Hypersonics: A slow race with fast consequences, what does it mean for Israel? - opinion

When Iran or Hezbollah eventually acquire hypersonic missiles, Israel’s defense systems could become increasingly vulnerable unless efforts to strengthen readiness accelerate.

Hypersonic weapons travel too fast for current missile defense systems to track or intercept. They maneuver unpredictably and could reach Tel Aviv from Tehran in minutes. Nevertheless, the global race to master these systems is far slower and more complex than most people realize.

Understanding why this happens may help Israel prepare for what comes next.

At hypersonic speeds, the laws of flight shift dramatically. The air becomes so hot that it begins breaking into charged particles, creating a glowing gas that behaves very differently from normal air. Between behaviour diversions, molecules are split, chemical reactions distort airflow, and heat loads exceed the requirements of conventional aerospace design.

Testing such systems on Earth is extraordinarily difficult. Most hypersonic wind tunnels can only sustain real conditions for a few seconds, often at scales too small to model an entire vehicle. For this reason, engineers tend to rely on simulations and fragments of experimental data, but even advanced computing cannot yet predict the chaotic behavior of air at Mach 5 speed and beyond.

The greatest challenge in this area is the lack of facilities and verified data.

Critical transitions in airflow from smooth to turbulent flow remain poorly understood, and combustion in scramjet engines is only partially modeled. Each test flight, costing tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, provides only moments of usable data, and failures are common and rarely conclusive.

Therefore, hypersonic programs move slowly. Scientific uncertainty, not political caution, is the true brake on progress.

The difference with the West is that democracies develop weapons under tight regulations, environmental reviews, and public accountability. Each test demands multiple layers of approval. One failure can stall funding for years. Authoritarian states face no such limits. They can conduct high-risk trials in remote areas without public scrutiny. Failures disappear from view.

What takes the West years to approve can occur elsewhere in months. This is not about scientific ability but operational freedom. In closed systems, decisions move fast because accountability is absent.

The result is a regulatory gap that compounds over time. Democracies must balance safety, legality, and transparency. That gives autocracies a temporary speed advantage, not because they are more capable, but because they are less constrained.

Yet, that advantage comes at a cost. Western oversight produces fewer flights but better data, safer experiments, and more reliable results. Over the long term, rigorous science often outpaces reckless intervention.

Despite these differences, every major power is now investing heavily in hypersonic research.

The US Department of Defense’s Mach Testing Bed (Mach-TB) program, backed by billions in funding, aims to dramatically increase testing frequency by using smaller, cheaper, faster-to-launch vehicles.

Across the broader defense ecosystem, billions more support complementary efforts, from the US Air Force’s Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile to NASA’s new materials and wind tunnel infrastructure.

Europe is joining cautiously, but with growing urgency. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are cooperating through industrial frameworks that emphasize defense rather than offense, early warning, interception, and detection technologies designed to counter future hypersonic threats.

Companies in this sphere include MBDA, ArianeGroup, and the European Hypersonic Defence Interceptor (HYDEF) initiative, co-funded by the European Union.

China has built an extensive network of research centers and quiet wind tunnels capable of simulating long-duration Mach 8 conditions.

Russia, on the other hand, continues to refine its Avangard and Zircon systems, though transparency remains limited. Together, these efforts underscore the same truth: Hypersonics are not just another weapons race but an industrial, financial, and scientific marathon that only great powers can afford to run.

For Israel, the slow pace of global progress offers a brief but narrowing window, because Iran and its proxies do not yet possess true hypersonic missiles capable of sustained speeds above Mach 5.

While Israel can field advanced maneuvering or quasi-ballistic missiles that fly faster, lower, and less predictably than conventional projectiles, with growing technological assistance from Russia and China, its ability to close that gap is increasing.

Within the next decade, even near-hypersonic systems, not genuinely hypersonic, but fast and agile enough to confuse sensors and compress decision-making, could challenge Israel’s layered defenses.

The threat is not perfection but sufficiency: a weapon that is merely fast enough and unpredictable enough to strain Israel’s defenses could undermine decades of strategic planning based on early warning and reliable interception.

Israel will also need to take a leading role in advancing hypersonic experimentation itself.

Building or co-developing testing facilities that can simulate the unique aerodynamic and thermal conditions of hypersonic flight would allow Israeli engineers to validate technologies domestically, rather than relying solely on foreign partners.

Such a step would not only improve preparedness but also position Israel as a meaningful contributor to the next generation of aerospace research.

Israel cannot match superpowers missile for missile. Therefore, its response must be asymmetric – investing in early detection, predictive AI, and directed-energy systems that engage targets at light speed. Strategic cooperation with the US and Europe will be crucial, from shared testing infrastructure to joint R&D.

The hypersonic race is both about velocity in the sky and agility on the ground. China and Russia move fast because their systems allow rapid iteration without public oversight. The West moves slowly because it must, but those very constraints uphold the values it seeks to defend. The challenge is to preserve that integrity while accelerating the process by streamlining approvals, creating dedicated test ranges, and accepting controlled risks in pursuit of readiness.

Hypersonics raise a deeper question for democracies: can they adapt quickly enough to protect themselves without abandoning accountability?

The West’s slower development cycles reflect its strengths, evidence, transparency, and caution, which are also its greatest vulnerabilities.

For Israel, the message is clear. The hypersonic threat is no longer theoretical. The time to prepare is not later; it is now, while the window is still open.