Today’s guest post about PLARF Ludicrous Speed Devices is by Jenny Moss [LinkedIn]. Snowboarder, China Analyst, Team Alumnus, in that order.
One piece of technology that has enraptured the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF), the military branch responsible for China’s entire land and air-based conventional and nuclear missile arsenal, is hypersonic weaponry. Hypersonic weapons (HW) are defined by the ability to travel above Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound and often refer to hypersonic cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV)-equipped ballistic missiles. According to multiple PLARF researchers, HWs will be a decisive factor in future battles with PLA enemies. Furthermore, a PLARF HW strike, when it comes, will likely be a first strike to decapitate enemy leadership.
Advantages of Hypersonic Weapons
In the quest to learn more about how the PLARF thinks about HWs, both strategically and tactically, this author reviewed six articles authored by PLARF academics on HW use, from how to better optimize launch to how the Chinese program compares to its US and Russian counterparts.
PLARF authors converge on three HWs operational advantages when compared to traditional ballistic missiles: a high degree of strike precision, greater enemy defense penetration capability, and greater ability to transmit or receive information like reconnaissance data over long distances. The papers state – correctly – that these advantages stem from HW’s enhanced physical capabilities as compared to conventional counterparts, including greater delivery range and maneuverability.
According to the authors who discuss operationalization and use, the most optimized strike pattern for a future HW strikes are “decapitation” (斩首) operations. Successful decapitation operations target time-sensitive targets that, when eliminated, severely disrupt enemy combat deployment. While many authors end their definition of decapitation operations there, authors from the Rocket Force University of Engineering, PLA Joint Operations Academy, and the National Defense University, in their piece Potential Application and Operational Concept of Hypersonic Cruise Missiles specifically define ‘limited time-window targets’ as military and political leaders. This stands in contrast to definitions of time sensitive targets in other conflicts. During the late 2023 and early 2024 debate over whether the US should transfer army tactical missile system (ATACM) ballistic missiles to Ukraine (or how many, depending on your opinion), for example, time-sensitive targets mainly referred to mobile air defense units.
Multiple authors point out that HWs’ maneuverability allow them to evade enemy missile defense systems by maneuvering around the defense systems’ strike range, maneuvering to avoid an interceptor’s path, or by directly penetrating them at speeds that an interceptor cannot match. This is a key part of successful decapitations, as enemy leadership is usually located far behind the front lines. “The most advanced anti-missile and air defense systems are currently unable to intercept and fight against it [hypersonic cruise missiles], which can achieve an almost full penetration capability” writes Ye Xifa (叶喜发,) assistant professor at the Rocket Force University of Engineering in his 2018 report Operational Use of Hypersonic Cruise Missiles and Their Impact on Future Wars.
Long-distance data transmission is yet another potential application for the PLARF’s HWs. Ye Xifa co-authored a paper in 2019 with researchers from the Rocket Force University of Engineering, National Defense University, and Shaanxi University on potential remote-control hypersonic cruise missiles applications. Specifically, these authors discuss how they would like to see remote-control hypersonic cruise missiles used to transmit data to controllers via ground-monitoring stations and satellites in real time. This information infrastructure allows for post-strike battlefield reconnaissance, damage assessment, and even updated instructions to missiles currently in flight. The authors also state that remote control should assist in destroying time-sensitive targets.
Takeaways for the PLA
Takeaways for the PLA similarly converge on three on key points: HWs are intrinsically subversive weapons whose strength lies in penetrating or evading enemy defense systems to gain the initiative on the battlefield; HWs will play a strategic and decisive role in future wars; and the PLA must continue to invest in scientific research and development (R&D) into HWs and new cutting-edge military technology.
Many articles continuously return to the sentiment that HWs will be the factor that decides whether a future battle is won or lost. That seems dramatic, but suffice it to say that these weapons are incredibly highly valued and a key part of the PLA and PLARF’s future warfighting plans, at least at the beginning of a conflict.
