Hyperbolic Hyper Hype

Jeffrey Lewis 0:02

I have not been that good of a boy this year for Santa to put that under my tree. You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, a podcast on arms control disarmament and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog.

Aaron Stein 0:26

And I'm Aaron Stein, the director of research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. How you doing, Aaron? I'm okay.

Jeffrey 0:33

How are things going with you? Oh, not too bad. Just the semester is coming to an end, and so grades must be submitted.

Aaron 0:45

As a one-time adjunct, that's the worst time of the year. I was up late grading. I don't know how you do your grading.

Jeffrey 0:53

I'm a softy. I think that the real grade is the friends you make along the way.

Aaron 1:03

And the students you can bring into your web of excellence.

Jeffrey 1:07

Yeah, I always look at, I don't know. I don't think that education makes you better than other people, but education makes you a better version of yourself. And so I always look at the progress students make in class as compared to their own personal baseline rather than the competition with other students because people start in different places.

And honestly, people have different objectives and goals. And so for me, it's very hard to see it in a competitive fashion. So... You know, if you show up, do the work and have a good attitude, I'm a softie.

Aaron 1:46

Well, maybe I should have taken your class back in the day, but I digress, but we're, I think we need to talk about the hyperbolic hyper hype.

Jeffrey 1:57

Ah, the hyper hype. Yeah. I think we have to talk about the hyper hype because it, it still seems that people don't understand what gliders are.

Aaron 2:12

I mean, I would say for the niche listeners of this podcast, while we have a comparatively large audience, perhaps to other niche podcasts, they have an idea. But for the perhaps outer ring of people who listen to this podcast, I do think there is some confusion. And I pass no judgment, but we should go after it again because it's a lot.

It's a lot on Twitter.

Jeffrey 2:36

I don't know what else to say. Yeah. Ah, so where to start? Well, there was news.

Aaron 2:48

I guess the proximate cause. Go ahead.

Jeffrey 2:51

Yeah, the proximate cause of this is that the chief of naval operations came out and gave a talk. And the Army and the Navy are developing a common hypersonic weapon system. And the Navy originally planned to deploy this thing first on the SSGNs. And then later, those are the ballistic missile submarines that were converted to conventional missile roles.

And then they were going to put them on the Virginia-class submarines that are coming. But to speed things up, the Navy has these three stealth destroyers, the Zumwalt class. Yeah. And I think the polite thing would be they're not really sure what to do with them. Right. And so the CNO the other day said, hey, to speed up the deployment of hypersonic weapon systems, we're going to go ahead and look at putting the system on these three destroyers.

And so... That led to a variety of comments and tweets, one of which caused my hair to catch on fire. It just spontaneously combusted. Someone said this would be the first time that a hypersonic missile had been deployed upon a U.S. Navy ship. And I maybe lost it a little bit.

Aaron 4:10

I mean, OK, so let's maybe perhaps start at the beginning. Why did you lose it? And then I'll tee off on there because I have some questions. But go ahead.

Jeffrey 4:20

Yeah. I mean, many of our listeners will have heard me say this repeatedly. But apparently there are still people in Washington who need to hear this over and over and over again. Pretty much every ballistic missile is hypersonic. And they go up and they come down and the speed at which they burn out affects their range. And so All missiles, approximately the vast majority of missiles, travel at hypersonic speeds.

And this new system, which we can talk about, will be just another missile. Not as fast as some missiles in the arsenal, like, for example, the D-5. It only goes as fast as the rocket engine propels it. And so when people talk about hypersonic systems, it's a misnomer, because what they're really excited about, I mean, there are other systems down the line, but at the moment, the thing they're talking about are gliders.

And so the glider will be accelerated to hypersonic speed by a normal rocket booster, and then once it begins to glide, it will slow down. So for the umpteenth time, these things are not faster.

Aaron 5:48

No, the inherent benefits are the glider, which because it will be turning or at least have some maneuverability, you bleed energy when you turn. I mean, maybe I'm not saying that exactly correctly, but you do slow down as you come back through the atmosphere. So it's not that they go faster, it's that they're maneuverable and that provides some advantages or at least some implied advantages either against missile defenses or for different types of targets.

Jeffrey 6:17

Yeah, we had a podcast where James Acton came on, and we talked about conceptually the basic trade-off, right? So if we step back, I mean, right now the Navy is talking about conventionally armed systems, but I find the way that's helpful to conceive of this problem is to start by thinking about the nuclear delivery mission. Because, you know, the Russians are saying they're very interested in gliders for nuclear delivery, and the U.S. looked at gliders for nuclear delivery.

