October 29, 2021

"The Chinese [hypersonic missile] test has nothing in common with Sputnik, and claiming that it does feeds a dangerous paranoia growing in Washington these days...."

"Coming in the wake of multiple powerful Soviet nuclear tests, Sputnik signaled that in the next frontier, space, the Soviets were ahead.... Hypersonic missiles, on the other hand, are old news. A hypersonic missile travels at five times the speed of sound or faster. Starting in 1959, the United States and the Soviet Union have deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles that travel more than 20 times the speed of sound.... For the Pentagon, it’s an opportunity: Raising fears about a huge and tech-savvy enemy is a surefire way to guarantee vast new budgets that can be spent countering the enemy’s every move, real or imagined...."

42 comments:

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Yeah, that may very well be so, but, what if the Chinese are paranoid about the US?
Neville Chamberlain never thought a defeated Germany would go to war… again.

Mattman26 said...

Remain calm. All is well.

I actually was not thinking it was a Sputnik moment until these guys started telling me it isn’t one.

Owen said...

What a moron. The speed of an ICBM may be much greater than that of a hypersonic missile —but the killer advantage of the latter, utterly lacking in the ICBM, is steerability. It comes in at a low angle and can cruise, veer, effectively loiter and then close on any one of many possible targets. Our strategic missile defenses —radars and counter-missiles— are built around a threat coming over the North Pole and following a parabolic trajectory with impact at X minutes after launch (with some play in the trajectories and timing to account for MIRV deliveries). We have no good defense against this. For all I know the Chinese could stack these things by the dozen in Earth orbit and then drop them out of orbit whenever they like.

That’s my half-informed take on an enormously complex and secretive business.

This guy is either Galaxy-class stupid or has been paid to misdirect his readership. Since he works for WaPo, and WaPo works for Bezos, and Bezos works for China, my money is on the latter explanation.

John Borell said...

How much money does Fareed Zakaria get directly or indirectly from China?

gilbar said...

yes!
short range missiles are useless for intercontinental targets (luckily they have ICBMs for those)
The ONLY thing these new missiles would be useful for is striking Taiwan... Oh Wait!

Kevin said...

All is well! All is well!

tim in vermont said...

How much did Xi pay him for this editorial, one wonders.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Of course the WaPoo thinks that way. Its owner has massive financial interests in China. Don't want to anger the Chinese Communist Party with our own effort to create a hypersonic weapon aimed at Beijing.

Making a hypersonic vehicle work is no small thing. It calls for a different a scramjet that can operate at hypersonic speeds, something a turbofan engine can't. It requires high-temperature materials to resist the high temperatures generated by the skin friction. The latest U.S. test failed.

Achilles said...

Fareed is being paid by the Chinese.

The time of reckoning for these corrupt shitheads is near at hand.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

It is exactly a Sputnik moment because (1) we were caught unaware again, (2) the guided glide is much harder to target and defend against and (3) WTF is with CIA/DIA that they have not identified and acted to counter advances like this?

Kevin said...

Shorter Zakaria: We shouldn’t fear Chinese hypersonic missiles, which circle the Earth and attack from any direction, because our older ballistic missiles that can’t circle the Earth, and which go to their targets on a fixed and predictable path, making them much easier to shoot down, currently fly four times faster.

mikee said...

China is still asshole, and the CCP still should be eradicated.

Krumhorn said...

Raising fears about a huge and tech-savvy enemy is a surefire way to guarantee vast new budgets that can be spent countering the enemy’s every move, real or imagined...."

Like the “insurrection”?

- Krumhorn

Fernandinande said...

Because the Chinese are the people the most evolved to function in modern societies, I predict that they will eventually control most of the world, economically if not by military force. Although Europeans created the structures and knowledge on which those societies are built, they're unable to stop the slow invasions and entropy which will eventually destroy them.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Fareed Zakaria (WaPo).

Pass.

Jeff Weimer said...

It's not a ballistic missile, while fast, is fairly easy to calculate and intercept. this is an extremely fast cruise missile launched on an initial ballistic trajectory. We currently don't have initial phase intercept capability for ballistic missiles, only terminal and this is designed to defeat that and any more conventional anti-air intercept. It is a challenge we need to be able to defeat, and to let China *know* we can defeat it.

Lyle said...

So many people in the Pentagon should be fired. Sucks we the people have made it so we the people can't fire them.

Anonymous said...

The issue is not mach 5 versus mach 20, but rather that it's steerable, thus makes a much harder ABM target

What's emanating from your penumbra said...