Decapitation strikes are non-nuclear first strikes that disrupt enemy troop deployment. This is a useful workaround to China’s No First Use (NFU) nuclear doctrine. This is likely the guiding principle behind the term “non-nuclear strategic deterrence,” used by Ye, which “strengthens and reinforces China’s strategic nuclear deterrence system.” Reinforcement may be a reference to future nuclear-equipped HW technology, including nuclear-equipped HGVs and hypersonic cruise missiles.
There are potential downsides to this. In an assessment of the Russian Avanguard hypersonic cruise missile, Professor Wang Kang of the Rocket Force University of Engineering how nuclear-equipped hypersonic cruise missiles like the Avanguard are a new iteration of and accelerant on the global arms race which, without proper arms control negotiation and communication channels in place, threatens to restart a new cold war between the US and Russia. His reasoning equally extends to China – investing in a technology that threatens a perceived enemy (the US) without proper communication channels (which we do not have) could start a HW death spiral, if one has not begun already. Overwhelmingly, the attitude surrounding greater PLA HW adoption is positive and even slightly existential, lest China let itself technologically lag behind the US and Russia.
One key point reached by multiple different authors is that the US and Russia are both superior to China in their hypersonic technology. This longstanding fear that China is technologically inferior to its main adversaries stems from crucial Cold War decades, lost to the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, that fueled advanced technological growth in the US and Russia. The PLA’s entire arsenal of precision missiles can be explained by this reasoning, but one particularly poignant example is its decision to develop a neutron bomb in 1977, long referred to as America’s “capitalist bomb.”1 The initial push and first stage of research coincidentally coincided with America’s announcement that it sought to deploy ERWs in Europe. In the 21st century, China is not only conditioned to fear inferiority, but also eager to pull ahead.
Importantly, authors do not only wax on the political implications of HWs – they also delve into battlefield deployment optimization, including by utilizing ‘intelligent algorithms’ for launch path optimization and AI-assisted command and control systems. This follows a greater PRC trend of pouring tremendous amounts of money into military technology research. It’s hard to get an exact estimate of its military R&D budget, but the 2024 PLA budget reached a staggering 2.4 trillion RMB. A Communiqué on National Expenditures on Science and Technology in 2023 jointly released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Finance states that the country invested just over 3 hundred billion RMB into R&D in 2023. Caveat – it is unclear how much of this money goes into hypersonic research.
Conclusion
PLARF researchers are loathe to assess that their HW capabilities trump that of the US or Russia. This self-effacing habit seems, in 2025, to be an overcorrection. The US Department of Defense perspective is that Chinese hypersonic capabilities have gone from “comparable to other international top-tier producers” to concretely top tier. Self-effacement notwithstanding, these same researchers are clearly confident in their country’s ability to successfully launch a decapitation strike in a future conflict. HWs are the PLA’s “trump card” for future battlefields fought on land, in air, or oversea. If HWs’ main utility is their ability to break through opponent missile defense systems, how long will that superiority last?
One final note. It is unsurprising that the military branch in charge of the missiles thinks that the solution to lagging behind the US and Russia is more money for better missiles. What would have been really interesting was analyzing PLARF reactions to the Russian invasion into Ukraine – the first conflict that has seen a HW used on a battlefield – but, unfortunately, the papers this author has access to cut off before then. What lessons have the PLARF taken from three years of conflict in Europe? Perhaps that launching the first strike – the most optimal use for a hypersonic weapon as defined by PLARF researchers – allows one to open the battle on one’s own terms and avoid years of attrition warfare. If I was a PLARF academic, or better yet, a commanding officer in charge of an arsenal full of DF-17s, I might want that to be my takeaway. -0-
- 1 Neutron bombs were given the moniker “capitalist bomb” for their ability to kill organic life but keep inorganic structures intact, like office and apartment buildings, thereby “new” real estate ready to be sold to the next population.