You are giving up reentry speed instead of reentering in a traditional way in which, you know, there can be a little gliding. I mean, it's they're lifting bodies and things, you know, it's not impossible. But, you know, your options are, do you want to come in as fast as possible? Or do you want to glide and maneuver?

And I understand the conceptual benefit of maneuvering, but of course, by maneuvering, you're slowing down. In fact, just like the space shuttle is a hypersonic glider, and the way that it gets its speed Slow enough to make that nice, beautiful landing is by doing ester curves, right? It, it maneuvers precisely because that results in, in, in breaking and slowing. And so, you know, you have to sort of decide if your goal is to defeat missile defenses, do you prefer speed, which is, which is What what missiles provide you in their traditional mode or do you want the maneuverability of gliding at the expensive speed which is is what people are calling hypersonics and that's what makes it so frustrating to me to use this idea that it's faster because in fact it's the trade-off is you are choosing to go slower to maneuver and then we have to have a discussion about whether the speed you're losing makes you more vulnerable to missile defenses

Then the maneuverability gives you in evasiveness. And, you know, I just, given the kinds of maneuvers I see these things making, I mean, they're sort of, at least so far, they're mostly like gentle turns, right? So I'm a little skeptical. You might be able to change your azimuth of attack. But if you're doing that, like, I mean, you could also just have your submarine, you know, pop up and fire a conventionally armed D5 over the South Pole.

Aaron 8:39

Which was a thing.

Jeffrey 8:40

And I always think about this, right?

Aaron 8:41

Like I actually think about the hypersonic role on submarines as prompt global strike. Am I off on this? Because I remember the whole prompt global strike debate from the mid-2000s.

Jeffrey 8:52

It's insane. We had this whole debate like 15 years ago.

Aaron 8:57

10 years ago. It was only 10 years ago.

Jeffrey 8:59

It was right after 9-11.

Aaron 9:00

It was in that wheelhouse, right? Yeah.

Jeffrey 9:03

Yeah, well, at that point, I was already at the New America Foundation. And I'll tell you why. Somebody reminded me of this. There was a General Cartwright when he was the commander of Strategic Command and before he was stripped of his security clearances. ... He had this affection for conventionally armed missiles. Because remember, he was like the first Marine to head STRATCOM.

And, you know, he was like, we gotta get in a fight against terrorism! And it's like, well, you know... The ICBM force and the SLBM force. They're just lurking, waiting. And so his idea in office was to put conventional payloads on D5s and take advantage of the speed conferred by them for what was called conventional prompt global strike.

Aaron 10:03

Okay.

Jeffrey 10:04

And yeah, the National Academies did a study. Someone asked me what I thought about the study. I pointed out that I was one of the people who gave a briefing to the committee, which, you know, they promptly ignored. But at the time, you know, what happened was people looked at the capability and the committee decided it was a good idea, although I didn't agree.

It was really a niche capability. You know, it's going to cost a fair amount of money. And you really, at least for me, I struggled to imagine a scenario where having a relatively small number of these systems would be useful. And I often say like in the last 10 years, I mean, has anybody ever said, gee, you know, we just, if only we'd had a conventionally armed D5, we could have, we could have solved, you know, some global problem.

Like, no, you know, I just don't think it's a particularly useful capability. And this, to me, seems like exactly the same capability. But it's got, like, a cooler name and a better brand.

Aaron 11:07

But I would say that the difference is that the target set isn't caves or sort of mountain valleys in Afghanistan to get bin Laden its, you know, miscellane points in a notional war over Taiwan. Wouldn't you say that's the difference?

Jeffrey 11:22

Yeah, although... I think that was a branding issue at the time. I mean, when Cartwright got pushed on, like, what do you actually want this capability for? He ended up identifying Chinese anti-satellites operating in central China. Okay. Was the one he identified. And, you know, you can imagine trying to go after fleeting targets like mobile missiles or trying to decapitate leadership.

And so, you know... I understand people are now saying like, well, this maneuvering hypersonic, these, you know, hypersonic glide vehicles that are maneuvering will help defeat missile defenses. But like, do you have any question that a conventionally armed D5 would get through a Chinese missile defense?

Aaron 12:18

No, I don't at the moment. No, of course not.

Jeffrey 12:21

I mean, so, you know, it's weird that we're I mean, I understand that there are these rationales, but I actually believe that the people making these arguments are... More interested in the fad. And so when they say things like these systems are faster and that's not true, I actually think they don't know. I think that's right. Right.

