Complex Air Defense: Countering the Hypersonic Missile Threat [Paperback]

In the past five years, Russia, China, and others have accelerated their development of hypersonic missiles to threaten U.S. forces in the homeland and abroad. The current Ballistic Missile Defense System, largely equipped to contend with legacy ballistic missile threats, must be adapted to this challenge. The same characteristics that make hypersonic missiles attractive may also hold the key to defeating them. This CSIS report argues how a new hypersonic defense architecture should exploit hypersonic weapons unique vulnerabilities and employ new capabilities, such as a space sensor layer, to secure critical nodes. These changes are not only necessary to mitigate the hypersonic threat but to defeat an emerging generation of maneuvering missiles and aerial threats.

Tom Karako is a senior fellow with the International Security Program and the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Masao Dahlgren is a research associate with the Missile Defense Project at CSIS.

List of Figures V
Introduction 1
Findings 3
1 | An Attribute, Not a Thing 5
Taxonomy Blurring into Spectrum8
Vulnerabilities of Hypersonic Flight10
Defense Is Possible13
2 | The Current Programmatic Context 17
Space Sensors19
Interceptor Development23
Command and Control27
Budget Outlook28
3 | Channeling the Threat 29
Encouraging Maneuver30
Mobility and Distribution32
4 | Exploiting New Failure Modes 34
Area-Wide Effects35
Twenty-First Century Flak37
Directed Energy38
Modular Payloads39
5 | Reformulating the Mission 41
Preferential Defense42
Passive Defense and Deception42
Missile Defeat43
Data, Doctrine, and Organization43
6 | International Cooperation and the Industrial Base 45