Opinion
Hypersonic missiles: The age of AI is raising risk levels
Summary
- Last week’s test of an indigenous hypersonic missile by India’s DRDO marks a leap in technology and updates the country’s nuclear deterrence. But dangers lurk in the global race to develop these speedy and sneaky weapons, with new risks posed by the increased role played by AI in how these operate
It’s a no-brainer that global geopolitics is dictating the modern arms race, with security concerns, power struggles and shifting alliances driving nations to expand and modernize their military capabilities. The successful testing of India’s indigenously-developed long-range hypersonic missile supports this contention, while marking a big leap in the country’s tech capability.
On Sunday, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said it successfully tested a long-range hypersonic missile on 16 November. A long-range hypersonic weapon (LRHW) can travel faster than Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, and strike targets very far away.
India’s missile can deliver payloads over distances exceeding 1,500km. Hypersonic missiles combine very high speeds with manoeuvrability and precision, making them incredibly hard to detect and intercept.
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There are two primary types, both fast and sneaky: Hypersonic ‘glide vehicles,’ which are launched on rockets and glide through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, and ‘cruise missiles,’ which are powered by scramjet engines, enabling them to sustain these speeds throughout their flight.
With the DRDO’s success, India finds itself in a very exclusive long-range-hypersonic-weapon club.
Russia has deployed its Kinzhal and Zircon hypersonic missiles against Ukraine. Kinzhal is an air-launched hypersonic weapon that can go as fast as Mach 10 and hit targets in a radius of around 2,000km.
China has unveiled two new LRHWs in the past year: its DF-27 and an air-launched version of its YJ-21. The US Army’s LRHW, Dark Eagle, has a reported range of 2,760km; the US also has a land-launch system armed with missiles that can travel faster than 6,080kmph.
France, Australia and Japan are also developing hypersonic tech. As the race for speed and sneakiness intensifies, artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used by these missiles to absorb live data feeds, predict enemy defences—such as interceptors or radars—and dodge anti-missile shots even as they get better at shaking off trackers by continually altering their flight paths.
It’s an expensive quest. Of the world’s defence spending, expected to touch $2.44 trillion this year, the US spend alone would be $831 billion and China’s would be $227 billion. Russia will be third and India fourth, with a defence budget of $74 billion.
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But then, every nuclear power needs to keep up with adversaries on rocket technology, and so do we. India’s deterrence has duly been updated by last week’s test. But it’s crucial for this arm’s race to keep risks in check.
Existing frameworks for arms control may prove helpless against AI-driven fully autonomous weapons; and if the three-stage loop of identifying a target, taking a decision and striking it gets crushed to split seconds by AI (in the quest for speed) by keeping humans out of it, the horror of accidental devastation would gain likelihood.
Dangers also arise from AI systems being susceptible to hacking or spoofing, which could neutralize or redirect a missile, and our best hope is that cyber-security stays appropriately tight across the LRHW club. While technology advancements and one-upmanship on power projection propel this arms race, we urgently need new arms-control mechanisms.
Without updated treaties, the unchecked proliferation of hypersonic missiles and autonomous weapons will endanger global security. Let’s aim to mitigate risks. And as the world’s geopolitical split deepens, let’s hope no LRHW power will ever use its most advanced weaponry.