It's not like they're deeply Machiavellian and manipulating the truth. I mean, I think it is exactly like that scene in Dr. Strangelove where the Russian ambassador is talking about the doomsday machine and George C. Scott's character Gets real envious and says, you know, boy, Stainsey, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines. Right? Like, I just, I think that people are so excited at the idea of this cool technology, and they're told it's faster.

And they just kind of believe it. You know, it's not like they've sat down and worked out like, okay, well, you know, what are the capabilities posed by Chinese or Russian missile defenses? And how would we best defeat that? And what is the scenario in which we would use these things? I think it's really like, you know, boy, I wish we could get one of them hypersonic gliders, Stainsey.

Aaron 13:44

Yeah, I think, well, I do think that many people are just misinformed because of the name. What is the origins of the name? Why did we choose hypersonic rather than gliders? Because it's cooler. It is cooler. I mean, I know it's cooler.

Jeffrey 14:00

We're going to inflict upon you our glider force. Nobody says that. I mean, it's been around a long time. I actually remember I was doing some research on the early funding for hypersonic initiatives in the Defense Department in the early 2000s, right around September 11th. And I could not find anything on this Air Force initiative. And I'm at this barbecue at a friend of mine's house, and I'm talking to my late friend, Erin Schlatter.

Boy, we miss her a lot. And I'm just telling Aaron about this thing I'm trying to do that I can't find. And she's like, oh, I'm working on that program. And then, you know, spent the rest of the barbecue telling me whatever I needed to know. So, I mean, I just... That brand has been there a long time.

And I think what has changed is the existence of Russian and Chinese hypersonic, quote-unquote, systems.

Aaron 15:02

Programs, yeah. Program systems. Of course.

Jeffrey 15:04

And when, you know, it just... You know, like... I sort of get it. I mean, if you're the Chinese, especially... I mean, both the Russians and the Chinese have defense industries that go a little crazy, right? I mean, this is how you end up with doomsday torpedoes and whatnot. So I understand why they're pursuing a whole range of capabilities, especially since they're very interested in defeating our missile defenses.

But I don't think that we are similarly motivated... To defeat their investments in missile defense. I think we're just like looking at their gliders and, you know, we're excited and we want one. Not that these systems are the end of the world, by the way. I, you know, I think they're mostly a waste of money, but it just, it aggravates me that People refuse to frame the choice correctly.

Aaron 15:54

Well, let's talk about the system that they're going to stick on the Zumwalt. I never know if I'm pronouncing that correctly. They did a test, I believe, in March 2020, the common hypersonic glide body. And you have a little bit of information on that. Not just the test, but the future of the program.

Jeffrey 16:13

Yeah, I mean, so this is a common Army-Navy system. And it's ultimately a Lockheed Martin product. And, you know, it's made up of a couple of different interesting pieces. So there is the glider itself, which is the common hypersonic glide body. Which is just, you know, it's just a little, it's just a conical reentry vehicle with wings.

A lifting body. And so this thing was, yeah, this thing was developed on the basis of a Sandia project called Swerve, which was tested in the late 70s, early 80s.

Aaron 16:59

Fancy ass Swerve we talked about.

Jeffrey 17:01

Yeah. So lifting bodies are really cool. Yeah. You know, yes, you can have a glider that looks like an airplane. But at the speeds that ballistic missiles re-enter, even conical shapes have a fair amount of lift. And if you add little wings that you can control, you can do some fairly nifty things. I mean, I think it's a slightly different shape, but I think a pretty good example is things like the Iskander that do a pull-up maneuver.

There's a certain amount of lift, even in a conical shape. And so that's a reentry vehicle. That's a maneuvering reentry vehicle, which is in and of itself, you know, like a thing that existed in the 60s and the 70s. And, you know, the reason that the U.S. didn't pursue those at the time isn't that they were impossible back then.

It's that, one, the U.S. preferred speed. And the U.S. preferred to spend weight on more warheads, and there were some accuracy issues, which may now are potentially addressable as communications get better. And then the other part I'm interested in is it's going to sit on top of a bespoke 34.5-inch two-stage booster that I guess Aerojet Rocketdyne is going to make.

And that's just kind of interesting because that's like, That's a... You know, that's a... It's not a... That's a fairly large solid rocket motor. Not, you know, not big by like space launch standards or anything. But, you know, that's like a... That's respectable. And that's kind of like moving up the value chain for Aerojet Rocketdyne, which at least, you know, in recent years has, you know, made relatively smaller stuff like ATACMS and whatnot.

