© National Institute Press, 2023
WITHOUT PRECEDENT: GLOBAL EMERGING TRENDS IN
NUCLEAR AND HYPERSONIC WEAPONS
By Brian Ellison, Dennis Evans, Matthew Lytwyn and Jonathan Schwalbe
Introduction
Going back to the days immediately after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the United States
has apparently made several assumptions—some more explicit than others—about the
nature of the emerging world security environment. These assumptions, overly optimistic
in retrospect, relate to the role of Russia, the rise and role of China, the role of nuclear
weapons in the world, and the role of new categories of weapons that did not exist in 1992.
First, while the United States was probably never confident that Russia would evolve into a
Western-style democracy and somewhat of an ally, the current situation probably exceeds
the worst-case expectations from the 1990s. Second, the United States apparently
expected—for at least 20 years—that capitalism, rising living standards, integration into
the world economy, and (at least since the turn of the century) the Internet and the
information age would cause China to evolve in the direction of more democracy and better
relations with the West. Instead, China has become more authoritarian and more hostile to
the West, while evolving into a near peer in terms of gross domestic product, conventional
military power, and in terms of science and advanced technology. Third, the United States
has expected a gradual reduction in the role of nuclear weapons in the world and a gradual
reduction in the risk of real or threatened nuclear use. These favorable trends have not
emerged, and this paper discusses nuclear developments of the three countries in detail.
Finally, while no one expected military technology to stand still, most observers expected
that the United States would be a world leader, if not the world leader, in any new category
of weapons that grew to assume major military importance. Again, this has not been the
case, and this paper discusses one key example in detail.
Across all of these adverse trends, three items affecting the U.S. deterrence posture
stand out:
• The Chinese nuclear buildup and Chinese world leadership in hypersonic weapons
(to include factors such as the number of flight tests, the number of facilities and
personnel involved in hypersonics research and testing, and likely deployed
inventories by 2030);
• Russian nuclear modernization, expansion of Russia’s inventory of nonstrategic
nuclear weapons (NSNWs), amplified by Russian aggression in Ukraine, and an
increase in Moscow’s nuclear alert status during the Ukraine war; and
