DIA predicts China will have 4,000 hypersonic missiles by 2035

NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

The Defense Intelligence Agency is warning that threats posed by multiple types of missiles are increasing, with weapons deployed by China and Russia the most serious dangers.

China’s military in particular is expected to expand its arsenal of 600 hypersonic missiles to as many as 4,000 by 2035. Russia also aims to add the maneuvering missiles, boosting its stockpile, an estimated 200 to 300, to 1,000 in the next decade.

“Missile threats to the U.S. homeland will expand in scale and sophistication in the coming decade,” the DIA said in a one-page report, “Golden Dome for America: Current and Future Missile Threats to the U.S. Homeland,” made public on Tuesday.

President Trump in February ordered the Pentagon to build a missile defense system that would protect America.

The current national missile defense, with 44 long-range interceptors, is designed to counter North Korean missiles only.

“China and Russia are developing an array of novel delivery systems to exploit gaps in current U.S. ballistic missile defenses, but traditional ballistic missiles — which are guided during powered flight and unguided during free flight — will remain the primary threat to the Homeland,” the report said.

North Korea, too, has long-range missiles capable of hitting targets throughout the U.S., and Iran is building space launchers that can be used as “a militarily viable [intercontinental ballistic missile] by 2035.”

Missile threats range from traditional ICBMS and land-attack cruise missiles that skim the surface to exotic weapons like hypersonic gliders and China and Russia’s space-transiting fractional orbital bombardment system, or FOBS.

Most of the missiles presented in the report can be outfitted with nuclear warheads.

China’s 400 ICBMs are expected to increase to 700 by 2035 and will include a FOBS, which was tested in 2021 and flew nearly 25,000 miles in space before reentering the atmosphere and hitting a surface target.

The DIA described FOBS as an ICBM that entered low-altitude orbit prior to reentry. The space transit increases the risk of shorter missile flight times if going east to west like traditional long-range missiles.

A FOBS attack is unique in its ability to also travel over the South Pole to avoid ICBM early warning systems and missile defenses, the report said.

A FOBS missile “releases its payload before completing a full orbit,” the report said.

Russia is expected to add 50 ICBMs to its arsenal of 350 by 2035.

North Korea has 10 ICBMs and will have 50 by 2035. If Iran decides to deploy long-range missiles, Tehran could have 60 of them in the coming decade.

A map in the report shows long-range missiles can attack America in routes over the North Pole and near Alaska.

“Missiles from mobile platforms — aircraft, submarines and ships — can penetrate farther should the platform risk a closer approach to the United States,” the report said.

Current submarine-launched ballistic missiles include 72 Chinese missiles and 192 Russian missiles. China’s SLBM arsenal is expected to expand to at least 132 missiles by 2035.

DIA disclosed that China and Russia are expanding their arsenal of two types of high-speed maneuvering missiles.

One type are aeroballistic missiles. The second are hypersonic glide vehicles that skim the upper atmosphere close to space and can maneuver to avoid missile defenses.

Aeroballistic missiles can carry conventional or nuclear warheads and are launched from air, sea or ground systems.

The missiles combine aerodynamic maneuvers with phases of ballistic loft that extend their range.

“Russia can currently strike portions of the homeland with aeroballistic missiles launched from aircraft, ships or ground launchers and will probably add a launch capability from submarines,” the report said.

Glide vehicles are defined by DIA as a maneuverable aerodynamic body typically fired atop ballistic missiles.

This weapon “achieves sustained hypersonic glide at altitudes of 15-50 kilometers and glides for at least half of its flight to its target,” the report said.

The gliders also can be armed with nuclear warheads, and China may have fielded a conventional explosive warhead on a glide that can hit targets in Alaska, the report said.

Enemy land attack missile arsenals also are expanding.

These weapons fly within the atmosphere and can have radar-evading stealth capabilities and can maneuver extensively during flight.

The missiles are armed with nuclear or conventional warheads, increasing the risk that a conventional strike could set off a nuclear exchange from early warning systems.