Happy to hear lots of different perspectives on this. There's nothing a normal person can do about China's progress in this area, and the military industrial complex also is a well known threat, probably with a more reliably bad impact on us. So guarding against overreaction is probably the best for personal mental health. Even if it's coming from WaPo, and even if their intent is to protect the current administration and China.

Howard said...

Be afraid be very afraid. The Chinese are an evil man is waiting to take over. We must flush several tens of trillions of dollars down the shitter to combat this latest slight to American hegemony

Leland said...

Media misunderstands technology and when they realize they been using the wrong concept, they then tell everyone confused by the media they need to calm down. Yes, a missile capable of orbiting the Earth already needs hypersonic capability. The issue is the Orbital component, along with the translational component during entry. First the Orbital part means they can launch an attack, in any direction, and even delay it, but in the meantime, they put a nuclear weapon in space that can re-enter at nearly anytime. If you understand orbits, it may take awhile to align, but that's where the translational part comes. If it can re-enter at high speed and glide a direction side to side, it is both harder to hit by Anti-missile systems, and has more opportunity to attack at will.

The reason to be upset is most nations have declared weaponizing space is destabilizing. China has just decided it isn't a problem to them.

BTW, this is just flat dumb: "The Chinese [hypersonic missile] test has nothing in common with Sputnik". It has everything to do with Sputnik. Prior to Sputnik, the ability to strike targets anywhere in the world from a single location was not possible. But once you can orbit something, now you can strike anywhere in the world from one location. ICBM's don't orbit. This Chinese missile does. The difference is Sputnik wasn't a weapon, and the USSR and the USA agreed that the concern raised was Sputnik would be alleviated by agreeing not to orbit weapons. Again, China decided that's not a concern to them.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Anyone putting out that analysis concerning hypersonic missiles is either being paid by the CCP, being blackmailed by the CCP, or is a fool. ICBMs are used to deliver nuclear warheads and operate at intercontinental ranges. Hypersonic missiles are used to deliver conventional explosives at much closer ranges for such things as taking out aircraft carriers. And if they are fitted out with nuclear warheads you're going to have much less time to react. The proper comparison would be to cruise missiles.

https://www.defenceiq.com/defence-technology/articles/hypersonic-missiles-what-are-they-and-can-they-be-stopped#:~:text=Hypersonic%20missiles%20come%20in%20two%20variants%3A%20This%20type,which%20utilises%20gravitational%20forces%20to%20reach%20its%20target.

Temujin said...

I'm sorry, but Fareed Zakaria has proven to be so wrong on so many things for so many years, it's simply not possible to read this and take anything he says as correct. He's serious enough, but bet on him being not just wrong, but very wrong, way wrong, not even close to being correct. And here you have both The Washington Post and Fareed paired together. Double the errors.

Look- our horrid national security teams whiffed on this one. They've whiffed on so many large moments in history over the last 40 or so years, it's hard to imagine just what goes on in there. What do they actually do each day or week? Surely they're not doing intelligence.

A CNN employee reporting in WaPo is not where I'd go for credible opinions. Sorry that I took up any time even writing this but in a nutshell, this is a big moment. It's a signal from China. And paired with all of the other signals they've been showing over the last 10 years, I'd say we best take them more seriously than we do Fareed. While we're posing with Trans Admirals and claiming it a great moment, while we're offering $450,000 per illegal immigrant to come into our country, and while we've shut down our own energy production, China is moving forward with its eyes on the world. No matter what WaPo has to say.

My money is on Fareed being on the payroll of China in some manner.

rcocean said...

Suddenly Putin is no longer the Great Satan, now its the Chicoms. LOL. Look, our elite is in bed with the Chicoms, the Biden family is up to their necks in Chicom money. We've outsourced so much manufacturing to China, they could bring us to our knees just by cutting off trade. They have Trillions in US dollars. They have millions of dual citizens in the USA.

We ain't going to war with China. Sorry, Warhawks. I know you miss John McCain and want to thump your chest and play Risk, but it doesn't matter what China does with their missile tests. At this point, I don't think an invasion of Tawian could be stopped.

readering said...

PRC does not allow dual citizens. Although they sometimes treat naturalized Americans as still under their jurisdiction.

narciso said...

we arent but the chinese are, when they get the go ahead from general milley

Paul said...

And yet we have this senile Buffoon, Biden, with his hand on the nuclear button (if he knows what it is.)