So that's kind of interesting. So it's kind of a cool... Technological development, but again, you know, like, what makes the glider hypersonic is just that 34 and a half inch booster, which is by no means the largest or most powerful booster that's ever sat on a Navy ship before. And if you really want the thing to go faster instead of having it glide, you should, you know, just go ahead and spin stabilize it and, and put the warhead where it belongs.

He says salty. Saltily? Is that a word?

Aaron 19:32

Yeah. I mean, we should also – the Air Force has one too. The Air Force has a competing program or a complementary program, I should say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So all three services are pursuing this. The Army, they plan to put it on trucks? Yeah. It's sort of the – I mean – I'm not supposed to say this on the podcast, but some of the concepts of using these things are pretty cool.

Putting on the trucks, driving them around, you know, it's it's a throwback.

Jeffrey 20:03

I don't know why you're not supposed to say that. I mean, they are cool. They are cool. I mean, the glider is really cool. It's just not clear to me that it's a more survivable strike option, you know, like that's, I don't know. I, I find this so funny that I am such a skeptic because as someone who thinks missile defense is ultimately a doomed endeavor and who would like us to stop attempting, you know, stop basically spending what we're like well up over a trillion dollars now, right?

On strategic missile defenses. I'm fine with theater missile defenses, but I would love for... Gliders to represent a secure second strike capability right i get your set because they're heavy so you can't it solves your merv problem right if you if you look at me and they're like okay well the russians have two options to deal with our potential missile defense capabilities we're They can either pack 10 warheads on a bunch of liquid propellant missiles, or each of those liquid propellant missiles can have one glider.

So that glider is guaranteed to get through, but presents no credible counterforce capability. I'm out of a job. That's great. But as I always say, like, I have not been that good of a boy this year for Santa to put that under my tree. That's the cutout, Scott.

Aaron 21:42

Yeah, no, I get you. No, I totally understand that. And there's a certain amount of irony is that our pacing threat is adversarial missile defenses. And we say our missile defenses are off the table, right? There is a certain amount of schadenfreude irony. What's the word I'm looking for here? That we've paced ourselves to the S-400, S-500, you know, and the Chinese version HQ-9 and whatever comes after that.

Jeffrey 22:07

Well, you know, I just think What you and I are involved in is, at some level, an unnatural act. Because what the vast majority of people who really adore military hardware end up wanting is just to build lots of it. And so, like... Like, ooh, those Soviet missile defenses are cool. Let's build our own capabilities against them.

You know, like, what you and I look at as like an arms race. You know, it's the classic apes on a treadmill. The only victory is to be first off the treadmill. You know, we see a giant waste of money. Other people are like, that seems like an extremely satisfying career in engineering for national defense.

Aaron 22:51

I don't think all the programs are a waste of money, by the way.

Jeffrey 22:54

I think that there are some valuables. No, I know. But I just... I just feel like you and I are at some level a little strange because, I mean, like, I don't know. I was reading this history of Martin Marietta, and it's written by a former press guy for Martin Marietta.

Aaron 23:11

You should tell the listeners who that is. That's the Martin from Lockheed Martin.

Jeffrey 23:16

Right. Yeah. Sorry. I'm so old. I remember when Martin Marietta was, was its own firm. Yes. So Glenn Martin they merged with American Marietta and then eventually they got bought by Lockheed. But you, you would know Martin from the Titan too. But I was kind of a little jealous as I was reading it, because on the one hand, I didn't agree at all with Harwood's implied politics about the arms race, but it did seem like great fun.

Aaron 23:47

It does seem like fun.

Jeffrey 23:48

You know, like, ooh, let's build a cool new weapons system. Yeah. Wait till you see this one. You know, and it's like, I get it. I get it. I mean, we are kind of a little bit of killjoys for coming in. I mean, I could just be psyched about how awesome the glider was.

Aaron 24:03

I would say some of the listeners to our podcast, and I won't name who he is, but he's a good friend, would say is that we just need more things to hit deep strike into China. And you can't just rely on the Air Force to do this. And so I would say that that is the counterpoint. And I can't see an argument there that makes sense to me.

What I can't see the argument is that it's built up around sort of the... That these things are super weapons because they're faster than everything? Because that's sort of the implied thing I see on Twitter, is that they're so good because they're fast. And they're so fast, they're incredible.

Jeffrey 24:36

But that China requirement existed when we looked at conventional Trident. Mm-hmm. And we ultimately decided this is a really expensive niche capability that we didn't need.

Aaron 24:47

And the escalatory factor is that if you see something popping up out of the ocean and it- Yeah, you got to launch that shit over the South Pole.

