On Tuesday, April 14th, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Russia is ready for a discussion about hypersonic missiles and other types of weapons.
According to Lavrov, those talks are supposed to help to sustain the strategic stability of the globe. At this point Russia is at the forefront of hypersonic missiles followed by other countries such as China but the US defense sector pushed by the Pentagon and backed by policymakers is rapidly gaining traction in the hypersonic sphere.
The willingness to negotiate might be a sign of Russia’s weakness and a geopolitical stunt which is supposed to cover the true state of the nation’s economy and its defense sector. The first information’s about the MiG-31 Foxhound heavy interceptors carrying the Kinzahl hypersonic missile which emerged 2 years ago has shaken the balance of power. Suddenly everyone has started to talk about a possible attack with those types of weapons on key assets like aircraft carriers. Armed with conventional or nuclear warheads Kh-47M2 is supposed to be capable of evasive maneuvers and flying at very high speeds reaching Ma10. Except for the MiG-31 also Russian bombers of the Tu-22M3 are supposed to be capable of carrying those hypersonic missiles. At this point, we can’t be certain about the actual capabilities of those missiles but their sole existence and conducted tests have forced the US to take them into account and prepare similar weapons.
Russian Ministry of Defense/YouTube
The US has worked on hypersonic systems for a while but the research and development cycle was rather slow as there was no pressing need for such systems. Russia thanks to deploying its missiles has changed the game and pushed the opposing side to act. But are those weapons really that lethal? Are they precise enough? Are they reliable? Can Russia actually mass-produce and deploy them? The recently observed willingness to talks might indicate that all of this might be a theater, a classic “maskirovka” (cover op). Russia has shown the world a new type of weapon and declared it operational but is this actually true? What about the ability of the industry to further develop those types of systems? The current oil crisis has pushed the Russian economy on its knees.The country is not able to mass-produce its Su-57 fighters and T-14 tanks it struggles to sustain its ballistic missiles arsenal. Thanks to coming to the table and negotiating some sort of a hypersonic treaty it could secure itself on two levels. First, the limitations posed with signed legal acts would allow to again balance the powers between the global actors and secondly Russian economy could take a breath and avoid another armament race that has helped to dismantle the Soviet Union. If the military-industrial complex of America would start to develop the hypersonic weapons with full steam Russia could stay way behind in the development and production race. A tactical treaty could freeze such developments on the globe and therefore provide a strategic advantage and save Russian position in the grand scheme of things.
Last but not least we should also remember about China. It might not want to participate in such talks as hypersonic missiles give it another leverage and tool to push back the US Navy from its shores. No matter how the Lavrov’s initiative will end we should closely watch the situation as the way it unfolds might give us some idea about the current and future state of the global balance of power.