Well hell folks.. you voted for him... gonna be fun to see the east and west coast turned into ash.

Joe Smith said...

Except that ICBMs can be detected on launch, and can (theoretically) be destroyed before they detonate.

A hypersonic missile cannot be destroyed in-flight.

Properly delivered, a few of them could wipe out our communications grid with EMPs.

Sure, we could eventually retaliate with submarine-based missiles, but at that point we're talking armageddon...

Unless Joe is in the White House. Then he'll just wave the white flag (racist!) and our Chinese overlords will waltz right in.

After all, that's what they're paying him for.

Wince said...

Another difference:

The Russians put a dog in space.

The Chinese put a dog on the menu.

Based on my search, revealingly, WaPo stopped reporting on the Chinese Dog Meat festival in 2016, even though it continues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/22/chinese-dog-meat-festival-begins-with-slumped-sales-butcher-says-after-public-outcry/

Dog meat festival in China continues despite Covid-19 concerns and public pressure
Jun 25, 2021, South China Morning Post

Joe Smith said...

'We must flush several tens of trillions of dollars down the shitter to combat this latest slight to American hegemony...'

Better than to spend it on 'social welfare' and other perverted liberal bullshit that is destroying the country anyway.

Visits to gay bars by elementary school children anyone?

I'd rather burn the money.

Kevin said...

Zakaria forgets an important point:

Biden can't launch the counterstrike until after he's finished retelling the story of how many miles he's traveled on Amtrak.

At that point, it will be too late.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

"We ain't going to war with China. Sorry, Warhawks. "

Spoken just like Joseph Kennedy in 1938 in re: Germany.

The question isn't whether the US is going to war with China. The question is when China will go openly to war with the US.

And a long, cold war is a ton better than a short, hot war. Which is what we'll get if we allow China to proceed with its plans unopposed much longer.

Cf., WWI, WWII, where the new, aspiring hegemon on the block gets a technological and industrial leg up on the existing, declining hegemon(s). Hijinx ensue.

Lars Porsena said...

Fareed says: "Nothing to see here. Just move along."

Joe Smith said...

'Dog meat festival in China continues despite Covid-19 concerns and public pressure...'

Was Fauci the Honorary Marshall?

'The Russians put a dog in space.

The Chinese put a dog on the menu.'

"What a waste of perfectly good test subjects."

-- Anthony Fauci

Don't forget to tip your waiter...

Howard said...

It's so funny how quickly you people revert to being tools of the military-industrial complex

jg said...

ICBM are ballistic (i.e. in free fall) for a lot of that high speed and can be easily shot down (we allege) by e.g. our own tech. a non-ballistic maneuverable high speed/altitude nuke would get past our ICBM-oriented defense (who knows if it's legit, we would certainly claim it is but i don't recall a real test)

Caligula said...

Hypersonic missiles (as the term is understood today- a missile that remains maneuverable throughout its flight- is not at all old tech, and it surely has potential to be survivable even if effective ICBM defenses are developed.

As for Sputnik, it was partly about national prestige and the shock of realizing that the USSR had the capability to develop advanced new tech (which surprised many, as the USSR often relied on industrial spies to steal Western tech rather than develop it themselves).

But it was also the realization that Sputnik had been launched by a minimally modified ICBM. Whereas the USA's satellites, the ones launched after Sputnik, in 1958, were relatively small "grapefruits" that were boosted into orbit on rockets far smaller than an ICBM, as the USA's first ICBM would not deployed until 1960.

rcocean said...

PRC does not allow dual citizens.

LOL! Yes, they don't allow them in CHINA.

Drago said...

Howard: "It's so funny how quickly you people revert to being tools of the military-industrial complex"

I wonder what a day without your projection-posting would look like?

BTW, are you still advocating for BLM protestors to be awarded military retirement pay?

Achilles said...

Howard said...

It's so funny how quickly you people revert to being tools of the military-industrial complex

I know you are trying to be a troll.

But you are just making yourself look stupid.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Many folks envision conventional warhead high explosive damage. The Electromagnetic Pulse of even a small nuke would turn all digital equipment to useless. Refineries, water treatment/pumping, natural gas, everything under computer control is useless. Imagine Los Angeles without phones, water, traffic lights, elevators, airport etc. Easy Peasy. no problemo, right Fareed?

JAORE said...

Well we ought to save a BUNCH of money by stopping OUR research into hyper sonic weapons. Right?

Oh, wait, we're continuing frantic research to avoid falling behind.

But why?