The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Russian Hypersonic Missiles: Unstoppable or Skeet Practice for Ukraine || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Today, we're talking about the "unstoppable" hypersonic missiles that the Russians have been hyping up over the past few years. Spoiler alert: this is just the handy work of the hyperbolic-Russian-propaganda-machine. Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/russian-hypersonic-missiles-unstoppable-or-skeet-practice-for-ukraine

Hey, everyone, Peter Zion here coming to you from Colorado, and today we're going to talk about hypersonic missiles in the context of the Ukraine war, what the Russians are claiming, and what the reality of the weapon systems are. There are two hypersonic weapons systems, the Kinsel and the Zycron, that the Russians have been trumpeting around for about 10 years now since they were first tested. In theory, the Kinsel can go Mach 6 to Mach 8. In theory, the Zycrown can go Mach 7 to Mach 10. and the idea is that when weapons can achieve these sort of speeds, there's no reaction time that can be worked with. And so if they can hit their targets, that's it, it's over. And so everyone has been really paranoid about hypersonics getting into the system of late because the fears it's going to obviate a whole generation of military technology

in the United States around the world. Not so fast. Let's start with what is happening right now. So far this year, there have been a couple of dozen hypersonics fired off in Ukraine, almost all of which have been intercepted. The Kinsles, the U.S. Patriot system has shown that it can easily handle a Kinsel, and it was just in March that we got some debris. The Ukraine has got some debris from some Zichrons that they shot down,

took them while to identify them, because we haven't really seen these in combat before. But the point is pre-existing weapons systems are perfectly capable of defending against these new weapons. A few things you need to keep in mind when you talk about hypersonics. First of all, according to the Russians, there's never been a failed test of a Zykron. So, you know, from identification to development to testing to field testing to operation, never one. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. No, no, no, no. There are more failures with oatmeal than what the Russians are claiming with what supposedly their top-of-the-line missile system.

That's just not true. The Russians are doing something that's called lying, but let's assume for the moment that they're telling the truth. What's the second factor? The second factor is flight path. It sounds cool when you say, well, I can hit Mach 10, but can you hit Mach 10 when it matters? It appears that when these missiles are launched, they're launched from a supersonic jet that is already going Mach 2 or Mach 3, and then they have several mock ratings tacked on above that. But these things are being launched to high altitude where there's hardly any atmosphere.

That means that they can be detected from a great distance away. If they're going to drop down to the surface to skirt radar, they hit thicker atmosphere and slow down considerably. In the case of the Kinsles, we know they drop down below Mach 2, which puts them well in the range of a normal missile that costs one-tenth as much. And again, this is moving at a speed that a patriot is perfectly capable of intercepting. Number three is accuracy in warhead. The faster you go, the more fuel you need, the smaller the warhead you're going to carry, so the more important it is that you hit exactly what you're aiming at as opposed to the general area. Well, this is a problem for hypersonics in general, because the faster a missile goes,

the more compressed the air running across its skin is, and it heats up to even turns into a little bit of like a plasma with ionization, well, that scrambles sensors and that scrambles telemetry, which basically makes the missile blind and deaf. And so if the target moves at all, like say a ship, it's going to miss. It's going to always miss. Which brings us to the fourth category, which is defenses. As mentioned, the Patriot has done pretty well against these systems in Ukraine,

even when not operated by people who have been training on the systems for the last several years. But here's the kicker. The U.S. Patriots as good as they are are nowhere near top-of-the-line air defense for the United States. It's just the best that we can cram onto a truck. Static sites at U.S. bases or larger systems that are built under warships are much more accurate and have much greater reach. In fact, can even shoot down things in low Earth orbit, which means that if you have a supersonic that's long, from the sky as opposed to down low, you're going to see it coming far more than a mile away, and existing substances are more than capable of taking it out. So does this mean we don't need to worry about hypersonics? Well, let's not overplay this.

It's a new weapon system, and if anyone can figure out how to make it work, it will be something that adjusts the battlefield. But so far, it's certainly not a game changer, and so far I am absolutely not concerned about the ones that the Russians are fielding.