For years, the United States has exercised unilateral restraint by declining to deploy nuclear warheads on hypersonic delivery vehicles. America’s strategic competitors have not done so. Russia has long fielded the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle atop its SS-19 ICBM. There is speculation that China could also deploy a hypersonic glide vehicle on an SLBM or ICBM. The time may have come to reconsider the United States’ hypersonic policy.

What are hypersonic delivery systems, and what makes them strategically and technologically distinct from other missiles? What makes hypersonic flight a militarily desirable capability, and how can the United States and its allies defend against these threats? Should the United States policy community debate the merits of nuclear armed hypersonic missiles?

To discuss these questions and more, please join the CSIS Defense and Security Department’s HTK Series for a conversation featuring Heather Williams, director of the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues, Tom Karako, director of the CSIS Missile Defense Project, and Kari Bingen, director of the CSIS Aerospace Security Project. 

This event is made possible by general support to CSIS.