Should Pentagon Send Arriving “Long Range Hypersonic Weapon” to Pacific Immediately to Counter China?

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

The Army’s new soon to arrive Long Range Hypersonic Weapon is highly expeditionary as it can travel on a C-17, attack at ranges up to 1,725 miles and close in on targets at more than five times the speed of sound. 

The Army’s top acquisition executive says the critical and fast-tracked weapon is slated to arrive “this year.” 

“LRHW in particular.. is an equivalent of a major defense acquisition program. It is extremely complicated. It’s an entirely new missile, new launcher, new fire control. So, if we stay on our revised testing plan and I think the Army has stated that our goal is now the end of the calendar year to get a fielded system with a test to validate it,” Mr. Douglas Bush, Assistant Secretary of the Army, Acquisition, Logistics & Technology, told reporters recently according to an Army provided transcript. 

 It seems it would be extremely well-advised, if not urgent, for the Army to fast-track the arriving LRHW to the Pacific theater.  The weapon could realistically be placed in Guam if not vital allied territories throughout the region to include Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Australia to challenge, counterbalance or deter China’s increasingly threatening arsenal of hypersonic weapons. 

The anticipated arrival of the weapon is highly prioritized by Army leaders and not-a-moment-too-soon given that the Pentagon has been publicly saying that hypersonic weapons are being massively fast-tracked to close any potential “deficit” or “gap” when it comes to Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons. 

As the Chinese threat to Taiwan in the Pacific seems to only be intensifying, why not immediately send deployable LRHWs to the Pacific?  Such a move might help deter Chinese leaders from thinking they have a short-lived window through which to exploit or leverage an advantage in hypersonics to quickly annex Tawain and deny access or entry for any forces wishing to defend Taiwan using the attack speed and threat of hypersonics. This risk is compounded by the fact that China appears to already be test-firing both air and ship-launched hypersonic missiles

A People’s Liberation Army – Navy video cited in several publications show the test-firing of the YJ-21 “hypersonic missile” from the PLA’s emerging, quasi-stealthy Type 055 Destroyers. The Navy’s destroyer launched hypersonic Conventional Prompt Strike is slated to Army the Zumwalt-class destroyers several years from now, a fast-tracked and highly prioritized effort, given that China reports to now operate a ship-fired hypersonic missile.The scope, scale or full functionality of this YJ-21, which has also now been launched from the air from a PLA Air Force’s H6K bomber, may not be known. Also, the size of any potential PLA ship and air launched hypersonic weapons arsenal may not be significant, yet it is safe to assume the Pentagon is taking the threat seriously.