“Russia can currently strike large portions of the homeland with cruise missiles launched from aircraft, ground launchers, ships or submarines, and China is beginning to field similar capabilities against Alaska, Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast,” the DIA said.

Senator warns Pentagon to flex system

Sen. Deb Fischer, chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, said this week that the Pentagon needs certain electromagnetic bands for building an effective missile defense system.

“President Trump’s proposed Golden Dome is simply impossible if the [Defense Department] loses access to certain spectrum bands,” Ms. Fischer, Nebraska Republican, told a conference hosted by The Washington Times.

Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of the U.S. Northern Command, testified in March on the need for the Pentagon to keep control over certain bands, she said.

“For if the department were forced to vacate these spectrum bands, we would not be able to operate radars and sensors essential to missile defense,” Ms. Fischer said.

“A missile defense system cannot hit what it cannot see. And neither can we simply replicate these capabilities in other bands of spectrum.”

China aims to fight democracy, freedom

China’s government this week issued a major report on security and vowed to maintain the “political security” of the communist system while battling Western democracy and freedom.

The white paper also said the ruling Communist Party will crack down on all efforts by the West to bring political reform to the increasingly authoritarian Chinese system.

The CCP has been engaged in a campaign against what it regards as foreign efforts to influence its rigid system.

Beijing is following a “national security path with Chinese characteristics” — code for a Beijing variant of Marxism-Leninism blended with nationalism.

The CCP’s overall concept of national security is rooted in what the report calls the new era of socialism.

“We must guard against infiltration, sabotage, subversion and secessionist activities by hostile forces,” the report said. “We must resolutely prevent anti-China forces abroad from implementing a Westernization and differentiation strategy against China by promoting Western democracy, freedom, human rights and so-called ‘universal values.’”

The report urged imposing a crackdown on “color revolutions” seeking democratic reform and “street politics” fomented by hostile forces.

China analyst Tom Shugart said the report reveals Beijing’s view of freedom.

“Never forget that China considers it a threat to their national security for ‘forces abroad’ to promote things like democracy, freedom and human rights. Their words,” Mr. Shugart stated on X.

According to the report, the CCP views the world situation in an unprecedented phase of turbulence and danger that is “getting worse.

“Human society is facing the critical choice of peace or war, prosperity or decline, unity or confrontation, and is once again at the crossroads of history,” the white paper states.

The report indirectly targets the U.S. for “hegemonism, power politics and Cold War mentality,” used in the past by Chinese propaganda to describe American opposition to communism.

China charged that the U.S. is undermining global stability and escalating an international arms race.

“Populism and extreme political thoughts emerged,” the report said. “Policy adjustments in some countries produced serious negative spillover effect.”

The report also criticized America for bolstering Asia-Pacific alliances and deploying midrange missiles, a likely reference to the Army sending Typhon missile systems to the Philippines.

The Typhon can fire SM-6 anti-ship missiles and 1,000-mile-range Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The CCP fears that external pressure from democratic states is increasing.

“Western anti-China forces are doing everything they can to contain, suppress and contain China, implement Westernization and differentiation strategies against China, and carry out infiltration and sabotage activities,” the report said.

Foreign forces are increasing activities to interfere in China’s neighborhood, including the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea and East China Sea — all areas where the Chinese military has been engaged in what U.S. defense officials say is bullying against U.S. allies.

The CCP believes democratic forces also are causing unrest in Tibet and in western China’s East Turkestan region.

Naval War College strategist Andrew Erickson said the Chinese security report reveals some information about China’s security systems but is “long on words, low on insights [and] propaganda boilerplate throughout.”

Mr. Erickson said the report’s claim that China is a victim of international cyberattacks and is opposed to all forms of cyberattacks strains credibility.

“If anyone believes that, I have a bridge over the Pearl River Delta I’d like to sell,” he posted on X, adding, “DM me for an unbeatable deal!”

China has engaged in aggressive cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure, including electric grids and water control networks, according to U.S. officials.

Those attacks aim to shut down the networks during a crisis or conflict.