Jeffrey 24:53

You're in trouble. Launch it over the South Pole. But like, fine, like we could have had a debate about that. That's okay. This system, I don't think, is as good as conventional Trident. It's more expensive, and it offers more technical risk, but it is so much better branded. I... And I admit, I am reacting much more to the triumph of branding.

Whereas I'm like, we had this much better and yet still dumb system 10 years ago that I think I would rather have than this thing.

Aaron 25:28

I think this is just because of your love for Trident. Like, I think this is your favorite missile. I think you've said it on the podcast. You love it.

Jeffrey 25:37

It's a... Trident is so reliable and so cheap. I mean, it's like you have the perfect missile. It does everything. Just keep making those. I don't understand. What is the freaking problem?

Aaron 26:01

Who makes Trident again? I forgot.

Jeffrey 26:04

Oh, it's Northrop Grumman.

Aaron 26:08

We are available for sponsorships, Northrop Grumman.

Jeffrey 26:14

Well, I can never keep it straight. I mean, I would have said it's Orbital. And I guess Orbital ATK still exists as a... No, it's totally folded in now into Northrop Grumman innovation systems. I cannot, cannot keep track of the names of these little things. I mean, it is bizarre to me that... I don't know. It's easy now, right?

It's really just Northrop and Lockheed and... Boeing. What, like Raytheon?

Aaron 26:46

Yeah, well, Raytheon's... Oh, Boeing.

Jeffrey 26:47

Yeah, that's it. There's only four to keep track of now? Mm-hmm.

Aaron 26:51

Well. Yeah, something like that. Northrop, if you're listening, we are fans of the Trident on this podcast. If you would like a 30-second ad read, hit us up on our Patreon page.

Jeffrey 27:02

Well, no. So the problem is Northrop would rather have the money for the ground-based strategic deterrent than just keep getting paid to make the D5 and put those in silos.

Aaron 27:11

So we're not going to get that sweet defense contractor cash despite the conspiracy.

Jeffrey 27:15

We're not getting any defense sponsorship.

Aaron 27:17

Despite the conspiracies on the internet.

Jeffrey 27:19

But I do love the D5. I don't even think we need ICBMs. And I remember, like, I worked out, like, what would it cost to do D5s in silos? And I was like, I don't think we need ICBMs, but, like, I can't argue with that. That would, you know. I mean, if you want a warhead sponge, man, that is a cost-effective warhead sponge.

Aaron 27:46

Well, I think we've covered it. I think we hit all the high points. And I don't think our message will sink in. I think the branding has taken over. So the hyper hype will continue, which means that we will continue podcasting.

Jeffrey 28:04

Aaron, did you know they're fast? Do you know how fast they go? I've heard. It's incredible. They're so fast.

Aaron 28:13

They're fast and they're quick.

Jeffrey 28:15

I call it the super duper missile. That's how fast it is.

Aaron 28:20

It's actually in the next installment of the Fast and Furious movies. Fast and Furious 27.

Jeffrey 28:26

Sign me up. Sign me up.

Aaron 28:31

Vin Diesel from his retirement home will be riding a hypersonic somewhere in the Tokyo Drift. I haven't seen any of those movies since the original.

Jeffrey 28:40

Actually, you know, there were discussions about making a swerve-based re-entry capsule. There you go.

Aaron 28:49

Vin Diesel can ride it.

Jeffrey 28:50

So I put a picture of it up on Twitter. You could put Vin Diesel. I mean, he's not going to fit in a common hypersonic glide body. Like, that's just too... I don't know. Is he really, really short?

Aaron 29:03

It's going to be a really tight fit. You have to cram him in there like a...

Jeffrey 29:07

It would be like a, like a bonsai Vin Diesel. Yeah. Put him when he was a baby and just have him grow into the conical shape over time. I don't know how he would lift weights. Yeah.

Aaron 29:23

I'm just thinking like you know, we've just gone off the rails, but at the best of the furious franchise want to call us, we're available for consulting.

Jeffrey 29:33

Oh, absolutely. We're available for consulting. Script doctor. Yeah.

Aaron 29:37

One day on the set, I'll give you my per diem. Hey, we're really off the rails. So with that, thanks everybody for listening. Patreon.com slash ACW podcast. If you don't want to just listen, you want to interact with the Patreon crew inside of our Slack channel. $3 if you're a student, $5 if you are not. And if you don't want to give us money, but you like the podcast, leave us a review.

Five stars, please. And write a few words. That gets us to the top of some of the Apple search. So with that, Jeffrey, thanks so much for joining me again. Thank you, Aaron.