’s interests for the future,” the report declared.

But is this really an existential threat? Will these technologies be as truly groundbreaking as the defense-tech industry claims? Experts who spoke with RS cast doubt on these positions, arguing that the spending is wasteful because despite the hype, hypersonics won’t provide unique advantages for the United States.

Hypersonic missiles can reach speeds of over Mach 5 and remain maneuverable mid-flight to confuse defensive systems. The missiles are designed to evade traditional ballistic missile defense systems by flying at low altitude, leaving them difficult to detect until minutes or even seconds before striking a target. In comparison, traditional ballistics follow high, extraatmospheric, parabolic arcs, allowing radar systems to detect them before they reach their zenith, sometimes affording defenders more than 20 minutes of warning before impact.

Claims about the difficulty of intercepting hypersonics aren’t airtight. Despite successful tests of some hypersonics, some experts doubt the feasibility of the claimed maximum speeds, maneuverability, and stealth abilities, according to Scientific American. The Congressional Budget Office agrees, insisting that “technological challenges must still be overcome to field hypersonic missiles.” According to the CBO, if fielded, the weapons would cost at least 30% more per unit than their ballistic counterparts. Even then, they would be more useful than ballistics only against extremely advanced, long-range defense systems, which no US adversaries currently possess.

Still, claims of successful tests or deployments of hypersonics by Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran have caused concern in the national security establishment about growing risks to Washington’s aerial dominance and, particularly, the ability of these weapons to get past U.S. missile defense systems. As of October 2026, Russia has reportedly tested two maneuvering hypersonic systems, and it has used regular hypersonic missiles (Oreshnik) in the war against Ukraine.

Iran and North Korea’s claims of hypersonic capabilities remain unverified by independent observers. China has a confirmed hypersonic weapon, with unconfirmed reports suggesting additional successes.

The chase for hypersonics ignores a larger geopolitical context, says Kelly Greico of the Stimson Center , who argues the United States’ major adversaries are acting out of a sense of vulnerability rather than a desire for escalation. For Russia and China, this stems from the transfer of U.S. THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense systems into Ukraine and South Korea. U.S. adversaries see these batteries as giving cover to U.S. activities in their respective regions, making it easier for the U.S. to attack without having to worry too much about defending its equipment and personnel in the region. If hypersonics can evade such defenses, these countries can theoretically respond effectively to any American incursions in the region, thus acting as a deterrent.

In this context, these advanced, but expensive and rare, munitions make strategic sense. For a country like Iran, which can manufacture missiles more cheaply and has more limited resources, investing in a few highly advanced long-range missiles to increase deterrence in a future conflict makes strategic sense. In hypothetical wars — and indeed, in the ongoing war in the Persian Gulf — Iran is defending itself close to home against a militarily superior enemy. A country like Iran or China knows that even the threat of a strike to key U.S. sites, or even against the American homeland, would be intolerable for the U.S. and perhaps prevent an attack.

However, Greico felt that, given expensive military supply chains, a less developed missile manufacturing sector, and a different overall strategic orientation, these munitions would do little to enhance American security. The U.S. typically aims to maintain aerial superiority to carry out offensive strikes against an enemy with comparably minimal aerial defenses. Greico says existing, cheaper ballistic missiles launched en masse would be just as effective at evading or overwhelming any countermeasures. Additionally, she believes the United States’ nuclear triad already serves as a more than effective nuclear deterrent that wouldn’t be improved by hypersonic development.

Yet the U.S. is moving ahead with large-scale hypersonics development. Recently, the Pentagon offered private industry incentives to help close the alleged gap, with procurement contracts totaling over $12 billion for FY 2027. This staggering sum excludes additional research and development spending. Although traditional players like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman are in the mix, defense-tech startups are also trying their hand. Pentagon procurement overhauls in 2025 changed the rules to benefit younger, more innovative companies. Since then, venture capital investment in the hypersonic sector has more than tripled, rising to $1.2 billion in 2025 from $220 million the year prior.

Newcomer Castelion demonstrates this trend well. As of September 2026, the company is valued at $14 billion after raising $1 billion in Series C funding, largely from venture capital, and winning nearly $500 million in Defense Department contracts this year alone. In September 2026, the Navy placed a nearly $44 million order for 444 rounds of the Castellion hypersonic strike missile, known as the Blackbeard, making it one of its largest such contracts to date.

Greico advised caution toward large-scale investment in immature technologies like hypersonics.

Pointing to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, Greico said the projects are already behind schedule. The GAO reported in July that the Army and Navy alone have already approved over $50 billion in investments and procurement of hypersonic missile technologies. As of July, the Navy Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) Program is 24 months behind on modifying ships to carry the $50 million-a-piece CPS missiles. The Dark Eagle, a missile developed jointly by the Army and Navy that will serve as the backbone of the Army’s hypersonic arsenal, is already delayed by two years.

There is no central strategy for hypersonic investment. Julia Gledhill, a researcher and defense budgetary expert at the Stimson Center, explained there is no easy way to get a single number for the total U.S. investment in hypersonics today. “You have hypersonic funding in Golden Dome, in the Defense Production Act Money that is focused on industrial base expansion,” she said, adding that they were on the new Pentagon Munitions Acceleration Council’s list of 12 critical munitions.

Greico and Gledhill both said any strategic gains from hypersonics would be marginal at best and that greater investment risked entering a costly escalatory spending cycle with countries like Russia and China, as each strives to gain a technological upper hand with increasingly complex counter systems. Gledhill pointed to Trump’s “Golden Dome for America” as an example, comparing it to the ill-fated Reagan-era “Star Wars” initiative. Estimated to cost at least $1.2 trillion over 20 years, the program aims to build an orbital nuclear missile defense system. Scientists have already dubbed it a “fantasy,” and experts say it would be an unprecedented escalation in militarizing space.

Greico offered a simple explanation for why Washington is continuing this pursuit despite its myriad challenges. Hypersonic investment is “a culture thing,” she said. “There seems to be discomfort with being behind.”